THE SOUND WAS TINY, but in the heavy silence of the bedroom, it sounded like a saw against wood.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
Mailah froze.
Her hand, which had been reaching for the heavy brass door handle, pulled back as if the metal had suddenly turned white-hot.
Her mind raced through a list of monsters.
Was it the "Basement Ghoul" Carson joked about? Or maybe a spy sent by Valerius to finish what his cold stare had started?
She held her breath.
The music from downstairs—a haunting, cello-heavy melody—seemed to pulse in time with the scratching. Then, a sound broke through her terror.
"Meow."
It was a soft, demanding sound. It wasn't the roar of a demon or the hiss of a ghost. It was unmistakably a cat.
Mailah blinked, her heart doing a strange little flip-flop.
She leaned in closer, her ear pressed to the dark oak of the door. "Shadow?" she whispered, her voice barely a breath as she recognized the cat's sound.
