"If you open the thread again… I'll stitch the veins in your hands shut."
The voice was so close Lio felt as if someone were speaking right behind his ear. But there was only stone in front of him—the tunnel wall, and on it a fine line, as if someone had stitched even stone the way you stitch cloth.
The candle flame was yellow, warm. And yet cold ran down Lio's spine—because there was no showmanship in that threat. It was the threat of someone who had truly seen veins the way one sees thread.
Kerrin immediately raised both hands—empty. "We—we didn't do anything," he blurted. The words came out clearly now, but his voice still trembled. "We're just… running."
Lio tried to speak too, but the moment he tried to get the word "we" out, his tongue snagged again. It felt as if parts of his language had turned to stone. He drew a deep breath and managed only, "Please…"
The word made it out. Maybe because "please" was true, and truth had not yet turned fully against him.
The stone line—the seam—shifted slightly.
As if the door were breathing.
Then there was a faint metallic sound—the sound of someone adjusting their grip on a needle—and a thin crack opened between the stones. Just wide enough for a single eye to be seen.
There was no reflection of light in that eye. There was scrutiny. Measurement. And a reluctant anger too, as if the world had already broken its trust too many times.
"Put the box down," the owner of that eye said. "And slowly take two steps back."
Lio's heart sped up. The box—black metal—how could it separate from his hand? It was as if it had stuck to him. But an order leaves no room for "stuck."
He tried. He loosened his fingers—and at that instant the knocking inside the box sped up.
*Tap… tap-tap…*
The mark on his wrist flashed. A shock of cold ran through his hand, as if the box took his attempt as an insult.
The woman behind the crack saw that flash. She didn't blink even once, but the focus of her eye shifted—no longer on Lio's face, but on Lio's hand.
"Ah," she said very softly, as if to herself. "So it's you."
Kerrin asked in panic, "What is this 'it'?"
The eye held steady for a few seconds. Then the stone door—one that hadn't looked like a door at all—opened fully, as if someone had loosened the seam's thread by an inch.
A woman stepped out.
She wasn't tall, but her body held the steadiness of people who don't expect to fall. Her hair was black, tied tight at the back, and her clothes carried old stains—not ink, not blood—something else, as if smoke and dust had rubbed her for years.
At her waist was a leather strap holding small metal needles, thin blade-like knives, and a few bundles of white thread. She wore no gloves. Her fingers were rough—working fingers—yet the way they moved had a strange precision, like she knew how to place a stitch while walking across an invisible map.
She looked Lio and Kerrin up and down so fast it didn't feel like "looking." It felt like reading.
"Names," she said.
Kerrin answered immediately. "Kerrin Vale."
Lio's tongue resisted again. He could say his name—Lio—but the name he'd heard in the vault sat in his throat like ash. He forced it out anyway. "Lio… Ravel."
The woman's gaze went to Lio's wrist. That mark no longer seemed to hide even under cloth. As if the mark itself demanded light.
She stepped closer. "Hand."
Lio held it out, fear and all. The box was still in his palm—like a chunk of ice that would not melt.
She didn't touch the box. She only moved her fingers in the air near its edge, a very subtle motion—like a skilled weaver who can sense the direction of thread without touching it.
Lio felt something tighten in the air around his hand. No threads were visible, but the "tension" of the air increased, as if someone had pulled the room's seam tighter.
"There's oath-smoke on you," she said. "And beneath you… something else."
Kerrin started, "We didn't swear any oath. We—"
She looked at him. Just looked.
Kerrin's sentence ended by itself, as if he had swallowed his own words.
Lio understood: she wasn't "silencing" him. But her fear carried such authority that people silenced themselves.
"How did you come here through the Candle route?" the woman asked.
Kerrin told her quickly—Chart-Hall, blue flame, the floor hatch, the tunnel, the grate, the Hushed. He kept talking, as if getting the words out was the only way to prove to himself that he had really seen it.
Lio listened, but inside his ears the same knocking kept going—out of the box, out of his veins:
*Tap… tap-tap…*
And inside him, that true name… rising, then crumbling back into ash.
At the word "Hushed," the woman's expression changed for the first time—just slightly. For a heartbeat, an old fatigue settled into her eyes. As if this wasn't a new problem. Only today's prey was new.
"So it's behind you," she said.
Kerrin said, "Yes. It was behind the grate. Maybe it can't get through—"
"Maybe," she cut in. "Candle stitching holds it back for a while. Not forever."
Then she looked at Lio. "And you," she said. "You opened the thread."
Lio wanted to say: *I had to.*
But he couldn't find a sentence for "had to." His mouth opened, and that same feeling returned—that some truths no longer pass through his throat. He only managed, "Yes."
