The scratching in the wall started an hour before dawn. Wren lay on the narrow cot, the rough wool blanket pulled to his chin, and listened. It was not the familiar scuttling of a mouse or the heavier scratch of a rat. This was lighter, a rapid-fire series of taps and sibilant hisses , like dry leaves skittering across pavement. It came from behind the crumbling plaster of the eastern wall, the one that butted against the overgrown hulk of the old conservatory. Sleep, already a fitful stranger since his arrival at Station Omega, retreated completely. He sat up, the cot groaning in protest. The single window of his quarters was a pale grey rectangle, showing nothing of the Thornwood beyond but a smudge of darker shadow against the lightening sky. The air carried the perpetual scent of damp stone and the green, loamy breath of the garden outside. But beneath that, the scratching persisted. Skritch-tap-hiss. Skritch-tap-hiss. Pulling on his trousers and boots, Wren moved with deliberate quiet. He took the small utility torch from his pack, its beam a tight, white circle. The walls of the cottage were thick, old stone plastered over many times, the surface uneven and cracked like a dried riverbed. He pressed his ear to the plaster near his bedside table, the stone cold against his skin. The sound was louder here, a frantic, microscopic industry. Not a rat. Definitely not a mouse. His fingers traced the cracks, seeking a seam or a hole. Near the floor, where the plaster had flaked away entirely, he found a gap no wider than his thumb. The beam of his torch illuminated a tunnel of dust and ancient spider silk, leading back into the dark space between the stones. The scratching was emanating from somewhere further inside, muffled but distinct. Curiosity, that persistent itch that had guided him into more trouble than pragmatism ever would, took hold. He wedged the pry bar from his tool kit into a wider crack a foot higher, the metal groaning against the ancient mortar. A chunk of plaster the size of his fist came away with a puff of white dust, revealing the rough, dark stones beneath. The gap was now large enough to see a sliver of the wall’s interior. A waft of air, cool and smelling of dry earth and something else, something faintly sweet and electric, like ozone after a lightning strike, flowed out. He widened the hole further, the sound of crumbling mortar loud in the quiet morning. Finally, he could fit his hand and the torch inside. The beam swept across a hollow space, a natural cavity within the thickness of the wall. And there, nestled in a cup of shredded bark, dried moss, and what looked like spun moonlight, was the source. It was a nest. But no bird had built it. The structure was impossibly intricate, a woven sphere of silvery threads that seemed to catch his light and throw it back in faint rainbows. Within the nest, curled together in a pile of delicate limbs and shimmering film, were four creatures. They were humanoid in shape, but no larger than his hand from wrist to fingertip. Their skin was the pale green of new shoots, their hair a shock of white or pale gold. But it was their wings that stole his breath. Folded against their backs, they were like the casings of dragonflies, translucent and etched with a filigree of veins. In the torchlight, they refracted the beam, throwing tiny, dancing specks of cyan, magenta, and gold across the stones. The largest, perhaps five inches tall, stirred. Its wings fluttered, a sound like fine silk tearing. Wren froze, his hand still inside the wall. The creature’s eyes opened. They were large, black, and held no pupil, just an endless depth that reflected his own startled face in miniature. A sharp, terrified thought, not a voice but a feeling, pierced his mind: DANGER. INTRUDER. COLD. He withdrew his hand slowly, setting the torch on the floor, its beam aimed into the cavity. The four creatures were awake now, a tangle of limbs and wings. They made no sound, but the air around the nest vibrated with their panic. He could feel it as a physical prickle against his skin, a high-frequency thrum that set his teeth on edge. They were pixies. He had heard the Old Folk in the settlement at the edge of the wood speak of them, dismissing them as legends, pretty trifles to frighten children. Here they were, real and terrified, living inside the walls of his temporary home. “Easy,” he whispered, the word feeling clumsy and loud. “I’m not going to hurt you.” The thought-spike of fear lessened, but was replaced by a frantic, buzzing confusion. Big. Stone. Moves. Scared. He needed to show them he wasn't a threat. Slowly, deliberately, he reached for his pack. He pulled out a piece of the hard, honey-oat ration he’d saved from breakfast. The thought formed, not with the clarity of the pixies’ projection, but he pushed it outward as best