Martha wasn’t writing alone. The lamed wrote itself, a hand guiding hers, creating hiding places—caves, dens, burrows on every page. With each stroke, the letter carved out a secret lair into which its long tail slid, coiling in the darkness, biding its time. It was waiting for the great day, a day Martha might never see but always anticipated. And if that day came, the monster would emerge from the black waters, revealing itself in all its fiery fury as it never had before. 

Horror ripped through her, yanking her from her feet and flinging her across the ground as his breath brushed against her ear, just a kiss or bite away—both equally terrifying. Her knees hit the gravel hard, the skin tearing and bleeding, the red smearing into the gray-brown dirt. But she felt no pain; her entire focus was locked on him. She found herself kneeling at his feet, tricked into submission. From this low angle, he seemed enormous like the Tower of Babel, the priest had spoken of, using the foreign word “hybris” to describe it. The stranger’s blue-bleak eyes hypnotized her. “Worship me, and you can have everything,” he said, using her own voice inside her head, but it sounded wrong.

Behind the third door, Nachash sat enthroned in an armchair, shrouded by a cloud of buzzing flies that swept around him like a school of fish, moving in synchrony. His pinky pointed upward, as though it held the destructive force of every atomic warhead. The table beside him hovered inches above the floor, untethered by gravity. Across from him, Persephone sat rigid on the sofa, doll-like, her back unnaturally straight, hands resting lifelessly on her thighs. Her limbs were frozen, but her eyes darted wildly, incarcerated in their own prison. A thin mist slipped from her parted lips, a silent cry in the frigid air. Decades of detours since Munich had led to this moment—a dead-end of destiny. Heinrich had finally arrived at the place where his path had irreversibly forked.