The thread on Lio's wrist kept tightening—slow, stubborn—like an invisible hand meant to haul him upward and shove him back into the mouth of Vault C.
He and Kerrin were hanging halfway through the opened floor hatch. Above them, the Chart-Hall was drenched in blue flame, and Hushfall had wrapped the voices in cloth and pressed them flat. The air rising from below was damp—old earth, rusted metal, the breath of sealed places.
Kerrin clenched his teeth and held on to Lio's arm and clothes. He was saying something—Lio could see his lips moving—but very little of it reached him. In Hushfall, language dries up; only gestures and heartbeats remain.
Lio tried to keep hold of the box. The cold piece of iron was no longer something separate from his hand—it had *stuck* to him, as if the metal had found a place beneath his skin and written its claim there. The knocking inside the box was fast, and with each knock the mark on his wrist flashed once.
*Tap… tap-tap…*
The thread tightened.
*Tap… tap-tap…*
Then that same true name—like someone calling from inside—and Lio's body went slack for a heartbeat.
Kerrin jerked him—salt-hard—and for the first time, despite Hushfall, a word came out clean, as if he had shoved it out through his ribs.
"Do—wn!"
Lio understood: if the thread was pulling them up, then going down was the only answer. Down, where there was no vault. Where there were no maps. Where the rules might be old—but at least there wouldn't be this blue light.
He bent his knees and threw his full weight downward—a wrong kind of dive. His palm slipped on the wooden edge, and a blister-like pain flared in his fingers. Kerrin's grip tightened at the last instant on Lio's collar, and he leaned in, following the jump.
They dropped together—less falling than being flung into wet air.
The space below was narrow. First a jolt, then bruised knees, then a scraped elbow, then the taste of dirt and dust—and Lio remembered that taste, for him, was now a lost thing like a name. He could only feel "dust," not taste it. The emptiness was so complete it didn't even make him gag—only afraid.
Above, the hatch panel began to slide again—maybe someone was trying to close it, or maybe the wood was returning to its place by itself. The thin blade of blue light that had been spilling down shrank into a line—then vanished.
Darkness arrived like a blink—sudden and total.
And even in the dark, Lio could feel the thread—the bright thread—still locked tight somewhere above his wrist. Closing the hatch hadn't broken its grip; it had only sent its path through the walls.
Kerrin, panting, pulled his hand off Lio's arm. "You—" he started, and his voice rasped out. Hushfall was above, but fear had slipped down between his teeth anyway.
Lio turned his head in the dark, and only then did he understand he wasn't completely blind.
He wasn't *seeing*.
He was *feeling threads*.
As if fine lines hung in the air before him—so faint they were almost invisible—running along the walls, passing through the wooden supports, and joining far off into a larger net.
Up there—Chart-Hall.
Maps.
Vault.
And among those threads, one—the brightest—was tied to his wrist.
Lio said softly, "It's… pulling me."
Kerrin looked toward him in the dark—Lio couldn't see his face, but he could tell by the direction of his breath. "What? Who?"
Lio lifted the box a little. The cold in his hand no longer felt like pain; it felt like numbness—a numbness that said: *This hand isn't fully yours anymore.*
"This," he said. "And that… up there."
Kerrin said nothing for a moment. Then, very slowly, as if he didn't trust his own mouth, he asked, "Do you know what you did?"
Lio tried to laugh, but nothing came out. "No."
"You shut the Inspector—" Kerrin stopped mid-sentence, as if he'd suddenly remembered that words could be dangerous too. "You made him *silent*. You… broke the air's noose."
Lio clenched his palm into a fist—he couldn't close it fully because of the box. "I just—"
He wanted to say, "I just saved myself."
But the moment he tried to push the sentence past "just," that old knot tightened in his throat. The words died right there. It felt like his truth broke and fell inside him—like someone had lifted the bridge between "I did" and "why."
He froze for a beat. Then he said quietly, "I… can't say it."
Kerrin held his breath. "Can't say what?"
Lio closed his eyes. He knew—he knew with painful clarity—what he had wanted to say. But the sentence that died before it could form was this: *I didn't steal it.*
That sentence could no longer pass his throat.
The realization—that even a simple defense could be taken from his language—fell down Lio's spine like ice.
Kerrin said softly, "So… the price."
Lio nodded. He didn't even know if he truly nodded or only tried to nod in the dark. "Yes," he whispered. "The price."
From above—very far—came a vibration. Not wood vibrating, but threads. As if someone had drawn a larger pattern up there and its reaction had shuddered down into the bones of the building.
The thread on Lio's wrist suddenly tightened harder.
