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The blade slid between her ribs like a lover's kiss.

Evelyn Langston had not expected death to feel so cold. The dungeon stones pressed against her cheek, slick with something wet and copper-scented. Her blood, she realized distantly. How strange that her mind could still form coherent thoughts when her body had already begun its surrender.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way, sister."

Asher's voice drifted down from somewhere above her. She could not turn her head to look at him. The muscles in her neck had stopped obeying her commands. She could only stare at the wall, at the crude scratches some previous prisoner had carved into the stone. Prayers to gods who did not answer. Counting marks for days that blurred together. A child's drawing of the sun.

The sun. Her birthright. The Lumin magic that should have blazed golden in her veins had been nothing but hollow silence for three years. Three years of wearing that cursed choker. Three years of smiling while Asher drained her power and fed the court pretty lies about her delicate constitution.

"You were always too soft for the throne," Asher continued, his footsteps echoing as he paced. "Father knew it. Mother knew it. Even you must have known it, deep down."

Evelyn wanted to laugh. She had been soft once. Dutiful. Trusting. She had believed her brother when he said the obsidian choker would protect her from court politics. She had believed him when he assigned Ian Magnus as her personal guard for her safety. She had believed every gentle lie until the moment Ian's sword had pierced her chest on Asher's orders.

The memory of that betrayal burned hotter than the blade in her ribs.

Her vision dimmed at the edges. The scratched sun on the wall seemed to pulse with phantom light. Appropriate, she thought, that her last sight would be a child's dream of something she had lost. The warmth left her fingers. The cold crept up from her toes. Soon there would be nothing left but darkness and the whispered apologies of a brother who had never been sorry at all.

Then the darkness swallowed her whole.

Evelyn woke to sunlight.

Real sunlight, golden and warm, streaming through tall windows draped in silk. She jerked upright, gasping, her hands flying to her ribs. No wound. No blood. No cold stone beneath her. Instead, she found herself tangled in sheets so soft they felt like water against her skin.

This was her bedroom. Her old bedroom, before the betrothal, before the restrictions, before everything had crumbled into ash and betrayal. The walls were painted cream and gold. Fresh flowers stood in a crystal vase on the vanity. A book lay open on the bedside table, its pages marked with a ribbon she recognized.

She knew this room. It belonged to a dead girl.

Evelyn's breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her heart hammered against her ribs with a violence that felt impossible. Dead people did not have heartbeats. Dead people did not wake up in silk sheets with sunlight warming their skin. Dead people did not exist.

She dug her nails into her palm, hard enough to leave crescents in the flesh. The pain bloomed sharp and immediate. Real. This was real. The room spun around her. She pressed her other hand against her chest, feeling the steady thump of her pulse beneath her fingers.

Not dead. Not anymore. Not yet.

The door burst open. A maid rushed in, her face creased with concern. "Your Highness! I heard you cry out. Are you unwell?"

Evelyn stared at the woman. Helen. Young, barely nineteen, with worried brown eyes and hair pulled back in a severe bun. Helen, who would betray her to Asher in two years when her family's debts became too crushing to bear. Helen, who would weep while reporting every private conversation, every midnight walk, every moment of weakness.

"I am fine," Evelyn heard herself say. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. Too young. Too uncertain. "Just a nightmare."

"Shall I fetch the physician?"

"No." The word came out too sharp. Evelyn softened her tone with effort. "No, thank you. I simply need a moment."

Helen hesitated, clearly torn between duty and concern. Finally, she curtsied and withdrew, though her worried glance lingered. The door clicked shut with a sound like a cell locking.

Evelyn swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her feet touched plush carpet instead of cold stone. She stood on shaking legs and crossed to the mirror.

The face that stared back at her was unblemished and whole. Eighteen years old, with golden eyes that had not yet learned to hide their emotions behind careful masks. Her throat was bare. No choker. No suppression. No visible scars from deaths that had not happened yet.

She touched her neck, feeling for the phantom weight of the obsidian. Her fingers found only smooth skin.

The calendar on her desk caught her eye. She moved toward it as if drawn by invisible strings. The date stared up at her in neat, precise script.

Three years. She had gone back three years.

Evelyn's hands trembled as she gripped the edge of the desk. The nightmare was over. The dungeon, the cold, the blade between her ribs, all of it was gone. She had woken up to a second chance. She had time to change everything

But the true horror had just begun. She knew what was coming. She knew every betrayal, every trap, every carefully constructed lie. And she knew the truth that made her blood run cold

The killer was already in the house.