Three days left. The numbers burn behind my eyelids every time I blink. Three days until the Pierre Hotel. Three days until I marry a ghost or dissolve into foam.

The ballroom blazes with light. Crystal chandeliers throw prisms across marble floors, and everywhere I look, there are men in expensive suits with guns hidden under their jackets. Ivan's associates. The kind of people who smile while they break your fingers.

Kira holds court at the center of it all, draped in red silk that probably cost more than my mother's funeral. Her bandages are gone now, revealing the nose I gave her—delicate, perfect, someone else's face. She catches my eye across the room and her smile sharpens.

"Ladies and gentlemen." Ivan's voice cuts through the champagne chatter. "My beautiful Kira has requested a special performance. My wife will honor us with a traditional dance from her... heritage."

The way he says heritage makes it sound like a disease.

Marcus appears at my elbow, his jaw tight. He presses the sea-glass gauze into my hands without meeting my eyes. "I'm sorry," he mouths.

I want to tell him it's not his fault. That none of this is anyone's fault except the man who saved me and then decided saving wasn't enough—he needed to own me too.

But I can't speak. I never could.

The crowd parts. Someone dims the lights. I stand in the center of the ballroom in my thin gauze while a hundred predators watch and wait for me to entertain them.

The Pearl in my chest throbs. It's been burning since the curse activated, a constant reminder that I'm running out of time. Three days. Seventy-two hours. Then either salvation or dissolution.

I close my eyes and find the rhythm.

My feet move across marble instead of sand, but the magic doesn't care. It rises from some deep place inside me, older than Ivan's cruelty, older than my silence. My arms trace patterns in the air—spirals and waves, the language of tides.

The chandeliers flicker.

I spin faster. The Pearl burns hotter. Blue light bleeds through my skin, illuminating the veins in my arms, my throat, spreading like bioluminescent algae. The magic is too strong tonight. Too close to the surface. Three days from the deadline and my body knows it's dying.

Glass shatters.

One chandelier explodes, then another. Crystal rains down like frozen tears. Someone screams. The lights strobe—on, off, on, off—and in the flashing darkness I see my mother's face, her mouth forming words I can't hear over the chaos.

My knees buckle. The marble rushes up to meet me, and then there's nothing but black.

I wake to Ivan's hand in my hair, dragging me across the floor. My scalp screams. The ballroom is empty now except for shattered glass and Kira, still in her red dress, her new nose wrinkled in disgust.

"You ruined it." Ivan's breath is hot against my ear. "You ruined her night. You staged that whole scene to embarrass me in front of my associates."

I try to shake my head. Try to sign that I didn't, that I couldn't control it, that the magic is killing me from the inside out. But he's not looking at my hands.

"She's pathetic." Kira's heels click against marble as she approaches. "She can't even perform a simple dance without causing a scene."

Ivan releases my hair. I collapse, tasting blood where I bit my tongue during the fall.

"Lock her up," he says to Marcus. "I'll deal with her tomorrow."

But Kira's hand on his arm stops him. "Wait. I'm not feeling well. That soup at dinner—my stomach is killing me."

She doubles over, retching. Ivan catches her, his face going white.

"What did you eat?" His voice is sharp now, dangerous.

"Just the soup. The soup Talia served me."

No. No, I didn't—

"Search her room," Ivan snaps at Marcus. "Now."

I try to stand, to follow, to somehow make them understand. But my legs won't hold me. I watch Marcus disappear up the stairs, watch Kira lean into Ivan's chest with a small smile playing at her perfect new lips.

Marcus returns five minutes later. In his hand is a small glass vial, the kind used for concentrated poisons. His eyes meet mine, and I see the apology there before he speaks.

"Found it in her nightstand, boss. Hidden under some papers."

I sign frantically—I didn't, I wouldn't, someone planted it—but Ivan isn't watching my hands. He's watching Kira retch again, watching her play the victim with an expertise that makes my skin crawl.

"Basement," he says. "No heat. No blankets. And Marcus—bring me her sketchbook."

That breaks something in me. The sketchbook is all I have left. The only way I can communicate beyond basic signs, the only place I can draw out the words trapped in my silent throat.

Marcus won't look at me as he carries me down the stairs. Won't look at me as he locks the door. Through the small window, I watch him walk away with my sketchbook tucked under his arm.

Then I'm alone in the dark, in the cold, with three days left to live and no way to tell anyone I'm innocent.

The basement door opens at dawn. I haven't slept. Can't, with the Pearl burning hotter every hour, counting down to a deadline that feels both like salvation and drowning.