A sound like a whimper slipped out of him. His knees slid forward on their own, as if he could resist the pull by rooting himself to the ground. The earth was wet, dust clung to his hand—but there was no taste, only sensation.
Kerrin put a hand on his shoulder. "We can't stay here."
"Where?" Lio asked.
In the dark, Kerrin reached forward and began to feel around: wooden planks, then a stone wall, then some old iron pipe. "This is a service tunnel," he said. "Under the Chart-Hall. It's… old. Some routes… go to the docks."
The docks.
The same place the living map had drawn on Lio's scrap paper.
A small chill ran through Lio again—as if the map had decided ahead of time where he would go.
The thread tightened again—and this time, along with the pull, Lio felt *direction*. As if the thread wasn't only a grip; it was a path.
"This way," Lio said without thinking, startling himself with how he knew. He pointed along the wall toward a side where the air felt a little less sealed.
Kerrin looked at him for a moment—then didn't ask. He just nodded, as if deciding questions could wait.
They moved forward on their knees. The tunnel was too low to stand. The walls were damp. Here and there, old wooden posts held it up, stained with oil and marked with handprints—as if this route wasn't only for rats; people used it too, sometimes.
Lio felt threads with every movement—in the walls, in the pipes, in the ground. Some threads were old—dead and slack—as if they'd been abandoned long ago. Some were fresh—tight—and they ran upward, back to the Chart-Hall's pattern that was trying to net him.
And one thread ran from the box in his hand into him—like the box wasn't only holding him, it was *listening*.
*Tap… tap-tap…*
The knocking was still there. But it no longer sounded like a door being knocked on. It sounded like a heartbeat—or someone's memory.
A little farther on, the tunnel split. To the left, there was a hint of damp, sea air. To the right, the air was heavy and warm—maybe toward boilers or kitchens.
Kerrin said quietly, "Left leads to the docks."
Lio nodded. The thread was pulling that way too.
When they turned left, another vibration came from above—and with it something new: sound returning slightly. Hushfall belonged to above; down here, words began to find their edges again.
This time Kerrin said clearly, "Your hand… it's—stuck?"
Lio lifted the box to show him. "Yes."
Kerrin looked at the thread-mark on the box, then at the mark on Lio's wrist. "And your… mark."
Lio tugged his sleeve back a little. The mark wasn't only bruised-blue now. Sometimes it glimmered faintly—like a needle turning slowly inside.
Kerrin swallowed. "Are you scared?"
Lio wanted to answer immediately—*yes*—but something strange happened inside him. For a brief moment, the meaning of the word "scared" slipped, as if someone had drawn a line defining fear and moved it. He knew he was afraid, but he couldn't hold fear and bind it into a clean sentence.
"Yes," he finally said, and his "yes" didn't sound like his own voice.
Kerrin must have felt the wrongness, because he said carefully, "Okay. Just… keep talking. So that—" He paused. "So you don't lose yourself."
Lio heard him, and something softened inside him for a heartbeat. Then fear returned with that softness—because "losing yourself" was no longer a metaphor. It was a real possibility.
They went on. The floor began to slope down. Water drips sounded—tap, tap—and somewhere ahead, a low hush of flowing water.
Then, suddenly, an old rusted iron grate blocked the way. Beyond it, a broader tunnel ran with a strong water current and faster air. The sea smell came clean from there.
Kerrin grabbed the grate and shook it. It didn't move. "It's shut," he said. "There must be a lock."
Lio moved closer—and threads rose in front of him on their own. There was a "stitch" along the grate's edge. Not a metal lock—an *oath*. Small, but strong. Like someone had said: *This path is only for those who know.*
Lio felt that old motion inside him—loosening a knot. Unseaming.
His hands lifted on their own.
Kerrin grabbed his hand immediately. "Don't," he said. "What you did up there—the effect…"
Lio looked at Kerrin. For the first time, he saw something more than self-interest in Kerrin's eyes. There was understanding—and a little responsibility too, unwillingly arrived. "We're trapped," Lio said. "And that thread—"
He didn't finish, because the pull came again from above, and in his wrist, the burn turned into a cold clamp. The thread was dragging him back—slowly, steadily—like time itself sliding him upward.
"Fine," Kerrin said through clenched teeth. "But carefully."
Lio breathed. He placed his palm near the grate's edge—the box sat on his hand like a cold stone. His fingers began to "feel" the oath-stitch—as if it were fabric, not iron.
Then he loosened the knot's end.
For a moment it was quiet—so quiet Lio thought it had worked.
Then the price arrived.
