Stained glass fractured moonlight into blood droplets across the accounting chamber. Alyssa's silver veins gnawed at the bronze lock's core. On the seventy-third combination turn, rancid amniotic fluid seeped out—reeking of her infancy.
"Crone's nursery turned vault?" She pried the door open, unleashing ledgers bound with umbilical cords. Desiccated cords oozed azure-black mucus, spelling "Laine Subject 73073" in golden-red sludge.
Moonlight exposed the title page's embossing—Wolf Mother's fang-stamped "Mad King" sigil. As Alyssa flipped yellowed pages, infant wails echoed through bone walls. The entry chilled: Frost Moon 37: 3 silver wolf fetuses traded for 7 vampiric fangs (umbilical samples attached) The corresponding cord twitched, its bronze tag engraved with her mother's name.
"Delinquent auditors owe penalties." Kane's projection emerged from parchment stacks, luminous cords coiling around fingers. His sigil fed on cord mucus, each silver bell tagged with numbers—"73" freshly carved.
Alyssa's dagger pierced ledger pages, ink morphing into ravens. Amidst feathers, she swallowed her mother's transaction record. Parchment dissolved on her tongue, flooding taste buds with ancestral memory: Laine sewing her umbilical cord into Wolf Mother's pubis with a silver stylus, prenatal blood seeping into sigil grooves.
"Double-entry books?" She spat silver-tinged sludge solidifying into lab notes: Subject 73073 requires umbilical resonance at 73rd Blood Moon Confinement runes berserked, sucking ledgers into Wolf Mother's rib vortex.
Kane's true form kicked through iron doors as Alyssa tourniqueted her wrist with cords. He noosed her neck with a cord whose bell chimed with ceiling pendulums: "79% vessel modification—your birth hair surpasses seventy-two predecessors."
Spinal collapse boomed below. Alyssa lashed her mother's cord around his sigil, golden-red patterns reverting to Wolf Mother's birthmark. A self-immolating ledger revealed Laine's phantom dissecting a pregnant wolf, weaving fetal cords into bronze chains.
"Buffet replenished?" She overturned inkpots, corroding the phantom. A cord snared her ankle, its bronze plate updating: Frost Moon 73: Received vessel materials—Wolf Mother's prenatal fang (umbilical pact attached) The lily seal encased her baby tooth.
Dawn exposed a bronze casket bound with cords in the corner. Rotting lilies cradled seventy-two umbilical clasps—the newest groove perfectly fitting her "73" brand.