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Remy smirks, pulling the straps of his backpack over his shoulders. “Not even a little bit, old man.”

I let out a slow breath through my nose. Like father, like son.

I look between the two of them, trying to decide whether I am more annoyed that they followed me or impressed that they managed to get here so fast–and together.

“Want to tell us what you’re doing out here?” Remy asks, and fake-checks an imaginary watch. “At the ass-crack of dawn.”

I stare at my son and his half-brother. I’m here for Baron's work, and these two aren’t Barons–bloodlines be damned. They made their choices. But Remy’s right–well, sort of. I’m not old, but I’m older, and I have no idea who Amber has working for her. Walking in that mausoleum alone is a fool's errand. They don’t trust me, but I’m not sure I have any choice but to trust them.

“Arianette was finally able to recover her memories,” I admit. “It was still vague, but enough for me to go on, especially after I found this at Saint Mary’s.

The small charm hangs from my fingers, catching the weak light from the cemetery gas lamps. I hold it out between us. “I think this is connected.”

Whitaker takes it from me, and his permanently bored expression changes almost immediately. “I’ve seen this before.”

He turns the charm over between his fingers, studying the engraving with a concentration that makes me straighten. “Where?”

He looks past me toward the mausoleum.

“In there.” For a moment, none of us speaks; we just move up the stairs, stopping at the doors. The brass key slides into the lock with a reluctant scrape. When I twist it, the mechanism gives with a heavy click, and the doors groan inward.

The smell reaches us first: A cool dampness. Dust. Something metallic beneath it.

We step inside.

The moonlight coming through the stained-glass windows paints fractured shapes across the floor, but the darkness is thick enough that I have to pull out my flashlight. The beam sweeps across the room, catching the marble coffins arranged along the walls.

Whitaker moves deeper inside.

Remy follows him.

I close the door behind us, sealing us in with the dead.

Whitaker stops beside a coffin and runs his fingers over the stone. There is a dark stain across the marble, old enough that it has soaked into the porous surface. Another mark trails across the floor beside it.

William’s blood.

If Whitaker is bothered by seeing the signs of his own murderous rage, he doesn’t reveal it. He just looks upward and nods. “Up there.”

I follow his gaze toward the stained-glass window.

Above it, carved directly into the stone, is a tree.

Its trunk is thick and twisted, its branches spreading outward in intricate patterns. But the roots are what catch my attention. They extend beneath the trunk in long, tangled lines, disappearing into the stonework as though the tree is buried far deeper than the walls of this room.

I pull out the charm again.

The engraving is unmistakable.

Remy steps forward, reaches toward the carving but stops just before touching it. “I’ve never seen this before.”

“It’s a symbol for the Kayes family,” I tell him. “Not Baron's specific. I think there’s a chamber below here. One that we’ve never found from the other side. If my hunch is right, it’s where Amber is performing her rituals.”

“You mean murders,” Remy corrects.

Whitaker nods. “So you think that if the Kayes wanted something hidden, they probably buried it somewhere the family could access easily.”

Remy turns slowly, studying the walls. “Did you see any kind of doorway or passage when you were in here?”