The darkness was complete—not in the sense that nothing could be seen, but as if the light had *decided to leave this place*.
For Leo, though, one thing still existed inside the dark: the mark on his wrist. It wasn't shining brightly, just enough that a faint line beneath the skin seemed alive. And the black box in his hand—the one he had pulled back to himself instead of leaving on the table—didn't feel cold. It felt *reluctant*. As if it didn't like being here.
The smell of Yara's snuffed lamp still hung in the air—burnt wax, and with it the strange afterimage of that white flame that had flashed like paper just before it went out.
The wall of names carved into stone, which until now had looked like nothing but stone, was now "breathing." A very slight rise and fall—like some enormous lung behind the wall. And with each breath, the carved letters glimmered faintly, then went dark again, as if the names themselves were afraid and clinging to one another.
Outside, beyond the stone, the oath-phrase had been completed:
"By order of the Dominion… the door will open *itself*."
And now the effect of that sentence was here—inside. It didn't feel like a shove. It felt like a *pull*, sinking into the seams of the room.
Maera had slowed her breathing so much that Leo thought she wasn't breathing at all. A needle sat in her hand, held midair as if someone had stitched it into time. Kerin pressed himself against the wall, both palms near his chest, as if he were holding his own name down against his body.
Yara stood still even in the dark. Her eyes—eyes Leo couldn't see—were still *felt*: like someone who knows how to read even without light. She produced a small candle—another one, hidden—and took out a flint to light it.
Maera whispered immediately, "No."
Yara replied just as softly, "If I don't make light, the door will open us like light."
She struck the flint. A small spark. Then another. On the third, the wick caught.
A yellow flame—very small—rose.
And in that instant, a faint knock came from beyond the stone, as if whatever was outside could "see" the change.
*Tap…*
Yara half-covered the flame with her palm so the light wouldn't spread through the room and reach the outside seam. In that small glow, Leo saw the wall of names properly for the first time: not letters carved into stone—*cut threads*. As if even stone had a weave.
And within that weave, one thread was now unmistakable—silver-like, rigid—running through the join in the wall. That thread was *of command*. The thread of the oath-phrase.
Something tightened in Leo's chest. It was the same feeling he'd had in Chart Hall—when the Inspector's notched rod had "read" the air. The only difference was that then he couldn't see it. Now he could.
He said softly, "A thread…"
Maera snapped her gaze to him. "Don't—"
Yara didn't cut Maera off, but her voice turned ice-cold. "Don't stop him. This isn't the time to hide it. You can see it, Leo?"
Leo nodded. "Yes."
Kerin asked, panicked, "What can you see?"
Leo wanted to answer: *the thread of command.*
But the word "command" lodged in his throat the moment it reached his mouth—like language itself reminding him he no longer owned very much.
He managed, "Something… from outside… opening us."
Yara said quietly, "The Dominion's vow-stitching."
Maera clenched her teeth. "They're not opening the door. They're making the room *obedient*."
Behind them—far off—that double presence remained as well: the creeping lack of the Hushed, and the measured cadence of the Inspectors, step by step. As if two different hunters had agreed on the same prey.
The wall of names breathed faster.
The stone seam—where a door should have been—shifted *slightly*.
Yara's face hardened. She pricked a finger near the candle flame. A bead of blood formed. She placed it on the stone join and smeared it into the Candle's sign—a stitched circle, with a small candle below.
"By the rule of Candle," Yara said very softly, as if writing with her breath, "this door will not open without a name."
The stone seam paused for a moment, as if the wall had heard her.
Then the faint rattle of a notched rod came again from outside, and someone answered with complete calm—not as words, but like an oath:
"The Dominion's name is sufficient."
It was the same "found you" voice—cold, measuring. Even without seeing the speaker, Leo felt the voice in *shape*: someone accustomed to giving orders.
The small charm hanging from the red cord on Yara's wrist trembled faintly. She said under her breath, "They won't argue. They'll just keep writing."
Maera looked at Leo. "If that door opens, they'll take you. And if the Hushed comes in, it will… make us *less*."
