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Thomas pointed a trembling hand toward a heavy iron door set into the garden wall, half-hidden by overgrown ivy. "The old solarium," he whispered. "It connects to the basement. That's where they put the concrete."

Elena didn't ask what was under the concrete. She gripped the gun tight, left Thomas weeping on the bench, and pushed through the ivy. The door was rusted, but it gave way with a shriek of metal that sounded like a warning.

She slipped inside.

The solarium was a glass cage, moonlight filtering through grime-streaked panes to illuminate a jungle of dead plants. It was freezing, the air stagnant and heavy.

She moved through the withered ferns, her boots crunching on dry leaves. She needed to be quiet. If Arthur was still in the building, if the police were sweeping the perimeter, any sound could be fatal.

She saw the security cameras immediately. They were old, bulky models mounted high in the corners, their red eyes unblinking. She kept to the shadows, hugging the perimeter wall, ducking under the rotted potting benches.

At the center of the room, the tile floor had been broken up. A patch of rough, uneven concrete stood out against the Victorian mosaic, a scar on the building's history.

And sitting on the edge of that scar, his back to her, was Sebastian.

He wasn't moving. He wasn't digging. He was just staring at the ground, his hospital gown pooling around him like a shroud.

Elena approached him slowly. "Sebastian?"

He didn't flinch. He didn't run. He just tilted his head, listening to the wind rattling the glass.

She holstered the gun and sat down on the cold floor next to him. She didn't touch him. She just sat, letting her presence register in his periphery.

He was shivering, but not from the cold. He was vibrating with a frequency that felt like pure terror.

"They put him here," Sebastian said. His voice was different now. Clearer. The fog of the medication was lifting, or perhaps the trauma had burned it away. "The little one. The one who stopped crying."

"I know," Elena said softly.

"They told me he went to sleep," Sebastian continued, tracing a crack in the concrete with a dirt-stained finger. "But I saw them pour the stone. I saw Arthur put the box in the hole."

He turned his head.

For the first time, Elena saw him fully. Not as a ghost in a fire, or a shape in the dark, but as a man. He had Julian's bone structure, the same aristocratic nose, the same mouth. But his eyes were ancient. They were windows into a room where the screaming never stopped.

He looked at her with clear eyes. 'You're the new one. Did she send you to kill me too?'