he could, focusing on the image of breaking the bread, of sharing. Food. Friend. The largest pixie, the one with the white hair, tilted its head. Its wings buzzed, lifting it a fraction of an inch from the nest. It stretched out a hand no bigger than Wren’s little finger, its digits long and impossibly slender. A thread of silver light, finer than a spider’s silk, shot from its fingertips and wrapped around the corner of the ration bar he held. With a delicate tug, it drew a crumb toward the nest. The crumb landed on the rim. The pixie darted forward, snatched it, and retreated. It placed the morsel in its mouth. The effect was immediate. The thrum of panic subsided, replaced by a curious, tentative warmth. Not predator. Not cold stone. Warm. Food-giver. Wren let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The tension in his shoulders eased. He broke off a larger piece and placed it on the floor just outside the hole. Two of the smaller pixies, their wings a pale green and amber, crept forward. They moved with a skittering, insectoid quickness, their eyes fixed on him. They snatched the offering and fled back to the safety of the nest, their wings a blur of motion. He stayed there, sitting cross-legged on the cold floor, watching the silent ballet. The light from the torch cast long shadows, and the pixies’ wings threw constellations of color on the wall. He felt a strange sense of privilege, and a deep, aching loneliness. These fragile, magical beings had chosen this forgotten corner, this crumbling wall, as their sanctuary. And he, the interloper, the weary traveler seeking a new beginning, had stumbled upon their hidden world. The white-haired pixie, the apparent leader, finished the crumb and stood at the edge of the nest. It looked at him, its black eyes unblinking. Then it looked at the conservatory door, visible through his own doorway, the one he hadn’t been able to open since his arrival, its hinges fused with rust and time. The thought it sent was clearer this time, more focused. It held an image of the tangled, overgrown garden beyond, and a feeling of deep, ancestral sorrow. Sick. The green is sick. We are fading. Understanding dawned on Wren, cold and sharp. The whispers he’d heard from the settlement, the tales of the Thornwood’s slow decay, weren’t just stories. They were a diagnosis. And here were the canaries in the coal mine, these delicate creatures already feeling the illness in their bones, their magic intertwined with the health of the wood. Their nest was not just a home; it was a barometer. He looked from the pixies to the sealed conservatory door. His mission here, assigned by the distant authorities of the Grid, had been simple: assess the station, report on the viability of re-establishing an outpost. But the wood, the cottage, and now these whispering, winged refugees, were pulling him into a much older, more complex story. The white-haired pixie stepped forward again. It reached into the nest and retrieved something. It was a seed, no bigger than a peppercorn, but it pulsed with a soft, internal light, a faint green glow. The pixie held it out to him, its tiny arm extended. The thought was a plea, clear as a spoken word. Heal. Help the Root. Please. Wren looked at the glowing seed in the creature’s palm, then at the sealed door and the sick garden beyond. The weight of this small, desperate offering settled in his chest. His weariness, the fatigue of the long journey and the lonely nights, receded, replaced by a sharp, clear sense of purpose. He reached out, his finger and thumb gentle as he could manage, and took the seed. It was warm to the touch, vibrating with a faint life that resonated up his arm. The pixie released its prize and scurried back, its wings folding tight. The four of them watched him, their collective gaze heavy with a hope that felt more burdensome than any pack. He closed his hand around the seed, its gentle pulse a steady rhythm against his skin. The scratching in the walls had stopped. In its place was a profound silence, filled only by the distant call of a nightjar and the soft, synchronized breathing of the four small beings who had just placed their world, or a fragment of it, into his hands. The first light of dawn finally crested the trees, casting long, golden fingers through the conservatory’s broken panes and illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air like sparks from a dying fire. The seed’s warm pulse against Wren’s skin seemed to answer the dawn light. He unclenched his fist, staring at the tiny, glowing orb now nestled in his palm. Its light was a steady, living green, like sunlight through a new leaf. As he watched, the largest of the pixies, the one with the frayed wing edge, made a soft chirping sound. It did not move toward the door, but instead turned and glided deeper into