Kerin counted his breaths the way Yara had taught, then suddenly whispered, "So… do we—"
He didn't finish, because the stone seam began to slide again. This time it didn't pause—this time it insisted.
Leo watched the thread of command. It didn't come from the wall. It came from *words*—from the sentence spoken outside. And that thread was taking those words and stitching them into the stone, as if stone were a lawbook.
In that moment, Leo felt an odd clarity for the first time.
This thread can be *cut*.
Maera's warning rang in his ears: if you cut it, the price will be heavy. And "cutting" wasn't even the right word—it's opening, loosening a knot, unpicking a seam.
Unseaming.
Leo's hands rose on their own, like years of practice—though he had no years.
Yara shot him a look. "Leo, don't—"
Maera said the same, and this time fear lived behind her harshness. "You don't know where that thread goes."
Leo swallowed. "If I don't… they will."
The sentence came out somehow. Maybe because it was true, and truth hadn't fully left him yet.
The stone seam opened another inch.
No air came through that gap—a *rule* came through. As if the door had commanded the room's air to become like the air outside.
Leo brought not his finger—his wrist mark—near the thread of command, just near it. He didn't touch the thread. He "felt" it: where the tension was, where the knot was, where the word sat inside the stone.
He didn't even remember the words anymore—"Dominion… order…"—for him they weren't words now. They were tension and slack.
He made a very subtle motion.
He loosened the knot.
It felt as if someone pulled a thin membrane from behind his teeth. Not pain—just a small, private loss.
And with it, a memory inside him—very old—one that had only begun to return a few chapters ago—the childlike memory tapping that same rhythm at a door—collapsed into ash and fell away.
For an instant, Leo saw who that child was… and then nothing. Wall. Cold water. Empty space.
His heart sank.
The price.
But in the outside oath-stitching too, that same moment arrived: the thread of command went *slack* for a beat.
The door stopped.
The stone's breathing halted. The wall of names seemed to let out a tiny breath of relief.
Yara seized that moment immediately. She tipped the candle flame toward her blood-drawn Candle-sign, and her fingers moved fast in the air, drawing a circle—not a name-shadow, but something like a *name-pond*, where outside words would slip and fail to hold.
"Names are safe here," Yara breathed. "Orders won't stick here."
At the same time, Maera flicked her needle through the air—three quick stitches—and set a hem-seal along the edge of the door seam, like patching the back of torn cloth.
Their methods were different—Candle and Hem—but in this instant they were doing the same thing: *buying time*.
Kerin let out a tiny breath of relief—then stopped it at once, as if remembering that even breath can become thread.
Outside, beyond the stone, there was silence for a while.
Then that cold voice returned, closer now, and with the faintest smile—the smile of someone who has understood what the other side is doing.
"Good," the voice said. "So you unseam."
Leo's wrist mark flared, as if the voice had *seen* him.
And with it, another voice came from outside—a woman's voice, steady, familiar. The lead Inspector with the cropped hair.
"Leo Ravel," she said, pronouncing it as if a name were a document. "Hiding under Candle doesn't put you outside the law."
Yara's fingers trembled for a moment. She whispered, "They said his name."
Maera's jaw tightened. "They're using it as an anchor."
The instant Leo heard his own name, he felt a strange jolt—like someone outside had hammered a hook into his chest. It wasn't like magic; it was like *law*.
The lead Inspector spoke again, calm, explanatory, as if mercy were also part of procedure.
"We don't want to hurt anyone," she said. "Put the box outside. You come out. Candle won't be harmed."
Kerin's eyes widened. "That's a li—"
He said the word "lie," and the candle flame wavered for a beat. Yara immediately put her hand in front of the flame to steady it.
Maera shot Kerin a sharp look. "Careful with words here," she whispered. "This place remembers words."
Leo listened to the voice outside and to the knocking within.
The knocking from inside the box was quiet now—muted by the calm-hem—but its rhythm had changed. As if the box, too, was listening to those outside.
