Clara felt the bone needle humming in her chest like a plucked guitar string. It whispered secrets to her:
You're not just the Keeper...
You're the Lock.
And the Key.
Across the broken altar, the demon Zarzenki took shape - a terrifying king made of smoke and fire, wearing a crown of broken amulet pieces.
"Little moth," he sneered, "you flew too close to my flame."
The ghost-girl with black eyes giggled. "She still doesn't get it, Father."
Father? Clara's blood turned to ice.
Zenko stumbled to her side, bleeding fire. "Clara - the needle isn't for him. It's for us."
Then she remembered Inés' words: "The seal needs balance."
As the creepy choir sang louder, Clara yanked the needle from her chest. No blood - just a glowing white thread, bright as a star.
Zarzenki screamed in rage.
Doll-faced Don Javier attacked. Zenko grabbed his wrist - and ripped his skin right off!
Underneath wasn't a monster.
It was Clara's uncle.
"Tío Luis?" she gasped. The same uncle who'd read her bedtime stories. Who'd held her hand the night the convent burned.
His real face was a horror show of burns and stitches. He spat out his gold-thread stitches, snarling:
"You were supposed to die in that fire with your sister! Your parents ruined everything!"
The black-eyed ghost (her sister!) wailed.
Clara's amulet burned hot. The needle's thread glowed brighter, connecting her to Zenko, to Zarzenki, to all the Keepers before her.
Zenko growled: "Do it."
Clara stabbed the needle into Zenko's chest - not to hurt him, but to sew.
The white thread shot out, wrapping around Zarzenki, yanking the demon toward Zenko.
"NO!" her uncle screamed. "You'll kill us all!"
"Yes," Clara whispered.
She jammed the needle into the amulet.
BOOM!
Light exploded everywhere.
Clara stood in a strange dream-place.
Two wolves circled her - one white, one black.
Zenko and Zarzenki.
A voice boomed: "Choose! One to save, one to burn!"
Clara grabbed BOTH wolves.
"No more choices."
She smashed them together.
The wolves merged with a howling musical note.
CRACK! The amulet broke.
The needle vanished.
And Clara...
Burned.
Silence.
Clara woke in the perfectly clean cathedral - no fire, no bodies. Just a single burned child's shoe where the ghost-girl had stood.
Zenko knelt beside her - his scars gone, his eyes now human.
"You fixed the seal," he said. "But the cost—"
Clara touched her chest. No amulet. No needle. Just a new scar - a wolf inside a flame.
Then a voice laughed from the shadows:
"Oh Clara. Did you think it was over?"
Out stepped the real villain - wearing her dead father's face.
Clara's knife was at the impostor's throat before her mind caught up.
The man wearing her father's face didn't flinch. Up close, she saw the stitches at his hairline , the unnatural gleam of borrowed eyes . A skin-suit, just like Don Javier had been.
"Mija," he said with her father's voice, "you don't remember our last game, do you?"
Zenko moved to strike—
—and froze when the impostor held up a music box . The very one Clara's father had made her before the fire.
"Wolf or flame, little one?" He turned the crank. The tune was wrong— it played the black-eyed girl's nursery rhyme backwards .
Clara's chest scar burned ice-cold .
They stood in the ruins of her childhood home —not the convent, but the little house by the river where her family had lived before the war. The walls were painted with moving shadows , replaying memories:
- Her father carving the music box
- Her mother singing as she braided Clara's hair
- The black-eyed girl who wasn't in any photos
"Your parents didn't just hide you from the cult," the impostor said. "They stole you from it."
He peeled back his sleeve, revealing the same wolf-and-flame brand Clara now bore.
"You were always meant to be Zarzenki's vessel. Your sister was the backup."
The music box snapped open. Inside lay a tiny skeletal hand —a child's.
Clara's knees buckled.
They escaped through a sewer tunnel marked with resistance symbols , emerging near Plaza de España. Zenko dragged Clara into a boarded-up bookstore— a rebel safehouse .
"He's lying," Zenko growled. "Your parents were—"
"Were what?" Clara kicked over a chair. "Heroes? Saints? You've been with me five weeks. They raised me!"
A floorboard creaked. Sister Beatriz stood in the doorway, her stitched eye weeping.
"He told you the truth," she whispered. "You were born in the cult. Your parents took you during the Great Purge of '36."
She laid a battered birth certificate on the table:
Name: Clara Inés Montoya y Zarzuela
Parents: Eduardo Zarzuela & Sister María de la Sangre
Clara's hands shook. "Then who—"
"Luis and Marisol saved you," said the nun. "Broke the bloodline. Made you human enough to resist the amulet's call."
Zenko went very still. "That's why the seal weakened. You were never meant to be Keeper."
Outside, church bells tolled thirteen times .
Sister Beatriz paled. "They've started the summoning."
The nun led them to the convent's sealed crypt . Inside waited:
- A wall of missing children's photos (including the black-eyed girl)
- Father Robles' severed arm holding a journal
- And a third ironwood box , smaller than the others
Clara touched the box. The carvings showed a wolf eating its own tail .
"Inés left this for the true last heir," said Sister Beatriz. "Open it when you're ready to know the price of victory."
Clara lifted the lid.
A glass eye stared back.
It blinked .
Sister Beatriz gasped. "Dios mío—that's my eye!"
The eye rolled , revealing tiny writing on the back :
"The seal is a circle. Break it with your sister's hands."
Clara understood.
To win, she'd need to resurrect the black-eyed girl.