Ivan's silhouette fills the doorframe. Behind him, pale winter light filters through the house, making him look like a paper cutout of the man who once pulled me from the gutter.

"Get up." His voice is flat. "You have work to do."

He doesn't help me stand. My legs shake as I climb the stairs, each step a negotiation with a body that's forgetting how to be solid. The Pearl pulses against my ribs—three days, three days, three days.

Kira waits in the sunroom, surrounded by bolts of white silk that catch the light like snow. She's wearing a cream robe, her new nose perfect in profile as she examines fabric samples. When she sees me, her smile could cut glass.

"There she is." She gestures at the silk. "My wedding dress. You're going to make it."

The words hit like a fist. Wedding dress. I look at Ivan, but he's already turning away.

"Four days," he says over his shoulder. "The ceremony is in four days. You'll have it finished by then."

Four days. The same day as the Ghost Marriage. The same day I'm supposed to walk into the Pierre Hotel and marry a dead man or dissolve into foam.

Kira's fingers drum against the armrest. "I want it fitted. Lace at the bodice, silk for the skirt. And I want it perfect, Talia. No blood, no tears, no excuses."

Marcus brings me to a room I've never seen before—a sewing studio with industrial machines and cutting tables. He sets down boxes of thread, needles, pins. His jaw works like he wants to say something, but he just shakes his head and leaves.

I'm alone with the silk.

My fingers find the fabric. It's cold and smooth, the kind of material that shows every imperfection. I spread it across the cutting table and begin measuring, marking, cutting. The scissors whisper through the cloth.

Kira appears every few hours to critique. Too loose here. Too tight there. The neckline is wrong. The hem is uneven. Start over.

I start over.

The needle slips on the second day. Blood wells from my fingertip, a single red drop that falls onto the white silk like a accusation. I freeze, watching it spread.

"Clean it." Kira's voice comes from the doorway. "Now."

I scrub at the stain with cold water, my hands shaking. The blood fades to pink, then to nothing, but I can still see it—a ghost of violence on fabric meant for celebration.

"You can't even sew without making a mess." Kira settles into the chair by the window. "No wonder Ivan wants me instead. You're broken, Talia. You've always been broken."

I thread the needle again. Keep sewing. The Pearl burns hotter with each stitch, each breath, each second that ticks toward the deadline.

"He proposed to me in your mother's house, you know." Her voice is casual, conversational. "On the beach where you used to swim. He said it felt right, starting our new life in a place with no ghosts."

My hands still. The needle hovers over silk.

"He's going to marry me in the garden where you used to pick flowers. Isn't that romantic?" She laughs. "You'll be there, of course. Serving champagne. Watching me become everything you couldn't be."

The Pearl flares. Heat spreads through my chest, down my arms. I bend over the dress, hiding my face, praying she doesn't notice the blue light starting to seep through my skin.

"Keep working," she says. "I want to try it on tomorrow."

That night, I sew by lamplight. My fingers are raw, pricked in a dozen places. Blood keeps welling up, and I keep cleaning it, over and over, until the silk is damp and my hands are numb.

The Pearl's glow intensifies. I can see it now even through my clothes—a blue radiance that pulses in time with my heartbeat. Two days left. Forty-eight hours.

The door opens.

Ivan stands in the threshold, his face half-shadowed. He's been drinking—I can smell the whiskey from across the room.

Then he sees it. The light. The blue fire burning beneath my sternum, illuminating my ribs like a lantern made of bone.

He takes a step forward. Another. His eyes are wide, fixed on my chest.

"It's real," he whispers. "The stories. Your mother's people. It's all real."

I press my hand over the Pearl, trying to hide it, but the light bleeds through my fingers.

Ivan's expression shifts. The wonder drains away, replaced by something harder. Hungrier. He looks at me the way he looked at his first gun, his first stack of cash, his first taste of real power.

"That's why you've been different," he says. "That's why you won't break completely. It's that thing inside you."

I shake my head. Sign desperately—no, please, you don't understand.

"If I take it out," he continues, talking to himself now, "you'd be normal. Human. You'd stop glowing, stop causing scenes, stop making me look weak."

He pulls out his phone. Dials.

"Marcus. Get Dr. Reeves. Tell him I need a surgical extraction. Tonight."

The Pearl screams. Or maybe that's me, finally finding a voice in the silence, a soundless shriek that only the ocean can hear.

They move me to the wine cellar. The air smells like fermentation and old stone. Marcus and another man I don't recognize strap me to a metal table that wasn't here yesterday. Ivan must have had it brought in while I was sewing Kira's dress.

