Chapter 22

The words on the wall still sizzled with a heat that hadn’t come from any normal fire.

THE KEY HAS AWAKENED.

Cassandra was shaking, her lips parted like she wanted to scream again but didn’t know how. Her hands were clenched at her sides—no longer the bratty, smug girl from the day before. Now, just a teenager standing in a house that was rewriting itself around her.

Mrs. Alden pushed past us slowly, eyes locked on the writing. “This… isn’t possible.”

“You’ve said that a lot,” Eve muttered beside me.

Then—snap.

The wall cracked. Thin fractures webbed out from the letters, crawling like veins through the stone. We all took a step back.

Cassandra let out a terrified gasp. “What is happening? What is happening to my house?!”

The wall shuddered once—then exploded inward.

I shielded my face, felt hot stone bite into my arm. When I looked up—

There was a corridor where the wall had been...not a secret hallway. Not even ruins.

A completely different corridor.