The woman glanced toward the invisible bright filament hovering over the box, as if she could truly see it. "Sky-thread," she said very softly. "You're walking around holding fate in your hand."
Kerrin whispered, "Who are you?"
The woman pressed her lips together once, as if even giving a name was risky now. Then she said, "My name is Maera. Maera Sable."
Lio heard the name and something inside him gave a faint jolt, as if in the world of maps this name existed somewhere—then had been erased. *Sable.* Black. Ash. Smoke.
Maera drew a thin needle from her belt. It didn't look like a sewing needle—it looked like a weapon. She turned it near the candle flame, and a faint yellow reflection slid along the metal, as if the needle knew how to catch light.
"If you both want to stay alive," Maera said, "you'll come with me. And you—" she gestured to Lio's wrist, "—you won't open the thread without asking."
Kerrin began, "Why would you help us—"
"Because you came to my door," Maera said. "And because you saw the Candle's candle. Now you know this route exists. And those who know either get killed or get bound. I'm deciding right now which category you belong to."
She turned back toward the stone door—still open—and lifted her hand in a small motion. Lio saw it: her fingers turned in the air as if she were pressing a seam to "remember" it must stay shut.
The seam-line in the stone glimmered faintly, and the door began to close on its own.
Lio said in alarm, "Wait—Hushed—"
"Inside," Maera said. "Now."
All three of them went in.
The place was less a room than a narrow shelter. Stone walls, old cloth on the floor, a small water jar in the corner, and several candles—some burning, some extinguished. The air smelled of wax, smoke, and a medicinal bitterness.
On the wall was the Candle symbol carved in: the stitched circle with a small candle beneath it. Around it were other marks too—tiny stitch-signs, as if someone had built a protection pattern here, broken it, rebuilt it, again and again.
Maera held out her hand to Lio. "The box."
Lio shook his head, panicked. "It… won't come off."
Maera looked at his hand, then bent two fingers in the air without touching. "I know."
She moved her needle through the air—the tip coming near the mark on Lio's wrist—and for a moment Lio thought she was truly going to stitch his veins shut.
But Maera ran the needle not into his skin, but through the air *around* his skin. As if she wasn't touching the body, but the thread.
Lio felt the pull-line rising from his wrist loosen for a heartbeat. Just one breath. And in that breath his body felt lighter, as if someone had let go of his shoulder.
"I'm not cutting it," Maera said, as if she'd heard his thoughts. "I'm loosening it a little. If you cut it… what's attached won't just snap and fall. It'll spring—right into you."
Kerrin swallowed. "What's attached?"
Maera didn't answer. Sometimes she answered by not answering: *you know enough to be afraid.*
She looked at Lio's wrist again. "You've paid a price," she said.
Lio hesitated. "Taste… and… some sentences."
"Sentences," Maera repeated, as if it stung. "Your language is being stolen."
Lio nodded. The admission sat inside him like pain.
Maera lifted a candle and brought the flame close to Lio's hand—very close, without touching. Lio felt not the heat, only the light. Taste was gone; now even warmth sometimes felt like a lie.
"Look at the box," Maera said.
Lio looked: black metal, that thread-mark, and knocking from within.
Then Maera said, "The maps are showing you now, aren't they?"
Lio's breath caught. "How do you know—"
"Because it always starts like this," Maera said. "First the world points. Then the world pulls. Then the world claims you chose."
Kerrin said quietly, "Those maps… they were pulling toward him. All of them."
Maera looked at him. "You saw?"
Kerrin nodded, as if he didn't trust his own mind. "Yes."
"Then you're caught too," Maera said—and there was no accusation in it. Only fact.
She picked up a small cloth from beside the wall. A delicate stitched pattern covered it, like a net. She spread the cloth in the air and made a motion as if stitching it to the stone near the door—except she didn't stitch into stone. She stitched into air.
Lio saw it: the cloth didn't hang. It held in place, as if she had grabbed the air itself like fabric.
"What is that?" Kerrin asked.
"A Hem-seal," Maera said. "Not Candle's. Mine."
A small trust rose in Lio—and with it, fear too: this woman truly knew how threads moved.
In that moment, from outside—far down the tunnel—there came a faint "lessening." As if someone had stolen one more letter from the air.
Maera's face tightened. "It's here."
Kerrin whispered, "The grate—"
"The grate is a memory," Maera said. "The Hushed chews memories."
Lio's heart sank. "So it… can get in?"
"If it's reached this far," Maera said, "then little by little it can reach anywhere. It just needs time."
She spoke the word "time" as if time were an enemy.
