Read Chapter 25: The Compass

The map room smelled of dust and old paper, the kind of cold that seeped through wool and settled into bone. Luc stood before the wall-mounted compass that had hung there since the lodge was built, its brass face tarnished but functional—or it had been, until now.

The needle pointed south.

It should have pointed north. Magnetic north, true north, any north at all. But it sat there, trembling faintly against the case, angled toward the window that faced the valley floor.

Luc pulled it off its hook and turned it over. The backplate was scratched—fresh scratches, bright metal showing through the aged patina. Someone had opened it recently, used a tool to bend the pivot pin, and reset the needle to point in whatever direction suited their purpose.

He thought about the search parties that had gone out in the first days after the avalanche, before they knew the scale of the disaster. How three of the guests had volunteered to scout the eastern ridge—and how Viktor had redirected them west, insisting he'd seen a signal flare that direction. Two hours wasted in deep powder while the storm closed in.

The compass had been hanging right here, in the room where they'd planned the route.

Luc set the compass down carefully, as if it might bite him. He pulled off his gloves and rubbed his hands together, trying to force warmth back into his fingers. The lodge was growing colder by the hour. The backup generator was barely ticking over, keeping the lights dim but the heaters dead.

Someone had been planning this longer than any of them realized.

"Still there, Luc?"

He turned. Camille stood in the doorway, red-eyed from the cold and the grief that had settled over the lodge like frost. She held the detonator wire in her hand, wrapped in a cloth, as if she couldn't bear to let it out of her sight.

"Someone's been in here," he said.

She stepped closer, saw the compass on the table. "What is it?"

"Someone altered this compass to point wrong. Deliberately." He picked it up again, showing her the bent pin, the scratch marks. "This is how they've been steering us around the property. How they misdirected the search parties, how they made sure the group that went to find Gaspard went the wrong way first."

Camille's face tightened. "So they've been running this place like a game."

"Like a trap." Luc set the compass down. "And I think I know who's been setting the traps."

He saw the question in her eyes, but he didn't answer it. Not yet. Because he needed to be sure, needed to line up every piece before he spoke the name that had been sitting in his throat since Gaspard had died—the name that wasn't Belmont at all.

The common room was a study in frayed nerve endings. Klaus stood by the cold fireplace, arms crossed, jaw working side to side. Ana sat near the window, wrapped in two blankets, watching the snow pile against the glass. Viktor hunched over the table with a cup of something that steamed weakly, his burn-wrapped hand resting on the wood. Marcel occupied the far corner, as he always seemed to do, his old body folded into a chair that faced the whole room.

"You want to talk," Ali said from behind Luc, and it wasn't a question.

Luc moved to the center of the room, turning slowly, catching each of their faces. "I found something in the map room. A compass—one of the tools we've been using to navigate out of here since the avalanche."

"So what?" Klaus said. "A compass is broken. Are you going to tell us the cold affects navigation equipment? We know."

"It wasn't broken by accident. Someone deliberately altered it to point the wrong way. Sabotaged, the same way the phone was sabotaged, the same way the batteries were drained, the same way someone put detonator wire in the utility closet."

That got their attention. Viktor's cup stopped halfway to his lips. Ana turned from the window. Even Marcel shifted in his chair.

"These aren't random acts of chaos," Luc continued. "This is methodical. Someone has been guiding our movements since the day we got here. Every time we've tried to get help, every time we've tried to reach safety, someone was already there, setting the trap."

"You're saying Belmont is still here," Ana said. Her voice was thin. "That he's been watching us, waiting."

"I'm saying it more directly than that." Luc let the words hang. "The saboteur isn't hiding in the mountain. They're in this room."

Silence. The wind howled against the lodge walls, and the lights flickered—briefly, but long enough to make everyone glance up.

"That's a bold accusation," Viktor said carefully. "Do you have proof, or are you just looking for someone to blame now that your old comrade is dead?"

Luc matched his gaze. "I have more than proof. I have a dying man's words, a compass someone rewired, and about six days of watching every one of you lie about where you've been and what you've done."

Klaus stood up. "Who?"

Luc opened his mouth to answer—

And the lights went out.

Total black. The kind of darkness that swallowed sound, that made you aware of your own heartbeat. Luc heard chairs scrape, someone's sharp intake of breath, a muffled curse.

"Everyone stay still," he said, but his voice was lost in the sudden chaos of movement—footsteps, a crash, Camille shouting something he couldn't quite make out.

He reached for the headlamp at his belt, fingers fumbling with cold and adrenaline, and when the beam finally cut through the dark, he saw them frozen in place like figures in a photograph: Ana half-risen from her chair, Klaus with his hand on a fireplace poker, Viktor twisted around to stare at something behind him, Marcel still seated, watching Luc with an expression that might have been warning or might have been accusation.

A cold draft swept through the room, and Luc realized—the front door was open.

Someone had used the darkness to slip out into the storm.