That voice from ahead in the corridor—the one that had called Leo by his true name—didn't settle on the stone. It settled inside Leo, as if someone had slipped a thread between his ribs and pulled.
"Come here."
This command wasn't Dominion's. Dominion's language has procedure—dry law, clean edges. This wasn't like that. This command was… **recognition**. As if someone wasn't calling you so much as *remembering* you.
Leo's throat began to open on its own. His tongue moved forward—like hunger. His eyes went wide. The rope of "Ravel" started to slip inside him, and beneath it that ash—what he could not speak—suddenly rose as fire.
Maera caught his chin and forced it down. One sharp motion. "No," she said. "Don't answer."
Her "no" wasn't an oath, not a technique—only an experienced person's final rule: when someone calls you by your true name and your mouth starts to open, then **your mouth is no longer yours**.
Yara was beside Leo, the small flame pressed into her palm. She was counting breath—one, two, three—but the count no longer had its old smoothness. Between each number there was a tiny tear, as if there were a hole somewhere in her memory and the air kept leaking out through it.
Kerin didn't look back. He was looking forward—and still his face showed what was behind. Hushed's lack was seeping through cracks. The air wasn't losing words; it was losing space. And the gray light of the vault behind them—beyond the sealed crack—was still writing.
The mark on Leo's wrist flared hot, as if someone had turned the needle inside him toward the direction of "listening."
Then the voice came again. The same true name. Whole. Clean. And with it a feeling like the caller knew Leo could hear:
"Don't be late."
Leo clenched his teeth. His tongue retreated behind them again. He held tight to "Ravel" inside himself—but the word was thin. A grip like a finger on wet stone. And inside him, a fear rose that couldn't become words—only trembled:
*If I go… will I come back? And if I don't go… will I remain?*
Maera yanked him forward. "Move," she said. "We keep moving. Not toward the voice—toward the route."
"The route?" Kerin whispered. There was exhaustion in his voice, and with it that new line of fear: fear of sentences breaking.
Without slowing, Maera said, "This place is made of threads. Here, 'voice' isn't a route. Here, 'direction' is the route."
"And direction… can be the map's wrong line too," Yara said softly—her sentence came out whole, but she startled at the sound of her own words, as if she'd remembered she could still speak.
Maera shot her a sharp look—acceptance and caution both. "Yes," she said. "So we won't walk by eyes. We'll walk by **tension**."
Leo felt it: Maera was reading the fine stresses in the air that other people mistake for "fear." It wasn't fear. It was stitching.
They moved on. The corridor was dry, and the raised scars on the walls looked like someone had rubbed names away. In places, thin black lines showed on the stone—like burned seams—remnants of old marks. Every time Leo saw one, he remembered: marks become doors.
Behind them came a light *tap… tap-tap…*—not on the drain wall, but like the heartbeat of the vault network keeping pace. The rhythm wasn't pursuit. It was **time**—like a clock striking.
Then Kerin suddenly stopped and said, "Maera… I can still see a few lines."
Maera stopped and looked at him. "Where?"
Kerin pointed ahead, where the corridor split into two—one path descending to the left, the other climbing to the right. "On the left—threads… are smooth. Like someone combed them. On the right—threads are broken. Scattered. Like… no one's safe there."
Yara whispered, "Smooth threads… are often oaths."
Maera decided instantly. "Then we won't take the smooth threads."
"But the voice…" Kerin began, and even he felt that saying "voice" could be a snare. He changed it, only nodded forward—toward the left.
Leo felt it too: the voice was coming from the left. From the exact direction where the threads had been "ironed." Where someone had made the place *clean*.
Yara inhaled. "It… could be a trap."
Maera said, "Yes."
And then, as if the trap had heard their understanding, the voice came again—so close that the ash inside Leo jolted:
"Here."
Leo's body leaned an inch to the left all by itself. The lean wasn't speech, but it was the same "yes" the ink waits for—acceptance, yielding.
Maera smacked his shoulder hard—not pain, waking. "Not Leo," she whispered, then corrected herself, "Ravel—keep your feet *yours*. The thread wants to borrow them."
Leo squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to turn his feet to the right—and the attempt itself became a price. A small emptiness opened in his chest, and suddenly he couldn't remember how long Kerin had been his rival. Years of fighting blurred in a single moment, as if someone had cut the edge off that memory.
The loss was small, but enough to shake him:
*I'm losing even my grudges.*
The path to the right climbed, and the dry paper-scent in the air grew stronger. Somewhere far off, there was also a faint trace of candle smoke—not Candle's, something else, like someone had lit a candle and quickly snuffed it.
Behind them—a cold reduction—grew worse. Hushed's presence was no longer "audible" in the corridor; it was only making things *less*. As if the stone walls behind them had turned slightly thinner.
Yara moved her palm a little forward beside Leo—flame hidden—and spoke the breathing pattern. It wasn't a seal, only a **focus**—an attempt to pull Leo's breath back to his own body.
"Breath," Yara said. "With me."
Leo breathed with her—one, two—and with that breath the fire of the true name inside him slipped back a little. Not fully. Just enough that it wasn't on his mouth yet.
And then—
At the bend on the right-hand path, a small opening appeared in the stone: an alcove—but not an ordinary one. Its edge was clean, as if someone had used it recently. Inside there was no small Candle mark; there was a stitched circle, and beneath it a thin line like a needle. The same needle-sign.
Maera stopped. Her eyes narrowed. "Someone made a way here."
