The city didn't welcome them back.
It just… tolerated their return.
Jace leaned against the backseat window of the cab, sweat beading on his forehead despite the chill outside. Buildings passed in a blur—neon lights, cracked sidewalks, couples arguing on corners. The normalcy should've felt grounding. It didn't. Not with that thing still pulsing in his leg like a second heartbeat.
Lena sat beside Reya, who was slumped across her lap. Unconscious, but breathing. Her skin had gone pale, almost waxy. Her pulse was steady—but wrong. Like it was skipping a beat just to catch a different rhythm.
"She's still burning," Lena whispered.
Jace didn't answer.
Because he was burning too.
The shard in his leg hadn't stopped glowing. It pulsed with something more than energy—memory. Each throb came with flashes. Not visions. Feelings. Hatred. Hunger. Endless waiting. As if the thing inside him had been caged for centuries and had just tasted its first breath of real air.
He clenched his fist, forcing himself to breathe.
"Jace," Lena said quietly. "You're bleeding again."
He looked down. The bandages around his thigh had soaked through, dark and sticky.
"I'll deal with it."
"We need help."
"No one in the city can fix this."
"You don't know that."
"I do." His tone was sharp.
The cabbie glanced at them through the rearview, eyes lingering a second too long. Jace met his gaze in the mirror.
"Drive," he growled.
The man shut up and did exactly that.
They made it to Lena's apartment—fifth floor walk-up in the industrial district. A place that smelled like iron and old cigarettes. Jace had always liked it. It was honest. Worn down. Not pretending to be more than it was.
She cleared the small couch and gently laid Reya down. Covered her with a blanket. Then she turned to Jace.
"Strip," she said.
He raised a brow. "Bit forward, don't you think?"
"Shut up and take off your pants. I need to see how far the infection's spread."
He hesitated. But only for a second.
The bandages peeled away like dead skin.
What waited underneath was not human.
Black veins spiderwebbed up his thigh, past his hip. Not ink-black—void black. A color that didn't belong on flesh. Lena reached out, fingers trembling, and touched the edge of one.
It pulsed.
And he felt it. Not pain. Not pleasure.
Recognition.
The void knew her touch.
"Shit," she breathed.
"What?"
"This isn't just corruption," she said. "It's bonding with you."
"Great."
"No—I mean, really bonding. It's adapting to your nervous system. If it goes any further—"
"It'll kill me?"
She shook her head.
"It'll replace you."
Silence stretched between them. The city buzzed faintly outside. Reya stirred in her sleep, whispering something under her breath. A name Jace didn't recognize.
Then—
Knock knock knock.
Three slow, deliberate knocks at the apartment door.
Jace was on his feet in an instant, blade in hand, eyes burning.
"Lena," he whispered. "Don't answer that."
She didn't move.
But something in the air did.
Knock knock knock.
Again. Louder.
This time, it wasn't a request.
It was a summons.
Jace moved first, pressing his back to the wall, sword ready. Lena stood behind him, a flicker of fire dancing between her fingers.
He nodded.
She unlocked the door.
And opened it.
There was no one on the other side.
Just an envelope. Black wax seal. Red string.
No name.
Jace picked it up.
It was warm.
And it smelled like blood.
He opened it.
One line, written in red ink:
The Hollow God walks again. We see you now.
His fingers clenched around the parchment, crumpling it.
"What does it mean?" Lena asked.
He looked down at the veins spreading across his leg. At the memory of the altar. At the things in the walls of that tower, smiling with broken jaws.
"I don't know," he said. "But whatever it is… it wants me to become it."