Seven years ago, prayer didn’t save Maya’s life—a bargain did.

When the sirens wailed through the rain-slicked streets and the heart monitor flatlined, sixteen-year-old Lin didn’t bargain with God. She bargained with the cold, creeping stillness in the corners of the room. She offered her own mobility, her own future, anything, just to hear her little sister breathe again.

The next morning, Maya opened her eyes, fully healed. Lin woke up paralyzed from the waist down. The doctors called both events impossible medical anomalies. Lin called it a fair trade.

For seven years, Lin adapted to her quiet, grounded life, wearing a heavy silver locket given to her by an anonymous benefactor—a trinket she believed was a symbol of her protection. But she never questioned the true nature of the agreement, nor did she understand the ancient mechanism she had set into motion.

Until the day her legs suddenly began to heal, and The Red Harvest arrived in the city.

Brought to auction by the elusive, hyper-wealthy art dealer Eleanor Vance, the multi-million-dollar masterpiece was far more than an oil painting. It was an ancient seal, a physical lock designed to contain an otherworldly force—and to keep Lin’s true debt at bay.

When a mysterious boy triggers an explosive rupture within the gallery, shattered glass and creeping shadows herald the end of Lin’s quiet life. The seal of The Red Harvest is broken, unlocking terrifying powers within Lin’s own blood and exposing a horrifying truth: the sister she saved seven years ago never truly came home from the hospital.

The lock is shattered. The adaptation has begun. And the entity wearing her sister’s skin is finally coming to collect.