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I flip him off without looking. “Sounds like you need a hug.”

The voice doesn’t respond this time, which is honestly more unsettling than when it did.

I exhale. “Let’s just find whatever-the-fuck before this place decides to recite my grocery list out loud. Or my kinks. Because Iknowthose are next, and I’m not emotionally prepared for Luna to hear I once had a phase where I was into clowns.”

Riven stops walking.

“…Clowns?” he says.

I point at him, face red. “You tell anyone and I’ll summon that sexy clone of Luna again but with your face and make you watch her flirt with Elias.”

He actuallyshudders. Victory. But still—something is wrong. And I need to figure it out before this place spills therealsecrets. Like the fact I kinda liked Ambrose’s cologne once. Or that I cried during a dog food commercial.

We walk faster. I need answers.

Before the walls start singing.

I make it to the living room in one piece. No new voices. No ghostly echoes. No confessions about how I once cried when I saw a picture of a baby goat wearing pajamas. Just… silence. Glorious, suspicious silence.

Elias sprawls on the couch like gravity has a personal grudge against him. I drop next to him, my hip knocking into his on purpose because we’re bonded by shared idiocy, and I like when he grumbles about it. That’s how I know he loves me.

He barely looks at me. “You look haunted.”

“I am,” I mutter. “By myself.”

“Sounds about right.”

I sip my coffee. More sugar than caffeine. Probably more chaos than either. Everyone else is scattered around the room—Riven brooding like it’s a competitive sport, Caspian curled in on himself like he’s composing poetry with his sadness, Ambrose pretending he isn’t watching Luna. Luna… who looks far too entertained for someone who just watched me have a psychic meltdown this morning.

I lean back. Irelax. And then it happens again.

“I once licked a glowing artifact because I thought it would taste like candy.”

The sound is barely above a whisper. But it’smywhisper. My cadence. My vocal fry on the end of “candy.”

Elias goes still beside me.

I stare straight ahead.

“I did not say that,” I say aloud. “I am innocent. My mouth is a liar and I want a retrial.”

“Did it taste like candy?” Elias asks, voice so dry it could slice bread.

“NO,” I hiss.

“Shame.”

“I thought I was safe,” I whisper into my coffee. “I thought we werepastthis.”

But my voice—traitorous, smug, gleefully chaotic—keeps going.

“I sometimes narrate my own life in a dramatic voice when I’m alone. With sound effects.”

Riven snorts from across the room.

“I don’t even rememberthinkingthat,” I mutter, already curling in on myself like I can physically keep the next secret from escaping.

Too late.