Kerin panted, "I… can't see threads there. Like… the threads are hiding."
Yara asked softly, "Hidden threads… belong to whom?"
Maera didn't answer. She only raised her needle into the air and placed a small test-stitch near the alcove's threshold. The air reacted—very faintly—as if the stone recognized her.
From inside the alcove the voice came. This time not an order, but a whisper—very personal:
"I always find you."
Inside Leo, ash caught fire. His throat opened by itself. His lips moved—and Maera immediately pressed a finger to Leo's mouth. Hard, steady.
"Not a single word," she said.
Yara's eyes widened. "It… knows you."
Maera said very softly, "It knows names. And those who know names are either Candle… or hunters."
Kerin said, frightened, "Then we—?"
"We won't open it," Maera said. "We pass it. And if it tries to stop us…"
She didn't finish the sentence, but the tip of her needle finished it for her: she would cut, whatever the cost.
They passed the alcove's edge. Leo deliberately didn't look toward it. But his skin looked. His wrist-mark recognized it. And with that recognition, his breath flipped for a beat—like his body had changed direction.
From inside the alcove, the true name was called again—this time loud, hard:
"Stop."
Leo's feet stopped—truly. As if someone had stitched his heel to the stone. He didn't start to fall; he simply froze. The command wasn't a word. It was **thread**.
Maera grabbed his arm and yanked. "No," she said under her breath. "This is thread—not vow. It can be broken."
Leo shook and tried to ask, "How—"
And the word died halfway. The bridge after "how" broke inside him. Only empty air came out.
Maera snapped her needle through the air—one small, perfectly placed stitch of *slack*—and the tightness around Leo's feet softened for a heartbeat. She hadn't cut the knot; she'd loosened it. Leo's feet began moving again.
But with that slack, Maera closed her eyes for a moment. Her face stayed hard, but her breath stumbled by a fraction—as if she had **given** something.
Yara saw it. "You—"
"Later," Maera said sharply. "Not now."
From inside the alcove came a breath like laughter—soft, cruel. "Keep running," the voice said. "But your name… won't run with you."
Cold sweat broke on Leo at that line, because it wasn't metaphor. It was a direct threat: his name could be taken from him.
They kept moving. The corridor bent again, then sloped down. Dampness returned to the air—drainage, stone-sweat. And with it came another jolt from behind: Hushed stepped again. The air's reduction deepened, and Leo felt something sliding even inside the word "Ravel."
Yara suddenly stopped and put her hand to the wall. She changed the breathing pattern and spread a small name-ring into the air. "Not here," she whispered. "Here… memories are thin."
"Why?" Kerin asked, and the question came out whole—but his voice trembled, as if even asking was risky now.
Yara tried to answer, but her words slipped. She only managed, "This place… erases."
Maera looked ahead—and her face hardened at once. In the dark in front of them, there was a thin line of light—not gray, not yellow—only a pale slit, like someone had cracked the stone.
And above the slit, on the stone, the same seal: Dominion's eye over the stitched circle.
Another door.
"This…?" Kerin started, and his word fell into the air unfinished. He swallowed. "Again…"
"Yes," Maera said very softly. "The vault network. It's turning us in circles."
Yara asked, panicked, "Is it the same vault?"
Maera shook her head. "I don't know. But whatever it is… it speaks Dominion's language."
Leo's wrist-mark flared hot—as if it recognized the door. And with it, from far behind, there came a kind of bursting pulse of gray light—as if back in Vault C, the ink after "Needle…" had surged again, and the writing was now reaching this corridor through threads.
Leo understood suddenly: the vault wasn't only writing. It was **spreading**.
Then from beyond the door ahead came the same voice—the same true name—this time quiet, very close, as if someone were standing just on the other side and the door was only pretending to be stone:
"Here… it's safe."
Maera's jaw tightened. "Lie," she said—and it wasn't a lie of words, it was a lie of **thread**. "Safe places don't call you by your true name."
Kerin clutched the box tighter. The small mark on its surface went warm again. Shaking, he said, "So… where do we go?"
Behind them the air grew thinner. Hushed was close. Very close—inside their breathing.
And ahead were two things:
- a door marked with Dominion's eye,
- and a voice that spoke Leo's true name as easily as if it owned it.
Maera looked at Leo for one second. There was no command in her eyes, only bitter truth:
*This isn't choosing. This is choosing what you lose.*
She raised her needle and placed a small test-stitch in the air near the door's stitching. The stone answered faintly, as if the door was *already* open.
"It's one-way," Maera whispered. "Like the last one."
Yara's breath sped up. "So if we go—"
"Then no coming back," Maera said.
And in that moment, from behind, a cold reduction touched their shoulders—like someone had tasted their name out of the air.
Yara's flame flashed white. Kerin's sentence broke. And inside Leo, the rope of "Ravel" slipped for a heartbeat—so much he felt he might fall.
From beyond the door ahead, the voice called again—no longer gentle, now **urgent**:
"Now!"
And Leo felt his body beginning to lean toward that door on its own—without decision, without words—as if an invisible hand had seized him by his true name and was pulling.
Maera clamped his arm—but for the first time it felt like even Maera's grip might not be enough.
Because with that lean, far behind, Vault C's ink finally completed the next letter after "Needle…"—and that letter stabbed through threads into Leo's wrist, like a fresh stitch driven in.
The mark on Leo's wrist flared, blinding.
And the iron of the door—without any hand—drew a breath and began to open by itself.