the shadowed recesses of the conservatory, behind a collapsed row of rotting planting benches. The other three hovered, their wings a suspended hum. Their dark, gemstone eyes were fixed on him, not with the desperate pleading of moments before, but with an air of careful expectation. Follow, their stillness said. This is not the only gift. Wren took a step, his boot dislodging a shard of broken terracotta that skittered across the stone floor. The sound was startlingly loud. He followed the lead pixie, navigating around a mountain of damp, fallen plaster and the skeletal remains of a once-magnificent tree fern. The air here was thicker, carrying the deep, loamy scent of decay and the faint, sweet tang of damp earth. Sunlight reached only in thin, angled bars, illuminating dust and tiny, drifting spores. The pixie hovered before a section of the wall where the decorative tiles had fallen away, revealing the rough stone beneath. It reached out with a hand no bigger than his thumbnail and traced a pattern in the grime, a simple, looping spiral. As its fingertip moved, Wren felt a faint vibration through the soles of his boots, a low hum that was more feeling than sound. The stone it had traced glowed with a pale, honey-colored light for a moment before fading. With a soft click , a section of the stone, roughly the size of a dinner plate, receded inward and then slid sideways, revealing a small, dark cavity. The pixie turned back to him, its tiny chest puffing out. It gestured with a sharp, downward motion of its head. Look. Wren knelt, the damp chill of the stone floor seeping through the knee of his trousers. The cavity was shallow, lined with what looked like dried moss. Resting inside was a chunk of honeycomb, but not like any he had seen. The wax was a deep, translucent amber, and the cells were filled not just with honey, but with a substance that shimmered with its own faint, internal light, the same warm gold as the pixie’s gesture. The scent that rose from it was intoxicating: a complex blend of wild thyme, lavender, and something deeper, mineral and ancient. It smelled like the sun-warmed earth of a forgotten meadow. He reached for it, but the pixie fluttered down, landing lightly on the edge of the cavity. It held up a hand, its fingers splayed. Wait. It then pointed one tiny finger at the honeycomb, then at Wren, then made a slow, circular motion in the air between them. The intent was clear, a silent instruction woven from gesture and shared focus. This is for you. For strength. For the journey ahead. But it is also part of the whole. Do not waste it. Understanding dawned on Wren. This was sustenance, but it was also a piece of the network he was being asked to mend. He nodded slowly. "I understand." The pixie seemed to read the resolve in his tone. It stepped aside. Wren carefully lifted the honeycomb from the cavity. It was heavier than it looked, dense and solid. The wax gave slightly under his fingers, and a single drop of the luminous honey beaded at the edge, ready to fall. He caught it on his fingertip. It was warm, thicker than syrup, and when he touched it to his tongue, flavor exploded across his palate. It was not merely sweet. There was the bright burst of summer flowers, the clean taste of deep forest resin, and a faint, pleasant numbing tingle that seemed to spread from his tongue to the base of his skull, clearing the lingering fog of fatigue. A surge of energy, clean and true, flooded his limbs, chasing away the last shadows of his long vigil. The ache in his shoulders eased. The world seemed sharper, the colors in the conservatory more vivid. He looked up. All four pixies now hovered before him, their forms backlit by the strengthening morning sun streaming through the dome. Their wings were a blur of iridescent color. The lead pixie gave a single, firm nod. Then, as one, they rose upward, spiraling toward a fractured pane of glass high in the roof, a jagged opening to the blue sky beyond. At the threshold, they paused. The lead pixie turned, its tiny arm extending not toward him, but toward the sealed, wooden door at the far end of the conservatory, the door to the Inner Ward, to the Root, to the true heart of the garden's malaise. It did not point. It simply looked at him, its gaze holding his, and then looked at the door. The message was no longer a plea, but a directive. The trust was placed. The path was shown. Then, with a final, shimmering flash of wings, they were gone, slipping through the gap and vanishing into the vast, open sky. The silence they left behind was immense. Wren was alone again, but the quality of the solitude had transformed. It was no longer the empty silence of abandonment, but the focused quiet before a task begins. He looked at the honeycomb in his hand, then at the glowing seed he had tucked carefully into his breast