Page 107 of The Shadow Sanctum

At the shelf that doubles as a door, I pause with my hand pressed to the cool wood. My chest heaves, my throat raw, but I don’t look back. I can’t.

I push it open and slip inside, the smell of old paper and sage wrapping around me. My eyes land on the corkboard filled with evidence. Photos, notes, a newspaper clipping with Sawyer’s birth name etched in black ink.

I tear the paper from the board and reach for the matchbox on the metal cart, my hand shaking.

When I strike the match, a flame blooms orange and hungry.

I hold it to the clipping until the paper curls and blackens.

The flame creeps fast, licking across the clipping until it’s nothing but crumbling black. Sawyer’s words scratch at me while I watch it. I picture the mansion, the empire he built burning to the ground.

I let the article fall to the thin-carpeted floor. The embers glow orange before dying out, too weak to do damage.

I rip the other papers from the corkboard and throw them to the ground. The metal cart rattles as I kick it and shove it over, dousing the evidence of my love with chemicals.

After striking another match, I drop it onto the pile and watch the fire take hold.

It spreads quickly—pages curling, photographs warping, ink bleeding into smoke. The air sharpens with the bite of burning paper, the hiss and crackle filling the silence like applause.

I stand there and let it happen. Let the smoke sting my eyes; let the flames eat away every piece of him that someone could use. Every trace that could drag Sawyer down when this place finally collapses.

He’s free now, at least of this.

The secret room feels smaller as I back up. My heartbeat keeps time with the flames, steady, relentless.

It feels like I'm erasing myself.

Because what is Luna Blackwell without the Shadow Sanctum? Without Aurelius? Without the chains that have bound me since birth?

Maybe nothing. Maybe no one.

The fire eats louder now, catching on boxes, crawling up a shelf. Smoke billows thick, curling against the low ceiling. I grab the handle and pull the door closed behind me. The flames stay locked inside, hungry but contained, for now.

The hall outside is quiet. Too quiet. My pulse hammers in my ears as I slip through the shadows toward Father’s office.

When I reach the office door, I rest my palm flat against it. The wood is cool, the grain rough under my fingertips. For a second, I imagine Father bursting in. Sensing what I’m about to do.

But he’s too arrogant to consider it.

The handle creaks under my hand as I push it open. The office is dim, lit only by the weak glow of a single lamp. Papers are stacked neatly on the desk. Father’s meticulous order presses into every corner.

The phone sits there, black and heavy, a relic from another world.

I cross the room and sit in the leather chair. My knees tremble beneath the weight of what I’m about to do. I find the clock on the wall.

Thirty-nine minutes until the fight.

Thirty-nine minutes until the end of everything.

I fold my hands in my lap and wait.

When the minute hand finally clicks into place, only nine minutes before the ceremony, I reach for the phone and dial three digits.

The line rings once.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

I lift the receiver to my lips, my voice steady, calm. “I’d like to report a most terrible crime.”