The call came just after midnight.

Eva woke violently from another dream of the Underworld with Acheron’s name still trapped somewhere beneath her tongue when her phone began ringing across the apartment.

For one disoriented second, she thought the sound belonged to the palace bells.

Then reality settled heavily back into place.

Mortal world.

Tiny apartment.

No shadows.

No silver fire.

Only darkness and exhaustion.

The phone continued vibrating against the kitchen counter.

Eva forced herself upright slowly while pain pulsed faintly behind her eyes again. Another memory had vanished sometime during sleep. She could feel the absence sitting hollow behind her thoughts, though she no longer knew exactly what was missing.

That frightened her more every day.

The phone screen glowed brightly in the dark apartment.

Hospital.

Fear hit instantly.

Eva answered before the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Miss Vale?”

The nurse’s voice sounded tense.

Not good.

Never good.

“Your sister’s condition worsened tonight.”

The world seemed to tilt sideways.

Eva gripped the counter harder.

“What happened?”

“There was sudden respiratory collapse around twenty minutes ago. We stabilized her temporarily, but—”

The hesitation cut deeper than the words.

Eva’s chest tightened painfully.

“But what?”

“She keeps asking for you.”

The contract beneath Eva’s wrist burned sharply.

Wrong.

Something was wrong.

Not ordinary illness.

The sensation crawling beneath her skin felt horribly familiar now.

Decay.

The same cold corruption she first sensed before entering the Underworld.

No.

No, no, no.

The plague had returned.

The hospital smelled like fear.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

The moment Eva entered the emergency floor, she felt it moving beneath the fluorescent lights and exhausted human panic. Something cold drifted invisibly through the halls like sickness wearing the shape of breath.

And people were getting worse too quickly.

Nurses moved frantically between rooms while distant alarms echoed through the corridors. Several patients coughed violently behind half-closed curtains while doctors argued in hushed urgent voices near the reception desk.

Eva froze halfway down the hallway.

She recognized this feeling.

Not from the mortal world.

From the Underworld.

The plague was no longer entirely human.

The contract beneath her wrist pulsed violently.

Like warning.

Or recognition.

A nurse hurried toward her immediately.

“She’s awake now, but her fever keeps spiking.”

Eva nodded silently.

The hospital room looked too white.

Too fragile.

Machines beeped softly beside Sofia’s bed while rain tapped quietly against the dark windows beyond the city skyline.

Sofia looked smaller than Eva remembered.

Paler too.

Fear stabbed sharply through her chest.

Her little sister opened her eyes weakly the moment Eva approached the bed.

“…Eva?”

Relief nearly broke her apart.

“I’m here.”

Sofia tried smiling faintly.

“You disappeared again.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

Because Eva suddenly realized—

She could not remember the last promise she made her sister before entering the veil.

Another missing memory.

Another empty space.

Panic fluttered briefly beneath her ribs.

Sofia noticed immediately.

“You look tired.”

Eva laughed softly under her breath.

“That makes two of us.”

Her sister’s hand felt burning hot beneath her fingers.

Wrong hot.

Not normal fever.

The contract beneath Eva’s wrist reacted instantly upon contact.

Black veins flickered faintly beneath Sofia’s skin for one terrible second.

Then vanished.

Eva’s pulse stopped completely.

No.

That was impossible.

The plague had followed her back from the Underworld.

Or worse—

It had been waiting here all along.

The room temperature dropped suddenly.

The hospital lights flickered once overhead.

Sofia frowned weakly.

“Did you feel that?”

Yes.

Eva felt it.

The shadows beneath the hospital bed had just moved.

Not naturally.

Recognizingly.

The contract beneath her wrist burned hotter.

Then Sofia whispered something that made Eva’s blood run cold.

“The man from my dreams came back.”

Silence crashed through the room.

Eva forced her voice steady.

“What man?”

Sofia’s fever-glazed eyes drifted toward the dark corner of the hospital room.

“The one with silver eyes.”

The shadows beneath the bed twisted violently.

Eva stood instantly.

No.

Impossible.

Acheron could not cross fully into the mortal world.

Could he?

The hospital lights flickered again.

This time every monitor in the room crackled sharply with black static.

Outside the windows, thunder rolled across the city sky.

Not natural thunder.

The contract pulsed hard enough to hurt.

Acheron.

Close.

Very close.

Then Sofia grabbed Eva’s wrist weakly.

Her voice dropped to a frightened whisper.

“He said death is following you.”

The shadows in the room exploded outward.

Machines sparked violently.

The temperature plunged hard enough to frost the windows.

And suddenly—

Eva was no longer alone.

She turned sharply toward the far corner of the hospital room.

Darkness stood there.

Not ordinary darkness.

Living shadow.

Tall.

Ancient.

Familiar.

Acheron emerged slowly from the blackness between flickering hospital lights, dressed entirely in shadow and silver stormlight while the air around him bent unnaturally cold.

His silver eyes locked onto Eva immediately.

And for the first time since she left the Underworld—

The Lord of Death looked afraid.

Not for himself.

For her.

The shadows throughout the hospital floor began screaming.