Chapter Twenty-One

That evening, Trey recounts Anna’s intense but successful labor, bringing photos and relief. On the deck, Sonya updates Trey and Owen about Agatha’s apparition and Dobbs’s desecration of the portraits. They agree the portraits matter and that Dobbs miscalculated by targeting Sonya’s empathy.

Near three a.m., Owen wakes to a smoky voice calling his name. Drawn upstairs through an arousing fog, he enters the Gold Room where Dobbs, radiant and seductive, promises him the manor and herself forever—if he kills Sonya, Trey, and Cleo, and tastes their blood. She presses Astrid’s murder knife into his hand and kisses him, filling him with lust and revulsion.

Reeling, Owen stumbles toward Sonya’s room. At the threshold, he turns the blade on himself rather than harm them. Trey wrenches the knife away as something inhuman screams. Owen, shaking and sick, describes the bespellment’s fog, scent, and commands. Sonya recognizes Astrid’s knife; she locks it in her car to keep it from the house.

They make tea on the deck as the disturbances fade. Cleo frames Dobbs’s attack as mind-rape and insists Owen fought through it. Trey concludes Dobbs can’t harm them directly and must use them against each other—she tried and failed. Together, they walk out front to watch Dobbs’s ritual leap at three, united against her curse.

Afterward, Owen apologizes to Cleo for being compromised; she rejects blame and underscores his loyalty and strength. They profess love, talk about a shared future, and even marriage contingent on Owen building her an exceptional studio. They vow to protect each other, convinced Dobbs fears Sonya and cannot defeat their loyalty and love while they work to end the curse.