Lucy crept back into the Order compound just as the first gray light touched the sky. The courtyard was dead quiet. Training dummies stood like wet ghosts, dripping from last night's rain. The novices' dorm windows were still black. She kept her cloak tight, hood low, moving fast and quiet. Every step made the hunger inside her twist harder. It wasn't some soft, poetic thing anymore. It was a raw, empty ache in her gut that kept getting bigger, sharper, louder. Like a stomach that hadn't eaten in weeks and suddenly realized food existed.
She reached the nuns' hallway and stopped outside Sister Elara's door. It was cracked open. A tiny candle glowed inside. Elara knelt at her little prayer desk, head bowed, dark hair spilling over her shoulders, breathing slow and calm. Lucy's mouth watered. She could smell her—lavender soap, old paper, warm skin. The hunger lunged forward, slamming against her ribs, screaming one single command: *Take her. Just a little. She'll never wake up. You'll feel full again.*
Lucy's hand shook as it rose toward the door. Her nails dug into the wood. She pictured it so clearly her knees almost buckled: stepping inside, fingers sliding through Elara's hair, lips brushing the soft spot behind her ear, sucking just a sip of that bright, sweet life-force. Elara would sigh in her sleep, body relaxing, never knowing. And the screaming hole inside Lucy would finally shut up for a while.
She yanked her hand back so hard her knuckles cracked against the doorframe. Pain shot up her arm. Good. Pain was old. Pain she understood. She backed away until her shoulders hit the opposite wall and slid down to the cold floor, knees pulled tight to her chest. Her breathing came in rough gasps. The hunger snarled in protest, clawing at her insides, but she clenched every muscle and held it down. She had almost done it. Almost stolen from someone she swore to protect. The girl who used to laugh at her bad jokes during late-night watches. The girl who still believed Lucy was good.
Tears burned her eyes. She wiped them away with a furious swipe. "Not today," she muttered to the empty hallway. "Not her."
Time dragged. The corridor slowly brightened with dawn. Heavy footsteps finally echoed from the far end. Father Thorne appeared, cassock swirling, face hard as stone. He saw her sitting there, blood on her palm from where she'd dug her nails in, sweat on her forehead, eyes still flickering with that faint rose-gold glow. He stopped dead.
"Lucy," he said, voice low. "Mara came back alone. She said you were… different."
Lucy stood up slowly. Her legs felt like lead. "I'm still breathing," she said. "But yeah. I'm different."
Thorne stepped closer. His hand hovered near the sword at his belt. Not threatening. Just ready. "What happened in the crypt?"
She could've lied. She'd lied to him plenty before. But the hunger made everything feel too real, too close to the surface. So she told him straight. Nyx's smile. The wave of power. The vial shattering. The quicksilver sinking into her skin instead of burning it away. How it woke something that had been sleeping inside her forever. When she finished, Thorne looked ten years older.
"You took in true essence," he said. "And it stuck."
Lucy nodded. "It's hungry. All the time. I almost—" Her voice cracked. "I almost took from Elara. Right outside her room. Just now. While she was praying."
Thorne's hand tightened on his sword hilt. "You didn't."
"Not yet." The words tasted like ash. "But it keeps asking. And it's getting harder to say no."
He stared at her for a long time. Then he reached into his robe and pulled out a small iron key on a black cord. "There's a sealed room under the south transept. Built for situations like this. Dangerous ones. You go there. Right now. Until we figure out how to cut this thing out of you."
Lucy looked at the key. Then at Thorne's tired eyes. The hunger gave a mocking little twist, like it thought the whole idea was hilarious. She took the key. Her fingers closed around it. Cold metal. Heavy promise.
"And if you can't cut it out?" she asked.
Thorne's voice dropped. "Then we do what the Order always does when the rot goes too deep."
Lucy slipped the cord over her head. The key settled against her chest, right over her heart. She looked at him one last time.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," she said.
She turned and walked toward the south transept. Footsteps echoed behind her. Thorne watched until she disappeared down the spiral stair. The hunger purred, smug and patient, already tasting the joke: locking her in a cage built by people who had starved it for years.
As Lucy reached the sealed door at the bottom of the stairs, key in hand, the iron growing warmer against her palm, she knew one thing clear as day: that door wouldn't hold her forever. Because the hunger had already learned how to pick locks from the inside, and the second it decided to turn the tumblers, the sound of that door bursting open would be the last thing anyone in the Order ever heard before the whole place came crashing down around their ears.