Ren dropped the tea tray.
Porcelain struck stone, shattered, and scattered white across the corridor like broken teeth. Tea spread under my boots in a thin amber pool. For one second, every instinct in my body went quiet except the one that remembered hospital corridors and monitors slowing down.
Brother?
The voice had come from beneath the academy.
Not from the stairwell. Not from the walls. Beneath. Deep enough that stone should have swallowed it. Clear enough that my bones had heard it before my ears understood.
Sera Valdrake Arkhen was dead.
So was Hana.
Dead people did not call from dungeon gates.
Unless the world wanted to be cruel with excellent pronunciation.
Ren stared at the spilled tea. "Young master…"
"Do not answer voices below the tenth gate," I said.
His head snapped up.
"Your rule. Repeat it."
Ren's lips moved twice before sound came. "When bells ring below the tenth gate, do not answer if the voice uses your name."
"Good."
"Was that—"
"No."
