CHAPTER 54
Isabella woke into pain. Not the sharp, screaming kind, but the heavy, distant ache of something already lost.
Cold stone pressed against her cheek. She tried to move and couldn't. Her body felt wrong—disconnected—as though it belonged to someone else entirely.
When she opened her eyes, she wasn't in the ruins of Clara's cabin. She was lying on an unfamiliar floor, the marble smooth and pale, bleached by centuries of spectral footsteps.
She tried to lift her head, but her limbs felt like lead had been poured into her veins. Looking down, she didn't see the modern clothes she had been wearing.
She saw tattered fabric, stained with red so bright and thick it looked like fresh paint. She was bleeding. Blood pooled beneath her ribs, spreading as if the ground itself were thirsty—drinking her in.
Her breath came shallow. Each inhale burned; each exhale felt thinner than the last. Then came the footsteps.