The knocking inside the box sped up.
*Tap… tap-tap… tap-tap-tap…*
And with it, the pull returned at Lio's wrist—light but clear—like something above was reminding him he was still bound.
Maera looked straight into Lio's eyes. "You were in the Chart-Hall," she said. "Inspectors were there. The vault was open. And you… touched it."
Lio said softly, "It touched me."
Maera blinked for the first time. "Fine," she said. "Then it's even worse."
Kerrin, caught between anger and fear, snapped, "Why are you talking like that? Are you helping us or trying to scare us?"
Maera looked at Kerrin, and for the first time something personal entered her voice—small, but real. "I don't help because I'm kind," she said. "I help because I know what you don't know."
She gestured to Lio's wrist. "Your mark… that's the Needle's claim. And this—" she glanced at the box, "—this is the Knot."
Lio asked, "Knot?"
Maera hesitated, then chose a very limited truth. "Something that holds a thread in place. And whatever holds a thread can call anything connected to that thread."
"Like the maps," Kerrin said.
"Like the Inspectors," Maera said.
Lio whispered, "And like the Hushed."
Maera nodded. "Yes."
From outside—through the Hem-seal—came a rough, wordless *breath*. The candle flames shivered once. The air in the room grew heavy, as if someone had placed a hand over the space.
Lio recognized something in that breath: the same lessening, the same emptiness, the same "hunger for names."
Kerrin backed up to the wall. "It—it—"
Maera immediately raised her palm in front of Kerrin—not to block him, but to steady him. "Eyes down," she said. "Don't look at the Hushed too much. The more you look, the more it will look for a place inside you."
Lio reminded himself he had seen Kerrin's name slip near the Hushed. He lowered his gaze. But the box was in his hand, and the box seemed to be watching—its knocking kept rising.
Maera lifted her needle and began stitching a small pattern in the air before the Hem-seal. This wasn't stitching cloth; it was stitching air. Her fingers moved so fast Lio felt as if she were sewing an invisible garment that had always been there.
"Maera," Kerrin said softly—saying the name like it gave him courage. "What do we do?"
Without looking, Maera said, "You—" she pointed at Kerrin, "—watch the candle. Remember the flame. Count your breaths. And you—" she looked at Lio, "—calm the box."
Lio, frightened, asked, "How can I—"
"Don't open it," Maera said. "Don't cut it. Just… listen to it."
Lio listened to the knocking. It wasn't a message, but it wasn't just sound either. It was like an old door's habit—knocking to demand recognition.
He loosened his grip a little. Slowed his breathing. And felt the ash of that true name inside him—unable to speak, but present.
The knocking slowed for a moment.
*Tap… tap…*
And in that slowing, for the first time Lio felt something else from the box: a membrane-like layer between the box and the world. As if the box itself was bound by an oath.
Maera's needle stopped. She snapped her gaze to Lio. "You felt something."
Lio panted. "It's… closed. But… keeping itself closed."
"Good," Maera said. "Don't poke it."
Another breath came from outside. This time, on the Hem-seal cloth—stitched into the air—a faint whiteness appeared, as if cold had laid frost across it.
The cloth's stitching creaked.
Maera clenched her teeth. "It's searching for a thread inside."
Kerrin whispered, "Do we run?"
"We will," Maera said. "But first—" She turned to Lio. "You need to understand something. If you keep Unseaming, you'll lose yourself."
Lio said quietly, "And if I don't—"
"Then the world will bind you," Maera said. "And you'll never even know what you've lost."
As she spoke, the frost on the Hem-seal deepened. One tiny stitch snapped.
A *tack* came undone.
A cold shove of air entered the room, and all the candle flames dipped together.
In Lio's ears, in that instant, it wasn't the Chart-Hall's blue Hushfall that returned—it was the memory of Vault C's deep breath. And over it, somewhere far but clear, someone tried again to call that true name.
Maera's eyes went hard. "Don't listen inward," she warned Lio. "If you answer, it will pull you."
Lio pressed his lips together. But the knocking inside the box was no longer the knocking of a door.
It had become knocking from *inside*.
And at the broken stitch on the Hem-seal, a thin emptiness began to form—not human-shaped, just a small hole, as if something had put a finger into the room's seam.
Maera raised her needle, and this time she aimed straight at that hole—not to cut, but to stitch.
But from inside the hole came a new knocking—not from the box, but from beyond the wall—
*Tap… tap-tap…*
As if another "code" had recognized this room too.
And for the first time, an expression crossed Maera's face that Lio understood instantly:
This wasn't the Hushed.
This was something else—something that had followed them all the way to this place.