Elena woke with a ragged gasp, one hand clawing at her chest.

  Her heart thundered beneath her ribs, breath torn and ragged, as if she'd surfaced from drowning. Panic clung to her skin like sweat, sharp and cold.

  She sat up, quick and wild-eyed, gaze carving across the dim room.

  Curtains breathed in the twilight wind. The basin glinted faintly. Shadows sprawled where they always had.

  Her room.

  She let out a slow, shuddering exhale.

  A dream.

  Just a dream.

  The mattress beneath her was warm. The air, still. Her apron hung neatly on its peg, clean and bloodless. No alley. No corpse. No crimson-slick hands.

  She pressed her palms to her face, smothering the tremor that built in her bones.

  It had felt so real. Too real.

  She rose on stiff legs. The floor was cool stone, the window breathing its usual half-light. The sky above was amber and dull, locked in that eternal dusk the Death Realm never shed.

  Downstairs, the inn lived its rhythm. Crates thudded behind the bar. Garron muttered to himself. Lanna’s voice snapped orders in the kitchen. Ress flitted like a wraith with firewood piled high in his arms.

  The hearth smoldered. The day moved.

  Elena followed it.

  Wipe the tables. Fill the jugs. Slice the bread. Pour the tea.

  She did it all in silence, her body going through motions it remembered. But her thoughts drifted like smoke.

  She felt eyes.

  Too often. Too long.

  She turned too fast and caught someone looking at her. Or had they been? She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t be sure.

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  Whispers rose in corners she couldn’t reach. Soft. Slithering. Were they speaking of her?

  She dropped a spoon. It clattered louder than it should have.

  Lanna glanced over. Elena tried to smile. The woman didn’t smile back.

  They know.

  No. No, they couldn’t. There was nothing to know.

  Nothing happened.

  Right?

  She turned to fetch more tea. A shadow flickered in the periphery—too quick, too wrong.

  “Are you okay?” Ress asked, voice quiet, almost boyish.

  “Fine,” she lied. The word scraped her throat.

  He blinked, nodded, moved on.

  But there’d been a look in his eyes. A hesitation.

  Her skin itched.

  Voices passed like wind. Glances sharpened. Or maybe she imagined it all. Maybe it was her guilt dressing itself in stranger’s faces.

  But, why would she feel guilty?

  Garron called her name once, twice. She didn’t hear him the first time.

  “You need a break?”

  She shook her head. “Just tired.”

  He didn’t push.

  Time stumbled forward. The lunch rush thinned. The air cooled. Lanna took the counter. Garron vanished below.

  Elena wiped down a table that didn’t need it.

  “That’s enough for today,” Lanna said. "I can handle the rest."

  Elena nodded, too quickly, and climbed the stairs.

  The inn exhaled behind her.

  Her room was waiting.

  Chair by the window. Basin. Bed. Walls that held silence like a church.

  She sat on the edge of the mattress, hands folded in her lap like a child in prayer.

  It was a dream.

  Had to be.

  Nothing real. Nothing done.

  She breathed. Shallow. Controlled. The air tasted like dust.

  She stood. Paced. Sat again.

  Knelt by the basin. Splash. Cold water on warm skin. She met her own reflection in the warped glass above.

  A pale girl stared back.

  Too pale.

  Eyes dark, rimmed in shadow. A rune glimmered faintly on her brow. Her mouth was tight. Bloodless.

  Had she always looked like that?

  She turned from the mirror.

  Sleep. Just a little. Just enough to make the world shift back into place.

  She crossed the room.

  And stopped.

  Something jutted from beneath the bed.

  A sliver of cloth. Stiff. Dried. Dark.

  Her heart gave a single, violent kick.

  She dropped to her knees. Reached. Fingers trembling.

  She dragged it into the light.

  Her shirt.

  Soaked in blood. Dried thick and dark. The scent of iron clung to it still.

  She recoiled and hurled it across the room.

  The bloodied shirt slapped the wall and slid down, landing in a crumpled heap.

  Her hand flew to her mouth.

  The alley came back all at once.

  The cold. The hunger in his eyes. The breath on her cheek. The touch on her wrist. The scream that never came.

  Her hand, lashing out.

  The burst.

  The silence.

  The body.

  And after that—nothing.

  No memory of return. No steps on stone. No door creaking open.

  Just this.

  A bed. A room.

  And blood.

  She stood up. Sat hard against the edge of the mattress, hands limp in her lap.

  Her eyes were wide, unblinking.

  She didn’t cry.

  The tears had gone somewhere she couldn’t reach.

  She just stared.

  And the silence stared back.