Dr. Reeves arrives with a black medical bag. He's the kind of doctor who lost his license years ago, the kind who asks no questions as long as the cash is good. His hands shake as he unpacks scalpels and clamps.

"You sure about this?" He glances at Ivan. "I've never seen anything like—"

"Just cut it out." Ivan stands in the corner, arms crossed. The Pearl sits in a velvet jewelry box on the shelf beside him, already prepared for Kira. "She'll be fine. She's tougher than she looks."

I try to sign—please, you're killing me, this will kill me—but the straps hold my wrists flat against cold metal.

Dr. Reeves doesn't use anesthetic. Says it might interfere with the extraction. The first cut splits my skin just below my collarbone, and the world goes white.

Pain isn't the right word. It's deeper than that. The scalpel carves through layers of flesh, and with each slice, I feel my connection to the ocean severing. The tides that have always pulled at my blood go silent. The deep-water voices that sang in my dreams fade to static.

The Pearl fights back.

A shockwave explodes from my chest. The wine bottles shatter in their racks. The foundation groans. Cracks spider across the stone walls, and dust rains from the ceiling.

"Hold her down!" Dr. Reeves's voice is high, panicked.

Marcus presses his weight against my shoulders. His face is turned away, but I see his jaw working, see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.

The scalpel goes deeper. Dr. Reeves's fingers probe inside my chest, searching, and then he finds it. The Pearl. My mother's legacy. The last piece of my father's people.

He pulls.

Something tears. Not flesh—something older. The thread that connects me to the ancient bloodline, to the curse, to the Ghost Marriage pact. It snaps like a fishing line under too much weight.

The Pearl comes free.

It glows in Dr. Reeves's bloody glove, pulsing with blue light that makes the shadows dance. He drops it into the jewelry box, and Ivan snaps the lid shut.

The light dies.

I stare at the ceiling. There's a hole in my chest where the Pearl used to be—a gaping wound that should be bleeding but isn't. Instead, it glows faintly, like the last embers of a dying fire.

"Clean her up," Ivan says. "Put her in the recovery room."

He takes the jewelry box and leaves. Doesn't look back. Doesn't check if I'm breathing.

Marcus and Dr. Reeves move me to a room off the kitchen. They lay me on a cot. Dr. Reeves wraps gauze around my chest, his hands still shaking, and then he's gone too.

I'm alone.

My heartbeat slows. Each pulse takes longer than the last, like my body is forgetting the rhythm. Cold seeps into my fingers, my toes. I watch frost form on my skin—delicate patterns that look like scales.

The curse is claiming me. Without the Pearl, I'm dissolving. Two days early, but it doesn't matter. The pact is broken. I'm breaking.

Footsteps.

A woman appears in the doorway. She's young, maybe thirty, with kind eyes and scrubs that smell like antiseptic. She kneels beside the cot, presses two fingers to my throat.

"Your pulse is almost gone." Her voice is soft. "I'm Diana Foster. Dr. Reeves hired me for aftercare, but this—" She looks at the wound in my chest. "This isn't aftercare. This is murder."

I try to focus on her face, but my vision is graying at the edges.

"I know about the White family," she whispers. "My grandmother was like you. She told me stories about the old pacts, the Ghost Marriages. You're running out of time."

She pulls a syringe from her bag. "This is adrenaline. It'll buy you a few hours, but that's all. You need to get to the Pierre Hotel. Now."

The needle slides into my arm. Fire spreads through my veins, forcing my heart to beat, beat, beat. I gasp, and air floods my lungs.

Diana works fast. She wraps my chest in clean bandages, helps me into a coat she must have brought from upstairs. "Can you walk?"

I nod. Barely.

"Ivan's with Kira. The Pearl turned gray the second he gave it to her. He's trying to figure out what went wrong." She pulls me to my feet. "We have maybe ten minutes before he realizes you're gone."

We move through the kitchen, through the servants' entrance. The garage is dark and smells like oil. Diana finds keys hanging on a hook—Ivan's Mercedes, the one he never lets anyone touch.

"Get in."

I collapse into the passenger seat. Diana starts the engine, and we're moving, tires crunching over gravel, then asphalt, then we're on the highway and the mansion is shrinking in the rearview mirror.

Manhattan is two hours away. I watch the frost spread across my hands, watch my fingers turn translucent at the tips. The curse doesn't care that the Pearl is gone. It's still counting down.

Diana's knuckles are white on the steering wheel. "Stay with me, Talia. Just stay with me."

But I'm already drifting. The ocean is calling, and this time, I don't think I can resist.