Book Five: Chapter 52

When she ate the last of Mike’s semen, a strange heaviness settled over her. Her vision blurred, colors melting into each other for a brief moment before clarity returned. And then, as always, there was the vision—one last one before the effect faded. In it, she saw her daughter. The child stood inside a vast, cavernous building lined with endless shelves of books, the scent of parchment and ink almost palpable even through the vision. She was an adult now, and Velvet’s heart twisted as she realized it was her own blood grown into someone fully formed, yet wholly unfamiliar. The young woman was perched upside-down, balancing on the ceiling with grace, hair cascading downward in a dark waterfall, fingers brushing along the spine of a thick leather-bound tome.

Their eyes locked. Velvet’s own pupil dilated at the intensity, the child’s eyes shimmering like twin lanterns in the dim light. Startled, the daughter dropped the book