**Chapter Eight

  Echoes

  Trixie woke slowly.

  Not peacefully — there was nothing peaceful about the way her consciousness clawed its way back into her body — but gradually, like surfacing from deep water.

  Her eyes opened to dim lamplight. Her throat felt raw. Her head throbbed with a pulse that didn’t match her heartbeat.

  For a moment, she didn’t know where she was.

  Then she saw Dixie curled on her chest, staring up at her with ferocious relief.

  “Oh thank the old gods and the new ones and the ones no one worships anymore,” Dixie breathed. “You’re awake.”

  Trixie tried to speak.

  All that came out was a croak.

  “Don’t talk yet,” Dixie said, pressing a paw to her collarbone. “Your brain is rebooting. Badly.”

  “Trixie?” Nolan’s voice cut through the haze. He was sitting on the floor beside the couch, leaning forward, elbows on his knees like he’d been frozen mid?prayer.

  He looked exhausted. He looked furious. He looked terrified.

  She blinked at him. “Nolan?”

  His shoulders sagged. “Yeah. I’m here.”

  Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment as she tried to find the right words. “What… happened?”

  Nolan exchanged a look with Dixie.

  Dixie cleared her throat. “Short version: the Ledger Room tried very hard to digest your mind. The Hollow King helped. The Archivist made it much worse. And Nolan carried your unconscious form through a collapsing magical chamber like an underpaid action hero.”

  Nolan glared. “That’s not—”

  “It’s exactly what happened,” Dixie said.

  Trixie pushed herself upright slowly, cradling her head. “I feel like someone rewired my brain using a whisk.”

  “That’s… extremely accurate,” Dixie said.

  Nolan slid onto the couch beside her. “Trixie, you scared the hell out of me.”

  She looked at him — really looked — and something in her chest tightened. A memory flickered behind her eyes. His arms around her in the Ledger Room. His voice calling her name. His heartbeat pressed against hers.

  Warm. Strong. Steady.

  Then—

  Violet light. Cold pressure. A voice whispering her full name.

  Her breath hitched.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Trixie.

  Trixie, breathe.

  But the whisper that answered wasn’t Nolan’s.

  Beatrix.

  She slammed her eyes shut.

  Dixie immediately climbed into her lap. “He’s in your head again?”

  “No,” Trixie whispered. “Not fully. Just… an echo.”

  Nolan’s expression darkened. “What did he do to you?”

  Trixie swallowed. “The Hollow King didn’t just touch me. He—he took something.”

  Dixie fluffed up. “What did he take?”

  Trixie’s voice shook. “A memory.”

  Nolan leaned forward. “Which one?”

  “I… I don’t know,” she admitted, voice cracking. “That’s the point.”

  Silence.

  It wasn’t empty silence. It was heavy. Loaded.

  Then Nolan reached out and took her hand. Not dramatically. Not forcefully.

  Just… firmly. Humanly.

  “We’re going to fix this,” he said. “We’ll find a way.”

  Trixie stared at his hand wrapped around hers, warmth grounding her. “You don’t even believe in half of what you saw.”

  “No,” he said. “But I believe in you.”

  Dixie lifted her chin smugly. “He’s a keeper.”

  Nolan muttered something that sounded like Do not encourage her.

  Trixie tried to smile.

  It faltered.

  Because the ache in her skull suddenly flared — bright, sharp, electric — and the lamp beside the couch flickered with her pulse.

  “Trixie?” Nolan asked.

  She lifted her free hand.

  Light shimmered under her skin — faint, blue?white, like the afterglow of Bell sigilwork.

  Dixie sucked in a breath. “Oh. Oh no.”

  “What?” Nolan demanded.

  Dixie moved closer, staring at Trixie’s hand with horrified fascination. “Your aura’s leaking.”

  “What?” both humans said at once.

  Dixie flicked her tail anxiously. “It’s not just the Hollow King. The Sigil Spine imprinted on you. Your grandmother’s final mark — the one she carved with her blood — it latched onto your pattern.”

  Trixie stared at the glow flickering along her veins. “So I’m… what? Radioactive?”

  “No,” Dixie said. “You’re marked.”

  Nolan frowned. “Marked how?”

  Dixie’s voice dropped low.

  “Marked like a key.”

  Trixie shivered. “A key to what?”

  Dixie hesitated.

  Then answered.

  “A door,” she whispered. “A door your family spent centuries trying to keep shut.”

  Trixie felt her stomach twist.

  “What happens if that door opens?”

  Dixie’s reply was barely audible.

  “The Hollow King wakes up.”

  Nolan stood abruptly. “Then we don’t open it.”

  Trixie looked up at him, eyes tired, scared, blazing. “Nolan… it’s not that simple.”

  “Sure it is,” he said. “We find the Archivist, break whatever spell he’s working on, close the room, and—”

  He froze.

  Because Trixie was shaking her head.

  “Nolan,” she whispered, “you can’t close a door that wants to open.”

  The lamp flickered again.

  The house creaked.

  Something deep below Salem shifted — a rumble not heard by ears, but felt in bones.

  Dixie pressed into Trixie’s chest. “He knows you’re awake.”

  Nolan’s jaw clenched. “Then he can deal with all of us.”

  Trixie looked at him, heart twisting with fear and gratitude.

  “He doesn’t want all of us,” she whispered.

  Her voice trembled.

  “He wants me.”