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Chapter 75: The Word They Used

last update publish date: 2026-06-24 02:21:28

POV: Rose

The figure said my name.

Not Rose. Not the formal title. The name before the renaming, the name my mother had whispered in a kitchen, the name the woman in the buried room's mirror had spoken, the name I had told no one except the four of them and Dorian, in the years since.

I went very still.

"How do you know that name," I said.

The figure looked at me. Up close, the face was younger than I had expected, perhaps twenty-five, with features that did not settle easily into any single de
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