You go down alone. The seventh lock takes the blade as a key and the door opens on a room with a wish you have not earned and do not understand.
Talia is waiting at the top of the stairs, because of course she is, because she was always going to be.
TaliaYou took the cheap version. The cheap version always turns out to be a trap with my handwriting on it.
She wins. She stands behind lit glass with her back to the street and does not turn around, not for the rain, not for the knocking, not for you.
The vault closes. Seven locks. One of them is still a lock you never learned to pick.