The air inside the safehouse was thick with unspoken things—fear, anger, longing, suspicion. Sera felt all of it pressing on her chest as she stared at the closed door Kieran had just disappeared through. His last words still echoed through the room like a slow-burning fuse:
"You're not telling him everything, Sera… and he knows it."
Theron said nothing at first. He just stood there, shoulders tight, jaw hard, as if he was holding himself together by force alone. The rain outside beat against the windows, each drop carrying a kind of warning—something is coming.
Sera took a breath. "Theron, listen—"
He turned.
That look.
That quiet, restrained fury mixed with something far more dangerous: hurt.
Not from betrayal.
From the idea she might not trust him.
"Tell me I misheard," he said softly. Soft, but sharp. The kind of softness that came before a storm.
Sera stepped closer. "Kieran is twisting things. That's what he does. He knows how to bend truths until they sound like confessions."
Theron didn't move away, but his eyes searched hers like he was looking for cracks. "So tell me what he thinks he knows."
Her mouth felt dry. Because the truth wasn't simple. It wasn't a single sentence she could just speak out loud. It was a tangle—one that would drag them both into deeper danger if handled wrong.
Sera exhaled. "He thinks I'm hiding something about the Shadow Key. A piece of it. A location. But I'm not—"
"Sera." Theron stepped closer, voice low but steady. "Are you hiding something?"
The room felt suddenly too small.
Too quiet.
Too honest.
She forced herself to meet his gaze. "Not from you."
A flicker—relief, faint but real—crossed his face. And for a moment, she thought the tension would ease.
But then the door opened.
Kieran stepped back into the room as if he owned it, wiping rain from his hair, eyes sharper than knives. "Good. You're still talking. Saves me the trouble."
Theron stiffened again. "What do you want, Kieran?"
"Simple." Kieran moved to the table, dropping a damp map across it. "The assassin who attacked us earlier? He wasn't working alone. He's part of a cell that answers to someone who shouldn't even be alive."
Sera felt a cold shiver up her spine. "Who?"
Kieran tapped the map.
A name written in blood-red ink.
"Lysa."
Sera froze.
Lysa.
The one person Sera never expected to hear again.
The woman who had once taken Sera under her wing.
The woman Sera had watched die.
Or thought she had.
Theron noticed her reaction immediately. "Sera? You know her?"
Kieran leaned back against the table, arms crossed. "Oh, she knows her. Intimately."
Sera shot him a warning look. "Don't start."
"Oh, I'll finish," Kieran said, grin sharp. "Theron deserves to know that the woman hunting us all is the same woman who trained Sera… and tried to kill her."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Theron's eyes flicked to Sera. Not distrustful. Not angry. More like he was connecting pieces he didn't even know existed.
"Sera," he said quietly. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Sera swallowed hard. "Because I thought she was dead. And because she's not someone you just bring up over dinner, Theron."
Kieran let out a soft laugh. "She means Lysa is complicated."
Theron ignored him. "What did she want from you?"
Sera didn't want to say it. Not here. Not in front of Kieran's smug, watching eyes.
But she had to.
"She wanted me to become her replacement," Sera whispered. "She wanted me to lead the Shadow Brand when she stepped down. I refused. She tried to break me. I escaped. She… didn't."
Kieran pushed off the table. "Correction—you thought she didn't. Turns out, she's building a new faction. And she wants Sera back."
Theron's fist clenched. "Over my dead body."
Kieran smirked. "Funny. That's probably what she has planned too."
Sera's pulse raced. Memories stormed back—Lysa's cold hands, her training, her threats, her voice whispering promises of power that tasted like poison.
"She won't stop," Sera said quietly. "Not until she gets what she wants."
"And what is that?" Theron asked.
Kieran answered before Sera could.
"Sera."
The name fell heavy. Like a sentence.
Sera forced herself to breathe. "Lysa doesn't want the Shadow Key. She wants me to use it. She always believed I was the only one who could unlock its full potential."
Theron stepped between Sera and Kieran, protective instinct flaring so openly Kieran raised a brow. "Then we stop her. All of us."
Kieran gave Theron a long, unreadable look. "You're ready to fight a woman who nearly broke Sera? A woman who kills without blinking? A woman who—"
Theron's voice cut through him.
"I don't care who she is."
The certainty in those words… it hit Sera like a blow.
Kieran's smirk faded, replaced by something colder. "Then you'll both want to see this."
He reached into his coat and threw a small device onto the table. It rolled once before stopping—a tiny silver cube with a blinking blue light.
Theron frowned. "What is it?"
Kieran pressed the top.
A hologram flickered to life.
Sera felt her heart stop.
Lysa appeared—alive, whole, terrifyingly calm. Her eyes were the same icy silver Sera remembered. Her voice, smooth and controlled, filled the room.
"Sera. Little runaway. You thought death would stop me?"
Sera staggered back as Lysa continued.
"You have something that belongs to me. And I will reclaim it—one way or another. Bring the Shadow Key to the old citadel within seven days. Or I will take what I want from the ones you care about."
The hologram ended abruptly.
Silence swallowed the room.
Theron turned to Sera, shock and anger warping into something protective and fierce. "She's threatening you."
Kieran shook his head. "No, she's threatening all of us."
But Sera barely heard them.
Her lungs felt tight.
Her hands trembled.
Because Lysa was alive.
Lysa had found her.
And Lysa wanted the one thing Sera couldn't give.
Not anymore.
Theron stepped to her, cupping her face gently, grounding her. "Sera. Look at me."
She did.
"You're not facing her alone again," he said. "Not this time."
Kieran's voice dropped low behind them. "Then we need a plan. And fast."
Sera nodded.
But deep down, she knew something:
Lysa wasn't coming for the Shadow Key.
Lysa was coming for her.
And she wasn't going to stop until Sera either returned to her…
Or died.