I opened my eyes to find the ceiling of my now familiar room. For a moment, I was confused—was it a dream?

Slowly, I sat up and winced as pain shot behind my eyes. After a few blinks to clear my vision, I stretched out my hands—flashbacks of black liquid staining my skin and a terrible, empty coldness that had taken a hold of my heart flooded my brain.

It felt as if my body had risen from the dead.

I was cold.

My hands, although normally pale, had taken on a pallor akin to Casper the ghost.

Not the best sign, I was sure.

As I sat there on my bed and listened to my breathing, I could feel a silent panic begin to settle within me.

Just what happened?

I froze. The headache was beginning to spread to my temporal lobes.

I kept my eyes closed as I pinched my temples to ward off the throbbing pain. "What? Were you hoping I'd die?"

It was easier to talk to this dark presence normally when I couldn't see her. If I looked at her, the all too familiar fear would take hold of me and I would find myself at a loss for words. If I was to speak to her normally, I had to get over this petrifying fear I had of her. And her appearance did not help.

She practically screamed evil.

Yet, perhaps in this world that was a good thing. Edythe's father was evil, and the power she had wielded had originated from darkness.

Didn't it make sense that I access something evil as a source of my own power? That way I didn't tip the scales of this world so much that it threw everything into disorder.

I almost laughed at the thought of Edythe, the embodiment of the villainess, weilding the power of light. It was ironic really.

Naturally, I had done the right thing.

I could feel her presence beside me.

I opened my eyes in disbelief. Had she been hoping to kill me? Seriously?!

She clicked her tongue.

I turned to look at her properly. Her speech felt a little different from the last time we'd spoken. She felt a little...modern?

That was when I noticed she wasn't wearing her mask. Instead, a beautiful yet fierce face stared back at me. Her skin was ashen and had the dark tattoos which also crept up her neck to her jawline and stopped. There were also the cracks on her face, revealing the darkness within, matching the shade of her hair which was darker than any ink I'd ever seen. Creepier still, her irises were as dark as her hair—so dark, that I couldn't even see where her pupils began. Yet, she was creepily beautiful.

For a moment, I was stunned. Then I managed to voice my earlier thoughts. "Your way of speaking seems to have changed?"

She smirked and tapped her head. She pointed at my chest. She shrugged.

I gave her a bland look. "Lovely."

At that moment, Lettie walked in carrying a pan filled with water. Upon noticing me sitting up in bed, her eyes lit up. "Miss Edythe! You're awake, your fever must have broken!"

She rushed over to the bed and placed the pan on my bedside table, where I noticed old cloths, some of them still damp. She must've been looking after me.

After she placed a hand on my forehead and came back looking satisfied, she then wiped her hands on her apron. "What about some lunch? After going out with the young masters and coming back with a fever, you must have burnt through a great amount of energy, no?"

I grinned. "I'm starving."

Hopefully the energy I got from food could help warm me up a little. This coldness had me feeling numb. It didn't even feel as if blood was pumping through my veins.

I was empty.

A husk.

Lettie appeared completely oblivious to the dark presence beside me as she straightened a few things up before she left the room again to get things 'prepared'.

It was quiet again.

With a sigh, I turned to the dark figure which now lounged over my bedsheets. "Now that I think about it, you never told me your name."

I feel like that may have been an important fact that I forgot to establish before I signed my life away.

She didn't even look up as she examined her nails.

"Nyx?"

She looked over at me and stared, her dark eyes making me squirm.

I frowned. Why did that name seem familiar? Although I had a weird sense of déjà vu, I could not recall anything of importance. What was my brain trying to tell me?

"What does it mean?"

Surely, it meant something. Gods names were completely different to human names. Gods names meant something, it stood for who they were, what they represented.

Although, Edythe meant "prosperous in war", and considering how war was actually one of my escape strategies, I was beginning to feel strangely uncomfortable.

I blinked. "Night?" I had been expecting something like death. "Is that good or bad?"

She slowly looked over to me and gave me a smile that exposed very sharp, feline-looking teeth.

Seriously. Her words were completely different to before. She didn't sound like a god at all.

"I had been expecting something more like death." I mumbled my thoughts aloud.

Another sense of déjà vu overcame me when I heard the word 'Erebus' but I couldn't remember why. Still, her words went completely over my head. Was she trying to say that night was better? I didn't know.

Upon feeling an ache in my legs, I turned to stare at the floor.

Somewhat awkwardly, I tried to ease myself off the bed. After my hateful mistake last time, I made sure to grip the sheets this time as if my life depended on it. Slowly, I eased myself down until my feet touched the floor. Once I allowed me legs to take my full weight, I wobbled slightly.

Stupid infant legs. I sighed.

They were sore and needed a good stretch, forcing me to walk around the room. Slowly, the tightness eased.

Nyx was looking at me in amusement.

"Hey," I eyed her. "This mortal body happens to be three years old."

Nyx glided off the bed and morphed into a child before my eyes. She was a complete replica of me—save for her dark eyes.

It took me a few seconds to reply after being shocked by her sudden transformation. "Yes. Lucky me."

Nyx placed a hand on my shoulder and I felt a chill in my bones. Her eyes became dangerously cold.

Slightly scared by her stare, I tried to distract myself. "Marked?"

She laughed. She drew in close and smiled.

Great. I was a house.

Annoyed, I shook her hand off to look down at my body. "And what exactly is this mark?"

I couldn't see any strange tattoos or markings. Was it invisible?

Nyx pointed at my chest again.

For a moment, I was thoroughly confused. Then the blood drained from my face and I ran as quickly as I could to the bathroom where the full length mirror was.

Breathless, I placed a hand on the mirror and watched as Nyx morphed again to float through the air where she smiled down at me with her black eyes.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I remembered her pointing at my chest which was covered by my night gown.

Initially hesitant, I reached up and grabbed the collar of the my silky robe. Slowly, I inched it down until I froze.

And that was when I noticed it.

A keyhole in my chest, just below my collarbones. It was a regular size, ancient and looked intricate enough for me to believe that it was paired to an equally extravagant, ancient key.

I couldn't believe it.

Yet when I glanced down to look at it properly it was still there.

A keyhole.

The evidence that this body no longer hosted my soul alone.