A frost-like whiteness was spreading across the hem-seal cloth. This cold wasn't from the room—this was *lack*, as if someone had begun to slowly drain meaning out of the air.
Maera's needle moved toward the torn stitch—to mend it—but at that very moment a new knock came from the other side of the wall, stopping her hand midair.
*Tap… tap-tap…*
This rhythm wasn't like the Hushed. With the Hushed, the "subtraction" never turned into knocking—it simply made things *less*. This knocking… was human. Human stubbornness, human habit: knocking on a door, announcing oneself, demanding an answer.
Kerin whispered, "Someone else is here."
Leo pressed the box to his chest. The knocking inside it slowed for an instant, as if it had heard the outside knocking too. Then the thread around his wrist tightened slightly—reminding him he was still "bound."
Without looking back, Maera said, "Both of you. Quiet."
She traced a tiny circle in the air with the needle—an extremely small loop—and set a new stitch along the edge of the tear. The seam tightened again for a few seconds. The frost remained, but it stopped advancing. As if someone had paused the cold for a heartbeat.
Then the outside knock again—this time slightly different:
*Tap… tap… tap-tap… tap…*
Maera blinked. For the first time, real worry showed on her face. "This…" she muttered, then swallowed the word, as if she was afraid to speak it.
Kerin asked softly, "Who is it?"
Maera set the needle down and brought her fingers near the candle flame—not to warm them, just to make them clean in the light. "This isn't the Hushed," she said. "This is the Dominion's language."
Cold spread through Leo's stomach. "An inspector?"
"Or someone who knows their patterns," Maera said. "And who doesn't 'respect' Candle doors."
A breath of cold came again from beyond the hem-seal. The hole near the torn stitch was still there—tiny, but present—like someone had pierced the cloth with a needle-tip and was now trying to push a finger through.
Leo swallowed. "He's inside—"
"The Hushed come slowly," Maera said. "But inspectors… they come fast."
Her eyes swept the room—candles, water, the wall-seam, and Leo's hand. Then her gaze locked on the box, and her lips hardened for a moment.
"Because of you, both directions woke up," she said—not like an accusation, like a fact. "An emptiness—and an order."
Kerin whispered angrily, "It's not his fault—"
Maera looked at him, and Kerin's sentence fell quiet on its own. Still, Maera replied, "I'm not assigning blame. I'm looking for a way."
Outside came another knock—now perfectly regular, as if someone had turned rhythm into *law*:
*Tap… tap-tap… tap… tap…*
Maera said very softly, "They're close."
A terrible thought rose in Leo: up in Chart Hall, maps were showing him. Down here, threads were pulling him. And now inspectors were hunting him too. As if the whole world had decided he was the "subject," and everyone else was the "witness."
Kerin asked under his breath, "This door of yours… will it stop them?"
"Some time," Maera said at once. Then, after a beat, she added, "If they're who I think they are, not much time."
She turned to the wall, picked up a candle, and set it against the stone where no door could be seen—only a fine seam-line in the rock. The flame held steady—as if this place *liked* flame.
"This is Candle's route," Maera said. "And the rule of Candle's route is—save the name."
Inside Leo, his true name stirred like ash. As if, hearing that sentence, the name itself became uneasy.
Maera looked at Leo. "Who will hold your name?"
Leo opened his mouth, but no words came. He wanted to say: *I don't know.*
But he was afraid that even saying "I don't know" could be taken from him.
Kerin cut in. "We… we'll hold it. I—"
Maera looked at him, and this time there was a small bitter irony in her eyes. "You?" she asked. "Can you even keep hold of your own name right now?"
Kerin's jaw tightened, but he didn't lie. He only said, "I'll try."
Maera gave a slight nod, as if the answer was acceptable—because it was honest.
Then she brought her hand near Leo's wrist—didn't touch, just close. "And you," she said, "listen. The thread will pull you. The inspectors will bind you. The Hushed will empty you. You're in the middle."
Leo whispered, "So what do I do?"
Maera watched the candle flame for a moment, then said, "You *stay*. And whatever you do—don't do it without a price."
With that she pulled a small scrap of cloth from her wrap—very small, palm-sized—embroidered with a fine circular pattern, like not an eye, but a closed knot. She placed it above Leo's box—without touching—and stitched four times in the air.
The cloth hung in the air. As if she had made the air into a hook.
The knocking inside the box slowed sharply.
*Tap… tap…*
Leo said, stunned, "That—"
"Quiet-hem," Maera said. "Not fully—just enough that it won't drive you mad, and it won't give the ones calling you an overly clear signal."
Kerin asked immediately, "Then how are they finding us?"
Maera looked at him. "Because you came from the building of maps," she said. "And because there's a knot in his hand. And because there was a hushfall up there. This isn't smoke. This is thread."
Outside, knocking hit the wall again—very close now. And with it came a different sound too—thin metal—like a rod, or a bone-like thing, lightly "reading" the stone.
Pressure built behind Leo's eyes. The same sensation he'd felt in Chart Hall, when the inspector had swung the notch-rod. This was the same technique—or a cousin of it.
Maera clenched her teeth. "They brought a rod."
Kerin whispered, "So it's the same inspector—"
"Maybe," Maera said. "Or someone else. But listen—if this place opens, they won't step straight into the room. First they'll make an oath. Then they'll ask questions. Then they'll order you to move. And orders… often go all the way inside, like thread."
