Chapter 77: The Wall That Learned to Breathe

The wall beside Nora breathed again, and this time she felt the exhale against her cheek. Warm. Wet. Smelling of old milk and something rotting beneath floorboards. Maeve had risen from the rocking chair. The knife was in her hand, blade flat against her palm. "Get behind me," Maeve said. "No." Nora didn't raise her voice. The nursery door was still cracked. Hope's breathing hadn't changed. "Put the knife away. It can't be cut." The wall rippled. The grain split along a vertical seam, slowly, as if the house unzipped its own skin. A light came through the crack. The color of bone left too long in the sun. Nora heard Darius's boots shift. She heard his breath stop. "Wait," she said. His hand came to rest on her lower back. Firm. Anchoring. "You know what this is?" he asked. "What it feeds on." Fear. Maternal fear. The wall had tasted it in Maeve's shadow, in the tremor of her hand around the knife. Nora turned to face the split directly. The bone-light widened. She could see through it now. A space with no corners and no floor. In the light, a shape. A woman. She sat in a chair that wasn't there, hands folded in her lap, face turned away. The back of her head was familiar. Nora had seen that posture a thousand times in the Blackridge pack hall, sitting alone at the Luna's table while she served food she hadn't cooked. "You know her," the wall said. The voice came from everywhere. From the wood. From inside Nora's own chest. "You know the shape of her. The disappointment of her." The woman turned her head, and Nora saw her own face. The version that had never left. The one who had stayed when Rowan's rejection letter arrived, who had swallowed her pride and her spine and become the quiet thing the pack expected. She had a baby on her hip. A boy. Dark hair like Rowan. She looked happy. The wall bent toward Nora. The crack widened. "I can show you what would have happened. If Rowan had kept you." The vision shifted. The boy grew older. There were more children. Two, then three. Nora saw herself in the pack hall, wearing a Luna's pin polished thin. Paperwork stacked beside her bed. Exhaustion carved into the bones of her hands. "You would have served. You would have bred. You would have been small enough to hold." The version of Nora never spoke. She just kept moving. Kept shrinking until the shape of her was indistinguishable from the furniture. Nora turned her back to the light. Darius's hand was still on her spine. His jaw tight, his wolf visible beneath his skin. "Don't look at it. It wants you to see me diminished." "I already see you," he said. "I see you choosing to turn away." The wall made a sound that might have been laughter. "You won't stay turned away forever. The crack remains. Every night you close your eyes, I will show you the life where your daughter had siblings. Where you weren't hunted." Nora walked to the rocking chair. She lifted Hope into her arms. The baby didn't wake. Her fist curled against Nora's collarbone, and the weight of her was the only solid thing. "I don't want that life. It was a cage." "It was safe." The wall's voice dropped, softened. "I can show you a version where he loved you. Would you like to see it?" Nora didn't answer. The crack stayed open. The bone-light stayed lit. And she knew it would follow her into sleep if she didn't burn it first.