Chapter 124

The slip of paper was thin enough that I almost missed it, folded and slid under my office door like a trick note in school. It was late, close to three in the morning, and the words scrawled across it made my blood thrum: The Hollow Council is convened.

I stood there barefoot on the cold floor, staring at it as if the ink itself might move. My first thought wasn’t fear but the strange rush of recognition. Someone sent me this. Someone wanted me to see this. Someone wanted me involved. For a heartbeat I almost convinced myself it was meant for someone else and had been pushed under my door by mistake. But the curve of the letters felt deliberate, as if whoever wrote it had imagined my hand holding it.

Richard’s knock came seconds later, heavy and impatient. When I opened the door he took one look at my face, then at the note clutched in my hand. His expression darkened. “This goes straight to security.” He paused, eyes narrowing at the words. “What does this mean, Amelia?”

I swallowed. “I think it’s a warning, or maybe an invitation. The Hollow Council… people whisper that it’s a faction, an old circle that met in secret. If they’re convened, it means they’re gathering somewhere inside these walls.” I hesitated, biting down on the tremor in my voice. “I can’t be sure, but it feels like someone is trying to draw us into whatever they’re plotting.”

I shook my head. “We can't turn it into security. Not this time. We follow it ourselves.”

“Amelia.” His voice carried that low growl he only used when he thought I was being reckless. “Every message, every rumor, you treat like it’s your personal map to the truth. This is how traps are set.”

“Not everything is about national security,” I snapped. “You don’t understand, this is about me. About my family. Every lead we’ve had has been twisted by someone else’s agenda. If I hand this over, they’ll turn it into something political before I even know what it means. I don’t want my past dissected in front of a room full of elders like it’s evidence at trial.”

His shoulders stiffened. “Your past isn’t a matter of state security?”

“My past is mine.” The words came out fierce, sharper than I intended. “For once I want to discover something without it being taken apart and repackaged. For once I want the truth before it becomes performance.”

The silence stretched until I thought maybe he would back down. Instead, his eyes narrowed and he said, quiet but cutting, “And what if it isn’t even your past you’re discovering? What if you’ve convinced yourself of something that was never there?”

The words cut clean through me. I froze, heat rising in my chest, shame and fury tangling together. He must have seen it, because his expression changed almost instantly, regret flashing across his features. “Amelia, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

I forced myself to nod, forced myself to breathe, but the damage was already done. I could pretend to let it go in the moment, but those words would echo long after tonight. Even as I bent to slip on my shoes, my hands trembled from the sting of them.

We moved through the west wing together, our footsteps muted against cracked tile. The corridor smelled of mildew and plaster dust, the kind of scent that clung in your throat. I ran my hand along the paneled wall, fingertips catching on a seam. It shifted slightly under the pressure. Richard pulled it open with a grunt, revealing a narrow crawl space with a vent cut directly into the council chamber. Dust coated everything, except for the drag marks across the floor where someone had moved through recently.

“Probably a rat,” Richard muttered, crouching near the vent.

I arched a brow. “A human sized rat?”

He deadpanned, “Rats can be really big.”

I glared at him. “Don’t be an idiot. Rats don’t carry master keys.”

He smirked faintly, but before I could push further, the sound of boots echoed down the hall. Darius appeared with tools slung over his shoulder, eyes flicking from us to the open panel. “Checking the structural load,” he said smoothly. “Wouldn’t want the ceiling collapsing on our leaders.”

Richard’s gaze was hard, his voice sharper. “Your timing is uncanny.”

Darius smiled at the compliment. “I work where I’m needed.”

And then he left, the sound of his boots fading into the distance.

I leaned closer to Richard. “You accuse me of chasing shadows but you ignore him? You’re inconsistent. You choose the strangest moments to be suspicious and the strangest moments to dismiss things that matter.”

His eyes flicked to mine, unreadable. “And you choose the strangest moments to trust people.”

The words hung between us, more loaded than he probably meant them to be. I bit back a response, knowing it would turn into another argument we weren’t ready to have.

We marked the panel with a bright red defect tag, obvious bait for whoever came crawling back. It felt theatrical, almost childish, but it was the only way to prove the Hollow’s whispers weren’t just stories. As Richard pressed the tag flat against the wood, I saw the muscles in his hand tighten, knuckles pale. He hated baiting enemies. He preferred a clean fight, and this wasn’t that.

That night, Richard pressed again that we should loop in loyal elders. “If we trust no one, we isolate ourselves. Some of them know more than we do, Amelia. Cutting them out is like shooting ourselves in the foot.”

“Then we’ll limp,” I answered flatly. “But at least we’ll limp on our own terms. I am not putting half-truths in their hands. Not yet.”

His jaw clenched. “You think hiding things makes us stronger?”

“I think handing them speculation makes us weaker.”

His eyes were locked on mine, voice low. “You think you can hold all of this alone?”

“No. But I think I have to hold it until I know what it even is.”

Our eyes stayed locked, both unwilling to give an inch. The argument burned itself out, there was nothing left to say. The silence after was thick enough to feel like another set of walls closing in.

Hours later, footage flickered across the monitor in the security room. A gloved hand pressed the panel open, movements careful, practiced. A master key glinted in the grainy light. My pulse surged. I ran through the corridors as fast as my legs would carry me, lungs aching, desperate to catch the intruder before they disappeared. My shoulder clipped the stone as I rounded corners, but I didn’t slow down. By the time I reached the chamber, the hall was empty.

A sound drew me further, a dull thud near the service corridor. A maid lay crumpled on the stone floor, her breathing shallow. Richard knelt first, checking her pulse, while I pressed my hand to her shoulder, trying to coax her awake. When she stirred, her eyes were glassy and her voice cracked. “I don’t… remember. Just the smell. Candle wax.”

Her words sent a chill up my spine. The sweet, cloying scent lingered faintly in the air, coating my tongue like smoke. Whoever had been here wanted us to know they had passed through, wanted us to chase them. It was a message as much as a mystery. The Hollow wasn’t just rumor anymore. It was alive, and it was circling us.

I glanced at Richard. His jaw was tight, his expression grim, but there was something else in his eyes too. Fear. He hid it quickly, but I caught it in that moment, and it told me so much. Whatever this Hollow was, it had gotten under his skin as much as mine. And neither of us knew how deep it went.