*Tap… tap…*
And within that quietness, Leo felt something new: the thread from his wrist wasn't only pulling upward anymore. It began to spread *in every direction*, as if this place—the wall of names—had caught the thread and begun to read it.
The wall of names and the box—both recognize each other.
Yara felt it too, because she suddenly looked at Leo. Fear returned to her eyes—but this time she wasn't afraid of Leo. She was afraid of the *connection* she could see.
"Your thread…" Yara said very softly, "it's kissing this wall."
Maera cut in at once, "Not now."
"Now," Yara said sharply, "because if the wall reads him, it will write him too. And what gets written as a name… is not easy to erase."
Leo gasped, "Write? What?"
Yara didn't answer. She only pointed at the thousands of names carved into the wall—and then at the box. The meaning was clear:
This place keeps names. That thing pulls names.
And the people outside have come to steal them.
Beyond the stone, the cold voice—the one that had said "Good, so you unseam"—spoke again. This time the words were short, exact, as if choosing the correct sentence.
"By order of the Dominion," he said very clearly, "whatever is unauthorized within this room… will *reveal itself*."
With that sentence, the room's air jolted, as if the words had thrown a hook into the air.
Yara's name-circle shuddered. Maera's hem-seal rattled—not cloth stitched in air, but the stitching of the air itself.
And inside Leo—where the ash of his true name lay—a tug came, as if someone had stirred the ash with a fingertip.
That "reveal" wasn't a word. It was a command—and the command became a thread and went straight into him.
Leo tried to hold himself back. *Leo Ravel,* he repeated in his mind. Hold the rope. Hold the rope.
But the rope was slipping. Because the outside order wasn't grabbing his rope—it was grabbing the ash of that true name that Leo himself couldn't speak.
Yara suddenly reached out and—very lightly—set her fingers near Leo's wrist, without touching the mark. There was no warmth in her touch, but there was *steadiness*. Like she'd reminded him he was still a body, not just a thread.
"Don't let go," Yara whispered. "Whatever it is, don't let it reach your tongue."
At the same moment, Maera lifted her needle and stitched a small pattern in the air over Leo—a hem-veil, trying to blunt not words, but the edge of *revealing*.
Kerin said under his breath, "What… what do we do?"
Maera looked at him. "Don't look at the door. And if I tell you, you'll pick up the box and run."
For a moment protest flashed across Kerin's face—*why me?*—then he swallowed it and nodded. Maybe he understood too: in this room, the greatest danger was Leo, and the greatest target was him as well.
Outside, the knocking returned—double.
One rhythm belonged to the Inspectors.
And the other… to the Hushed, which doesn't knock, but beats as absence.
At the edge of the wall, in one corner of the room, a carved name began to blur faintly—like someone rubbing ink away with dirt—though it was stone, not ink.
Yara's breath caught. "No…"
Maera whispered, "What happened?"
Yara didn't answer. She only stared at that fading name—and for the first time, Leo saw something on her face larger than training: private fear. As if the name wasn't a stranger's. As if it belonged to someone she couldn't lose.
And in that moment, the command to "reveal" tightened again, and Leo's wrist mark flared bright—like someone had yanked the thread and turned it into warp.
Leo heard a name—not with his ears, but from within—the true name, clearer now, as if letters were emerging from the ash.
His throat began to open on its own.
Yara's fingers tightened around his wrist—the first time her hold became firm. "No," she said, and this "no" wasn't an oath, wasn't a request—it was *protection*.
Leo clenched his teeth. He bit his tongue so the word wouldn't escape. A metallic taste—no, not taste—just the sensation of injury.
And at that exact moment, beyond the stone, the door's seam gave a *creak*—very faint—like a stitch finally snapping.
The wall of names took a deep breath.
And in the middle of the wall, where there was no door… a thin line began to open by itself—straight in the same wrong way lines are drawn on maps.
The line was opening inward.
Into their room.
And beyond that opening line, in the dark, someone exhaled a laugh—neither the Hushed's, nor the Inspectors'—a third presence, held back by no rule at all.
Then, with that breath, came a whisper, as if from beneath the stone cloth:
"Needle… at last."