Cora and Lena pushed through the heavy oak double doors of Conference Room One.

The room was already packed. The atmosphere was thick with nervous tension. No one was talking above a whisper.

Cora immediately gravitated toward the back. She found an empty chair in the darkest corner and sat down. She tilted her head, letting her hair fall forward to shield her scar.

Dr. Marcus Thorne stood at the front of the room. He was sweating slightly as he adjusted the projector on the ceiling.

In the front row sat the university's top brass. Chairman Powell and Director Evans were wearing their most expensive suits, sitting rigidly in their leather chairs.

Dr. Thorne cleared his throat. He clicked a button on his remote.

A high-resolution aerial photograph flashed onto the projector screen. It showed a dense, dark forest in Upstate New York.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Dr. Thorne began, his voice shaking with excitement. "During a routine geological survey, we have uncovered a massive, perfectly preserved family crypt dating back to the Gilded Age."

He clicked the remote again. The slide changed. It showed the entrance to a stone tomb, covered in intricate, gothic Victorian carvings.

A collective gasp echoed through the conference room. Finding an untouched mausoleum from that era was practically unheard of.

"Because of the immense funding we've just secured," Dr. Thorne continued, "we are assembling an elite advance team to begin excavation immediately."

He picked up a clipboard from the podium. He started reading names.

In the second row, Chloe Vance and Jessica Lane sat up perfectly straight. They exchanged confident, eager smiles.

Dr. Thorne read off the names of three senior specialists. Then, he paused.

He looked up from the clipboard. His eyes scanned the crowded room and locked directly onto Cora in the back corner.

"Cora Foster," Dr. Thorne said clearly into the microphone.

The entire conference room went dead silent. Every single head turned to look at the back row.

Chloe whipped her head around. She let out a loud, theatrical scoff of pure disgust.

Jessica leaned over to Chloe and whispered loudly enough for half the room to hear, "Why is she going? Is this some kind of pity charity case?"

Cora felt the blood rush to her face. Her cheeks burned. She intertwined her fingers in her lap and squeezed until her joints ached. She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her.

Dr. Thorne tapped his pen against the microphone to regain control. "Need I remind this room of the unidentified harbor remains from last year?" he said firmly, his voice echoing off the walls. "Ms. Foster was the only one who correctly identified the subject as a 19th-century Irish dockworker, based entirely on the wear patterns of a single carpal bone-a conclusion later verified by isotopic analysis. Her intuition and foundational knowledge are exactly what we need out there."

Chairman Powell nodded in agreement. He stood up and announced that the meeting was adjourned. Everyone needed to pack their gear.

The crowd began to filter out. Chloe walked past Cora's row. She intentionally veered off course and slammed her shoulder hard into Cora's.

Cora stumbled sideways against her chair. She didn't say a word. She just kept her head down and started packing her notebook.

Dr. Thorne walked up the aisle and stopped in front of her. He handed her a thick stack of papers.

"Non-disclosure agreements," he said softly. He looked her right in the eye. "I know how good you are, Cora. Ignore the noise."

He patted her shoulder gently. "Take tonight to pack. And maybe go visit your father before we leave. We'll be off the grid for a while."

At the mention of her father, Cora's eyes dulled. A cold numbness spread through her chest. She gave a stiff, tiny nod.

She shoved the NDA documents into her backpack. She turned and walked out of the emptying conference room.

Cora walked down the quiet hallway back to her desk. She took a deep breath, preparing to look at the preliminary blueprints Thorne had emailed her.

Cora locked the NDA forms in her desk drawer. She grabbed the printed blueprints of the crypt and headed back to her apartment.

By the time night fell, a cold, steady rain was beating against her thin windowpanes.

Lena knocked on her door around eight. She let herself in, holding a few extra copies of the structural layouts.

Lena spread the large papers across Cora's tiny, scratched dining table. She excitedly pointed to the center chamber on the map.

Cora leaned over the table. Her eyes traced the complex, Victorian architectural lines of the crypt.

Without warning, a massive, crushing wave of grief slammed into her chest.

She stared at the geographical coordinates printed in the corner of the map. Her eyes filled with hot, unexplainable tears. Her throat tightened so hard it ached.

Lena looked up and saw Cora's pale face. "Cora? Are you okay? You look exhausted."

Cora blinked rapidly, forcing the tears back. She forced a weak, fake smile. "I'm just dizzy. I think I need to get some sleep before the trip."

Lena nodded sympathetically. She gathered up the extra papers. "Get some rest. I'll see you in the morning." She walked out and shut the door.

Cora walked over to her tiny kitchenette. She filled a glass with tap water and swallowed two melatonin pills. She turned off the overhead light.

She curled up on her narrow twin bed. She listened to the rain hitting the glass until the pills pulled her under.

The nightmare hit her like a freight train.

Suddenly, her vision was blinded by the glaring light of a massive crystal chandelier.

She looked down. She was wearing an incredibly heavy, suffocatingly tight gilded-age corset and a massive lace gown.

The sound of a waltz played in the background, but the air in the room was thick with pure, toxic hatred.