A sentence flashed in his mind—simple—something he must've said as a child to call someone. *Come here!* or *Look!* But the sentence rose and instantly turned to ash, as if it had never existed. Lio didn't know exactly what he'd lost; he only knew he'd lost a *small pathway of language*.
His mouth opened, and no sound came.
Kerrin asked at once, "What happened?"
Lio put a hand to his throat, panting. "I… I—" He tried and failed again—the sentence wouldn't form. "Something… went."
Kerrin's face tightened. "Every time?" he said softly.
Lio nodded.
But the unseaming had worked.
The oath-stitch along the grate loosened for a heartbeat, and a faint *click* sounded in the metal—real metal this time. Part of the grate slid slightly, as if an old hinge had finally agreed it was time to move.
A gust of air came through. Damp, sea-salted. And with it… another faint scent: candle smoke. Far away, but clear.
Kerrin shoved the grate. It opened—just enough for someone to crawl through.
"You first," Kerrin said.
Lio looked through: the wide tunnel, the water current, a rising slope that probably led toward the docks. But there were threads there too—and among them, another kind of thread, warm and steady, tied to the direction of that candle scent.
The Candle Monastery?
Or something else?
Lio crawled through. Cold water splashed his palm. The box didn't get "wet," or it did and it didn't matter—it stayed just as cold, just as alive.
Kerrin followed. As soon as he crawled through, he turned to pull the grate back—but it began to half-close on its own, as if the oath-stitch was repairing itself.
"This—" Kerrin began.
"We shouldn't go back," Lio said softly, and he didn't know if the thought was his or the thread's.
They moved forward. Water was up to their knees; the ground was slick. On the walls were old marks—chalk or ink—some arrows, some counts, and here and there small stitch-like symbols, as if someone had left patterns along the route.
Lio sensed these marks weren't like maps. They weren't directions—they were *warnings*.
Then, suddenly, from behind—near the grate—came a very faint sound. Even without Hushfall it was strange. It didn't sound like footsteps on water; it sounded like something moving along the walls.
Kerrin stopped at once. "What—"
Lio held his breath.
Threads shifted.
A cold emptiness—human-shaped—appeared beyond the grate.
A Hushed.
It couldn't fully come through—maybe the oath-stitch stopped it, or maybe its nature did. But its face—if it could be called a face—leaned close to the grate, and that same "lessening" spread through the air. Like someone had stolen a word from the tunnel.
Lio felt the echo of his true name inside him. The thread on his wrist tightened, and he felt the Hushed looking at that thread—or *smelling* it.
Kerrin whispered, "It's coming after us."
Lio swallowed. "It… wants to send us back up."
"Why?"
Lio looked at the box. The knocking stopped for a heartbeat—as if it had heard "why."
Then the knocking returned—slow, certain.
*Tap… tap-tap…*
And with it came an answer inside Lio, without words:
*Because a thread is open. And what is open, someone will pull.*
They hurried on—fast as they could in water and darkness. The tunnel curved into a rising slope, and the air grew stronger uphill.
Near the bend, there was a small niche in the wall—and in that niche, a little candle was burning.
Lio stopped short.
The candle flame wasn't blue. It was ordinary yellow—warm, human—and in its light, for the first time, this underground world wore something like "home."
Above the niche, carved into the stone, was a small sign: a stitched circle—but without the Dominion's eye. Instead, beneath the circle was a small candle line.
The Candle symbol.
Kerrin let out a very small breath of relief. "The Candle Monastery—this—this is their route?"
Lio stared at the flame and something inside him moved—an ash of memory not fully extinguished. Someone had once touched his forehead and said: *Guard your name. Here, names burn.*
As that sentence surfaced, his hands began to tremble. Because he was understanding now: names burn—meaning names are saved here, and names are erased here.
Near the candle, a raised line ran along the stone—as if someone had stitched the stone with a finer seam. It was the outline of a door, but no door was visible.
A hidden door.
Lio stepped closer. The thread on his wrist tugged, as if it recognized this place—or feared it.
Kerrin asked, "Is it safe?"
Lio wanted to say: *I don't know.*
And because it was true, it came out. "I don't know."
The moment he said it, the knocking inside the box sped up, and the mark on his wrist flashed. The candle flame dipped for a heartbeat, as if someone had breathed on it.
And the hidden door-line—the stone seam—shifted, very slightly.
From the other side came a voice—low, calm, and very close—like the speaker had been standing there all along:
"If you open the thread again… I'll stitch the veins in your hands shut."
Lio and Kerrin froze at the same time.
In the darkness behind the door-seam, metal clicked softly—like someone adjusting their grip on a needle.
And the candle flame—this time without any wind—flared brighter once, on its own.