Fire flared along Leo's wrist—but it did not burn.
This fire wrote.
The filament that had just brushed him did not linger in the air. It slipped into his skin, the way thread slides into the eye of a needle and settles there. The mark—circle and short line—flashed for an instant, and inside himself Leo heard the echo of a name.
That name was not "Leo."
That name was… like the real tag hidden on an old garment—cut off years ago, forgotten—suddenly surfacing again.
Leo parted his lips. He wanted to repeat that name—because in the face of fear, the first thing a human does is try to shrink it by naming it.
But the moment his tongue moved, something tightened in his throat. An invisible knot. The word did not come out. His breath escaped—dry, rough—and within that breath returned the same voice that had come from beyond the vault:
"You will remember now."
It was not a threat.
It was a rule—like gravity. Like fire burning. Like an oath binding.
The lead inspector immediately placed herself between Leo and the open locker. There was no hesitation in her movement, but for the first time a sharp warning flashed in her eyes—as if she had recognized something she could not even write in her report.
"Hands behind your back," she said again.
This time it was not an order—it was an attempt to protect.
But Leo's hand would not move back. It was being pulled toward the black, box-shaped object. The box was not ordinary, yet it looked ordinary—black metal, undecorated edges, and on top the same thread-like symbol that marked his wrist. Above it hovered that single glowing filament, still cutting through the light, as if darkness itself could not tolerate it.
The empty-handed inspector standing at the threshold raised his palm into the air and curled his fingers as though twisting an invisible rope. For the first time, Leo truly saw—or felt—what he was doing.
There were threads in the air.
Threads of words.
Threads of promises.
Threads of commands.
And the man was forming a noose from them.
"Now," he said, cold confidence of victory in his voice. "His wrist—"
"You will not bind him inside the vault," the lead inspector snapped.
"In the name of the Dominion—" the empty-handed man began.
"The Dominion does not rule this room," she cut in. "Old laws apply here."
With those words, something shifted in the air inside the vault—like a breath taken in agreement.
The case inspector, who had until now only shrunk in fear, suddenly cried out, "Inspector—look!"
The grooves of his staff did not glow blue this time. They turned… black. As if the light had been pulled out of them. The staff was losing its own measure, as though this place was making it wrong.
Leo saw all of this—but it passed over him like water over stone.
The real thing was happening inside him.
Memories.
Not one by one.
All at once.
He saw himself very small—water up to his knees, salty, cold. The dark alleys of the South Ward. Someone had grabbed his arm. That voice—neither woman nor man—just exhausted, hurried: "Come… not here…"
Then a door. Wooden. The same rhythm—knock… knock-knock…—and no answer from inside. No answer, yet presence. As if someone had hidden their name behind that door.
Within the memory, Leo lifted his face and saw someone's eyes—but the moment he tried to hold them, the face blurred away. As if ink had been smeared across wet paper, erasing it.
He wanted to scream: "No—don't go—"
But no words came.
And with that, he felt the taste vanish entirely from his mouth. The same thing he had "lost" before—but this time it was not returning. It was becoming permanent emptiness, as if a small part of his body had been cut away and set aside.
The price.
The vault was taking a price from him.
Or… the filament was.
Leo's eyes snapped open. The locker stood half open. The box was still in place. But the filament—it was no longer only above the locker. It was connected to Leo's wrist by a thread so thin it was nearly invisible—a faintly glowing strand tightening and loosening with each breath.
A single thread, binding him from somewhere to somewhere else.
The lead inspector whispered, "The name you heard—do not repeat it."
Leo stared at her. "I… can't."
He tried—and the same thing happened: his throat tightened, the word refused to emerge, and instead a metallic bitterness spread through his mouth—not taste, only sensation. As if his body were telling him that even trying had a cost.
The lead inspector's gaze flicked to his wrist. "Then it's already begun," she murmured. "The true name… and the bond that comes with it."
"True name?" Leo's voice cracked. "What—what is this?"
The case inspector whispered in terror, "Candle—the Candle monasteries should be called. This… this is their domain—"
The empty-handed inspector tried to step inside the threshold—and at that exact moment, something very fine, very merciless cut through the air. Like a razor drawn across paper.
He froze. The color drained from his face. His eyes widened—for the first time, in fear.
"I warned you," the lead inspector said without looking.
The vault did not like him.
Or rather: the vault did not like his oaths.
The empty-handed inspector clenched his fingers tighter in rage. The noose in the air was no longer visible—but it felt heavy, as if an unseen rope were circling above Leo's head.
And then Leo saw—without wanting to—where the noose was going.
The thread descended from the air and latched directly onto the glowing strand at his wrist. As if the oath-noose wanted to seize that filament and bind it too.
A panicked understanding rose inside him:
If he binds it, then I… I'll be bound. Completely.
He did something.
It was not a "decision."
It was a "reaction," the way a hand jerks away from heat.
The same subtle motion his fingers had made around the lock-seam of the oath-stitch now echoed in the air—tiny, precise, like loosening the first end of a knot.
Unseaming.
He did not think the word.
He just did it.
And the noose in the air—rather than tightening—tore apart.
There was no sound, but the vault's air jolted with silence. As if someone had suddenly removed a letter from the room and all the remaining words staggered.
The empty-handed inspector recoiled as if struck. His fingers flew open. There was no anger in his eyes—only shock. As if something had been torn from his grasp that could not be taken.
"You—" he began.
But nothing came after "you."