pocket, its warmth a steady presence against his ribs. The dawn light now flooded the conservatory, banishing the deepest shadows and revealing the full scope of the ruin and the stubborn, persistent life within it, a resilient fern unfurling from a crack, a patch of bright green moss clinging to a fallen beam. He rose, his movements easier, purpose burning clear and bright in his chest. He ate a small piece of the honeycomb, the energy and clarity it provided a tangible reinforcement of his will. The wax was chewy, the honey rich and sustaining. He saved the rest, wrapping it in a broad, healthy leaf he found near the doorway. Standing before the sealed door to the Inner Ward, he placed a hand on its surface. The wood was ancient, scarred with old symbols and the marks of time. It felt cold, inert. But through the door, he could sense it: a deep, slow, ailing presence, like the labored heartbeat of a giant creature. The Root. The honeycomb’s gift had attuned his senses, making the faint, sickly resonance more perceptible, a low thrum of pain that vibrated in his bones. He took the seed from his pocket. Its green glow seemed to pulse in sympathy with the thrumming behind the door. This small, fragile thing was the answer. This was the healing agent. But planting it was only the beginning. It would need to reach the heartwood, the core of the Root system that lay somewhere in the chamber beyond. And he had no idea what guarded that threshold. From the corridor behind him, a faint sound intruded. A soft, metallic clinking. The careful placement of a foot. Someone was approaching the conservatory. Wren did not turn. His entire body tensed, every sense narrowing to that single point of sound. The friendly, desperate communication of the pixies felt a world away. Here, in the solid stone corridor, he was back in the realm of human motivations and human dangers. He slid the seed back into his pocket, his hand resting on the worn handle of his belt knife. The honeycomb’s warmth settled in his stomach, a core of ready energy. The footsteps stopped just inside the conservatory entrance. A shadow fell across the sunlit floor. "Wren?" The voice was female, clear and sharp, carrying an accent he couldn't immediately place. It was not hostile, but it was deeply, professionally alert. "I can hear your breathing. And you are carrying enough honeycomb to stock a queen bee’s treasury. That scent is unmistakable." He turned slowly, his hand still near his knife. Framed in the doorway stood a woman. She was of medium height, clad in practical, dark breeches and a tunic of deep blue wool. Her hair was the color of rust, pulled back in a severe braid. In one hand, she held a long, iron-shafted tool, part pry-bar, part hammer. Her eyes, the grey of a stormy sea, were fixed on him, taking in his worn appearance, his tense posture, and the faint, golden smear of honey at the corner of his mouth. There was no immediate threat in her stance, but the coiled readiness in her was palpable. "You must be the new Keeper," she said, her tone flat, assessing. "Or the thief who broke the outer seals. Which is it?" The stone floor of the cottage cool beneath his boots, Wren moved past the woman in the blue tunic without a word. His focus narrowed to the path ahead, through the conservatory and back toward the main living quarters. The honeycomb’s sticky residue on his fingers was a grounding sensation, a reminder of the fragile trust he was attempting to build. In the small, cluttered main room, he stopped. Sunlight, thin and golden, slanted through a high, grimy window, illuminating dancing motes of dust. The air smelled of cold ash, old wood, and a faint, lingering mustiness. From the corridors and spaces between the walls came the usual faint, dry skittering. They were watching. He could feel the weight of their collective, minute attention. Wren unlaced the small pouch at his belt. Inside were three chunks of the fresh honeycomb, glistening like amber jewels. He chose the largest piece, its wax cells bulging with syrup. Instead of placing it in the open, he walked to the hearth. The old stone firebox was cold, but the wide, flat hearthstone before it was clear. He set the honeycomb directly upon it, a bright spot in the gloom. Then, he took a step back, and another, until he stood near the doorway to the corridor. He did not speak. The archives had been clear: pixies abhorred direct speech from strangers. It was an imposition, a demand. Offerings had to be given freely, without expectation. He simply stood, hands loose at his sides, and waited. The silence stretched, thick and heavy. Dust motes continued their lazy waltz. Somewhere, a pipe ticked in the wall. Five minutes passed. Ten. A soft sound, like the rustle of dried leaves, emanated from the base of the hearth. Then another. Wren’s eyes