A woman stood in front of her. The woman had a breathtakingly beautiful face, but her eyes were venomous. It was Isolde.

Isolde's red lips moved. She spat out vicious curses and mocking insults that cut like glass.

In the dream, Cora-who knew with absolute certainty that her name was Seraphina-felt a tearing physical pain in her heart.

Isolde lunged forward. She shoved Seraphina hard in the chest.

Seraphina lost her balance. She fell backward. The surrounding aristocrats erupted into cold, cruel laughter.

The sensation of falling was instantly replaced by the terrifying weight of damp soil covering her nose and mouth.

She was in the dark. Someone was frantically shoveling dirt on top of her. She opened her mouth to scream, but only dirt rushed in. She was suffocating.

In her apartment, Cora convulsed on her bed. Her hands gripped the cheap bedsheets like a vise.

She shot up into a sitting position, her eyes snapping open. She gasped violently for air, her lungs burning.

Cold sweat soaked her t-shirt. Her dark hair clung to her forehead and the scar on her cheek.

She looked frantically around the dark room. She saw her dresser. Her window. She was in New York.

But the metallic smell of wet dirt and the sound of Isolde's cruel laughter still echoed loudly in her skull.

Cora threw off the blankets. Her bare feet hit the freezing hardwood floor. She stumbled toward the door.

She yanked the apartment door open and stumbled out into the hallway. She needed oxygen.

The motion-sensor lights flickered on. Cora leaned her back against the cold tile wall, clutching her chest, trying to force her heart to slow down.

Cora pressed her spine against the freezing tiles of the hallway. Her chest heaved with every ragged breath.

The window at the end of the hall was cracked open. A cold night breeze blew in, chilling the sweat on her skin.

She couldn't stay in that cramped hallway. She needed to get outside. She needed to clear the suffocating nightmare from her brain.

Cora grabbed an oversized, black knit cardigan from the hook by her door. She wrapped it tightly around herself and walked down the stairs to the building's ground-floor courtyard.

The courtyard was empty. Only a few dim floor lamps illuminated the wet cobblestones. The air smelled strongly of rain and wet earth.

She sat down on a damp wooden bench. She buried her face in her hands, pressing her palms against her eyes to block out the lingering image of Isolde.

Then, she heard it.

The slow, heavy, rhythmic sound of expensive leather shoes stepping onto the wet stone.

Cora's head snapped up. She stared toward the dark archway at the edge of the courtyard.

A tall man stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing a perfectly tailored black trench coat.

He had his head bowed. In his right hand, he was rolling a heavy, tarnished silver coin-an ancient Roman denarius-across his knuckles. The dull, rhythmic clink of the dense metal hitting his rings was sharp in the quiet night. He suddenly paused, shifting his weight to pull a slim flashlight from his coat pocket. He clicked it on, angling the beam down toward a map in his other hand. The harsh backscatter of the light perfectly illuminated his sharp, ruthless jawline and his cold, striking profile.

Cora's pupils dilated. It felt like a sledgehammer slammed directly into her sternum.

That face. It was the exact same face that haunted the edges of her nightmares. It was the face of the man her soul remembered. Alistair.

She gasped out loud. Her entire body went completely rigid on the bench.

The man heard the sound. His head snapped toward her. His eyes, sharp and predatory, pierced through the darkness straight at the bench.

His gaze locked onto her silhouette. His dark eyebrows pulled together in a deep frown.

Panic exploded in Cora's veins. She realized the courtyard light was hitting the right side of her face.

She violently yanked the collar of her cardigan up over her cheek.

Like a terrified rabbit, she bolted up from the bench. She scrambled away, keeping her head ducked, desperate to escape his line of sight.

The man didn't speak. He just stood there, watching her with a heavy, oppressive intensity that made her skin prickle.

Cora ran past him, giving him a wide berth.

As she brushed past his space, the wind shifted. A sharp, icy scent of cedarwood mixed with rich tobacco hit her nose.

The smell was a physical blow. It wasn't just a fragrance; it was the exact scent of Alistair's private study. A phantom memory crashed over her-the warmth of a crackling hearth, the scratch of his fountain pen on parchment, and the feeling of falling asleep against his shoulder while he worked late into the night. That buried, stolen warmth now felt like a knife twisting in her chest. Her eyes instantly burned with tears. A century of unspoken grief threatened to rip out of her throat.

Cora ran. She sprinted back into the building, flew up the three flights of stairs, and slammed her apartment door shut. She threw the deadbolt.

She slid down the wooden door until she hit the floor. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed, her body shaking uncontrollably.

She didn't sleep a wink. She sat on the floor until the sun came up.

At 7:00 AM, loud, rapid knocking rattled her door.

"Cora!" Lena yelled from the hallway. "The bus leaves in thirty minutes! Hurry up!"

Cora took a deep, shaky breath. She stood up. She walked to the bathroom and splashed freezing water on her swollen eyes.

She meticulously brushed her hair over her scar. She hoisted her heavy canvas duffel bag onto her shoulder.

Cora opened the door and followed Lena out to the charter bus waiting on the street.