Because in that instant, something tightened—not on his mouth, but inside it. As if an invisible thread had wrapped around his tongue—not to stop him from speaking, but to stop him from speaking the right words.
He stumbled back, gasping, hands clawing at his throat. A sound escaped—but it was not language, only dragged breath.
The case inspector whispered in horror, "He… he reversed his oath."
The lead inspector looked at Leo. The procedural coldness in her eyes had softened. "Don't do that," she said sharply. "You don't know what you're opening."
"I don't," Leo rasped. "But he was binding me."
The hush-like shadow inside the vault—the hollow man—shifted slowly, as if taking interest. And again that sensation came, not from beyond the boundary, but from within the room:
They bind you. You cut.
Leo did not hear words—but the meaning raised gooseflesh on his skin.
Then suddenly, noise came from outside the chart-hall—distant, but clear: a chair falling. A muffled scream. Then again—the thick blanket of silence that spread when inspectors arrived—now seeping into the bones of the entire building.
Something was happening in the hall.
Master Anselm's voice broke from outside: "The door—close the door—"
And with that, the chart tubes lining the vault walls—ones Leo had not even noticed—began to tremble together. The rustle of paper, like thousands of dry leaves. As if the maps themselves were breathing.
The lead inspector made her decision in a flash. "The box," she said. "Do not touch it."
"I didn't—" Leo swallowed.
"I said," she repeated, now with calculation rather than fear, "something is opening inside you. If you touch it, this place will take another price. A bigger one."
The case inspector raised his staff over the box—keeping distance. The grooves glowed again, forming a pattern, as if the staff itself were writing: No permission. Danger. Old.
The empty-handed inspector stood at the threshold, panting, unable to speak, eyes poisonous. He could not write his report yet—but he would not forget.
Leo looked at the box. The filament was still connected to him. Its other end floated above the box—as if they recognized each other. As if they were two ends of the same cloth.
"I…" Leo whispered. "I'm remembering something."
And it was true. Fragile, breaking. The smell of a room. Candlelight. Someone touching his forehead and saying softly, "Guard your name. Names burn here."
The Candle monasteries?
He tried to grasp that voice again—and as he did, part of the memory turned to ash and fell away. A space opened in his mind where a face should have been. He knew someone had been there—very close—but now… only blank paper remained.
"I forgot someone," Leo said, trembling.
The lead inspector met his eyes. She did not look for lies—she looked for damage. "Yes," she said softly. "That's the price."
A voice came from outside again, clearer this time, a hand striking the door. "Inspector! What's happening?"
It was Kerin's voice. Leo recognized it—anxious, curious, already sensing this story would spill onto his desk.
The lead inspector accelerated her choice. "We're leaving," she said. "Now."
"And this?" the case inspector gestured to the box.
She clenched her teeth. "It should stay. But—" her gaze fell to the glowing thread on Leo's wrist. "It won't leave him."
"Should I cut it?" Leo asked.
At the word cut, his wrist tugged faintly, as if the thread were offended.
Her voice hardened. "You will cut nothing. You will walk."
She guided him toward the threshold—without touching him, yet matching his every step. Leo felt that if he moved even an inch the wrong way, he would pay another price—memory, truth, or something else he could not yet name.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the chart-hall's air returned—damp, papery, familiar—and yet changed. It now carried the scent of frightened ink. As if the ink itself had realized a rule had been broken.
And then he saw what had happened in the hall.
The maps on the tables… had opened.
Not a few.
Almost all of them.
Roll-charts had loosened and unfurled on their own. Sheets slid halfway out of drawers. Old wall maps—never touched—fluttered at the corners and straightened themselves.
And on every map—every coastline, every alley, every river—the same thing was happening:
A thin, fresh line of ink was appearing.
The same line.
Straight. Merciless. Wrong.
And every one of them pointed in the same direction.
Toward Leo.
Kerin stood by a table, face white, eyes wide. A chart lay before him with a line drawn like an arrow toward Leo. When Kerin looked up at him, there was more than fear in his gaze—there was the knowledge that he had seen the impossible with his own eyes.
Master Anselm stood near the main door, before the barred entrance, as if trying to make himself the final line between the city and this room. The chain cut into his neck had turned red. He was muttering, "These—these aren't maps. They're—"
His words broke when his eyes fell on the glowing thread at Leo's wrist.
And in that instant, every lamp hanging above the chart-hall turned blue.
Hushfall.
Sound thinned. The edges of words were sliced away. As if the air itself had been stitched shut and sound was now trapped inside it.
The lead inspector spoke very softly—yet even her softness was being cut in half—"Out… now…"
The empty-handed inspector had reached the threshold. He still could not speak, but his eyes said one sentence clearly: You will not escape.
And in that moment, without Leo knowing how, the black box was suddenly in his hands.
Perhaps he had picked it up.
Perhaps the thread had lifted it.
Perhaps the box had chosen him, the way iron chooses a magnet.
The box was unbearably cold.
And from within it—very faintly—came the same knocking as in the vault:
Knock… knock-knock…
The mark on Leo's wrist flared.
And inside his mouth, somewhere behind his throat, the true name echoed again—so clearly his eyes filled with tears—and then, in the same instant, it crumbled to ash, leaving only emptiness.
A name he could hear.
But never speak.
Under the blue flames of the chart-hall, hundreds of lines on hundreds of maps continued to converge on Leo—
as if the world itself had marked him
and far outside, from the direction of the sea, the scent of cold rain began to seep into the air, even before nightfall.