The air in the Lancaster crypt was thick with dust and grief. Somewhere beneath the marble floor, time had stopped centuries ago. The flicker of candlelight danced across the walls, casting shifting shadows on rows of nameless tombs.
Lorraine Lancaster knelt alone, her white nightdress soaked with blood and dirt, her fingers raw and trembling as they arranged twelve white roses in a double helix pattern at the foot of a crumbling mural of the Virgin Mary.
"The final sequence…"Her voice was barely a breath. "He hid it in the only place no one would ever look—"
The crypt doors burst open.
Sienna and Silas ran in, their footsteps echoing like thunder in the cavernous space. But before they could reach her—
Bang.
The sound fractured the silence.
For one terrible heartbeat, no one moved.
Lin Zhao staggered backward, smoke curling from the barrel of his gun. But it wasn't Lorraine who fell.
It was Lin.
Vivian stood behind him, her hand still clutched around the knife hilt protruding from her ribs. Her expression was a blur of shock and fury. Blood poured down the front of her dress, mixing with candle wax on the floor.
Lin crumpled forward, his final breath a warning Sienna would never hear.
"Why...?" Sienna choked, eyes darting between them.
Lorraine lowered her small, antique pistol, the derringer trembling in her bloodied grip.
"He was going to kill her," she whispered. "And I owed her... something."
Silas caught her just as her knees gave out.
"Mother—"
Her eyes fluttered open with effort. She touched his cheek like she was memorizing it.
"The nursery… where I sang you to sleep... the melody. The roses..." Her hand stretched toward the twelfth bloom, fingers brushing its petal.
"The code… is in the lullaby."
She exhaled one last time. A peaceful, devastating silence followed.
Silas held her, unmoving. The weight of her body in his arms was lighter than he expected. As if she had already started to disappear.
The twelfth rose gleamed faintly.
Sienna crouched beside it, brushing her fingers over the double helix. Beneath the final rose, engraved into the stone—a music note.
And a line of etched text, revealed only by candlelight:
"To awaken Veritas, sing the child's last dream."
Sienna looked up, her voice hoarse.
"We have to go back… to the nursery."
Behind them, Vivian sank to her knees beside Lin's body. She didn't cry.
She simply whispered, "You could've let me save you."
And then she passed out.