Chapter 1210
The spiral on the wall was cracked, glowing faintly, but dormant .
And in the silence that followed, Rose whispered:
"It’s not gone.
It just changed where it’s hiding."
Jude held Rose tighter as if by sheer force he could anchor her soul to the present. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths, but her eyes were no longer swirling with light. They were terrified. Human. And that made Jude’s throat tighten.
The others gathered slowly, shaken but alive. Sophie knelt beside him, brushing damp hair from Rose’s forehead, checking her pulse, her voice soft but trembling. "She’s here. She’s really here."
Emma crouched beside Layla, her fingers to her neck. "Breathing. Barely. Same with Grace."
Zoey backed away from the fractured spiral, keeping her eyes locked on it, like it might leap off the wall again. "I don’t trust it. Whatever that thing was, it didn’t vanish. It just moved. I could feel it slipping through us."
Lucy looked down at Susan, who hadn’t moved since the dream shattered. Natalie and Stella stirred nearby, but their faces were still vacant, their bodies too still.
"They didn’t come back with us," Lucy said grimly. "Not completely."
Jude didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Rose was trying to speak, her lips trembling. He leaned closer, lowering his forehead to hers, and she whispered into the space between them.