Leo remembered the knot in his throat. He remembered the empty-handed inspector who couldn't speak. *I had… turned him inside out.*
He couldn't fit that truth into a sentence anymore. As if the truth was inside him, but language had slipped out of his hands.
Suddenly Maera pointed at Kerin's forehead. "You," she said. "Repeat your full name in your mind. Slowly. Breathe on each word."
Kerin closed his eyes. "Kerin… Vel…"
"And you," Maera looked at Leo, "you can't speak your true name. So hold onto your *false* name. Leo Ravel. Hold it like a rope."
In his mind Leo repeated: *Leo… Ravel… Leo… Ravel…*
With each repetition something inside him shifted—then settled like ash. But the rope-like feeling remained. He held it, because letting go meant falling—vanishing.
Maera pressed her palm to the seam-line in the stone wall and moved her fingers in a small pattern. This was the "door"—Candle's—but she wasn't using Candle's permission. She was forcing it with her hem-technique.
The seam-line glimmered faintly, and part of the wall seemed to "remember" and loosen.
"Come," Maera said. "One by one."
Kerin asked, panicked, "Where?"
Maera didn't answer. She simply slid a finger into the seam— and the stone opened like a rip in cloth. Inside was a narrow staircase, not going upward—going *elsewhere*. Air flowed from it, cold, but not Hushed-cold. This was the cold of stone and earth.
Leo took the first step—and in that moment the thread at his wrist snapped tight, as if someone from far above shouted: *Don't go. Come back.*
His body jerked backward for a beat. The box's inner knocking sped up, despite the quiet-hem.
Maera immediately lifted her needle and made a small stitch in the air above Leo's wrist. The thread didn't go fully slack, but the direction of the pull *broke*—as if the rope hadn't been cut, only slipped around a post.
Leo gasped. "You—?"
"Changed the route," Maera said. "Not a true cut. Just cleverness. And cleverness doesn't always work."
All three went down the stairs. Behind them the stone door began to close by itself—the seam knitting back together.
And at that exact moment, from the outside—where they'd been—came a sharp *tap*, as if someone struck that same stone with the tip of a rod at the moment the seam was sealing.
Fear jolted through Leo. *They've reached the door.*
Before it fully shut, another cold breath slipped in through the torn stitch—Hushed breath. And with it came something that made Leo's hair rise:
A faint, wordless "laugh"—as if the emptiness was enjoying the game.
Then the door closed, and the small world of shelter was left behind.
The stairs were narrow. Walls close enough that shoulders scraped. Maera led—fast, quiet. Kerin in the middle, trying to control his breathing. Leo behind, one hand on the wall, the other holding the box, and the pulling thread at his wrist—its end still tied to something somewhere above, somewhere far away.
After a few turns the stairs opened into an old corridor. The air here smelled more strongly of candles. Small Candle-marks were carved into the stone. Along the walls—like a graveyard's library—stood thin wooden shelves.
There were no books on them.
There were ledgers. Thick, ash-gray leather books. Books of names.
Something trembled inside Leo—not fear, recognition. As if an old rule was written into his bones: *Names live here.*
Kerin said softly, "This… a monastery?"
Maera whispered, "This is Candle's lower route. Not the monastery—the monastery's belly."
As she walked, she picked up a candle and set it into a small niche in the wall. The flame stayed steady. That steadiness was this place's "welcome."
Then—very far behind—the second kind of knocking was heard again. Through stone, but clear:
*Tap… tap-tap…*
And with it, the Hushed lack too—slow, like water seeping under a wall.
Kerin whispered, "They followed us…"
"Yes," Maera said. "And now they're inside Candle's belly. That means either… Candle allowed them in, or they learned the way through Candle's stitching."
Leo looked at the box. The quiet-hem cloth still hung in the air, but its edge trembled faintly, as if the box inside was leaning against it—pushing.
Leo repeated "Leo Ravel" again inside his head. But at that moment one ledger—on the nearest shelf—opened by itself.
Pages began turning without wind—slowly, then faster—like an invisible finger searching for the right place.
Leo's heart sank. "Maera—"
Maera spun and looked. Her eyes went first to the ledger, then to Leo's wrist-thread. "Don't look," she said. "Don't read."
But the pages had stopped.
Ink began to rise on one page by itself—very thin, very fresh—the same way it had surfaced on the rough paper in Chart Hall. Letters were forming. Someone's name was being written.
Leo couldn't read it—or the moment he did, his mind couldn't hold it—like the letters were forbidden to him. Still, his true name echoed inside him, and this time the echo tightened his throat, as if the world had given him an order: *Remember.*
Maera raised her needle and drove a quick, brutal stitch through the air above the ledger—like she was sewing the words shut. The letters froze for an instant. Then the ink spread, and the name began to blur—*erasing*, as if someone had dissolved it in water.
But before it vanished, another thing surfaced on the page—a straight, wrong line.
That same line.
The one that was on the maps.
The one that was coming toward Leo.
And now… the line was on the page of the names-ledger, its arrow pointing forward—into the depth of the corridor.
Behind them the knocking came closer.
*Tap… tap-tap…*
And this time, between the knocks, a very slow, very clear word came too—as if someone beyond the stone murmured:
"Fo…und…"
Maera's face hardened. She grabbed Leo's arm—she truly touched him for the first time—and whispered into his ear:
"Now even Candle isn't hiding you. Now even Candle is showing you."
And in that moment, one of the candles farther down the corridor—without any wind—snuffed itself out.