The third word died on Zelda’s tongue.

She could not speak it.

The pup’s howl tore through the inverted tether like a hook through meat, and for one fractured second she was no longer in the collapsing cell. She was upstairs in the southern grounds, looking out through eyes that had turned pure black from corner to corner. She felt small hands clawing at Kael’s chest. She felt the debt pouring into the child’s veins the same way it had poured into Delilah’s. She felt the principle—the original second chance—beginning to compound interest in reverse.

The vision snapped. Zelda was back on the dungeon floor with Delilah’s black claws buried...