remained forward, but his hearing strained. The rustling was joined by a faint, rhythmic scraping, like a thousand tiny fingernails on stone. It moved from the hearth, outward, along the base of the walls. A faint scent, clean and sharp, cut through the mustiness. It was the smell of crushed lemon balm and mint, herbs he knew grew in wild tangles in the neglected courtyard garden. He allowed himself a slow, quiet exhale. They were responding. Not to him, but to the offering. The cleaning was a transaction, a beginning. It was not acceptance, not yet. It was acknowledgment. He turned and walked silently back to the conservatory entrance. The woman in blue, Thistle, he recalled from the sparse household records, was gone. The shadow she had cast had retreated. On the flagstones where she had stood lay a single, tightly folded piece of parchment. Wren approached, his treads soft. He did not bend immediately. First, he scanned the empty space, the sunlit plants, the silent architecture. Nothing moved. He knelt, the parchment crisp beneath his fingers. Unfolding it revealed a single line, written in a precise, slanted hand. The West Stair is not safe. Your movements are noted. He read it twice. The warning was clear enough, but the source of the observation remained ambiguous. Was she telling him she had been watching him? Or that someone else had? He folded the note, slipping it into his pocket with the remaining honeycomb. His earlier tension, momentarily eased by the pixies’ response, returned, colder and sharper this time. He was in a house of watchers. Returning to the main room, he approached the hearth. The honeycomb was gone. In its place, on the ancient stone, lay a perfect circle of white dust, perhaps three inches in diameter. It was fine as flour, pure and unblemished. A pixie’s gift of purified salt, another sign of cautious favor. He knelt and touched the edge of the circle. The stone beneath felt different, smoother, almost polished, as if years of grime had been scoured away by invisible hands. The clearing extended outward in a perfect, clean path about two feet wide, leading from the hearth toward the base of the interior wall opposite the chimney. The surrounding flagstones remained dark with age and dirt. He followed the path with his gaze. It ended precisely where the old plaster met the stone floor. Without thinking, he pressed his palm against the wall at the endpoint. The surface was cool, the plaster solid. But there was a faint, almost imperceptible draft against his fingertips. A hollow space. From behind him came a soft, measured footfall on stone. He did not turn immediately. He let his hand fall to his side, his posture relaxing into one of idle curiosity before he faced the conservatory entrance once more. Thistle stood there, the iron tool now resting against her shoulder. Her grey eyes moved from the circle of salt on the hearth, to the cleared path, to Wren’s face. “So. You waste no time,” she said. Her voice was flat, devoid of inflection. “It is the Keeper’s duty to maintain the compact,” Wren replied, keeping his tone even, professional. He met her gaze without challenge. “The residents were due their tribute.” “The residents,” Thistle repeated, a slight edge to the word. She pushed off the doorframe and walked toward him, her steps confident, taking in the cleared area. She stopped at the edge of the clean path, looking down at the polished stone. “They’ve not done this in a generation. Not since the last Keeper died.” She looked up at him, her expression unreadable. “What did you offer?” “Honeycomb. From the wild hive in the old apple tree.” A flicker of something, surprise, perhaps, crossed her features before being suppressed. “A bold choice. Sweetness is a currency, but it can be perceived as a bribe, or a weakness.” She tapped the head of her pry-bar lightly against her palm. “They chose to interpret it as tribute. For now.” The silence that followed was filled with the distant, rhythmic sound of hammering from somewhere deep in the structure, a sound Wren had been subconsciously registering for minutes. It was methodical, precise. “You warned me about the West Stair,” Wren said, shifting the subject. He produced the folded parchment. “You noted my movements.” Thistle glanced at the note in his hand, then back to his face. “I noted a new Keeper exploring his inheritance. The West Stair is unstable. The stone treads are rotten near the third landing. A fall would be fatal.” She stated it as simple fact, not a threat. As for watching him, she offered neither confirmation nor denial. “It is my role to ensure the structural integrity of the cottage and its outbuildings. When I see someone approaching a compromised area, I inform them. It prevents paperwork.” Her explanation was plausible, yet it felt carefully constructed. He tucked the note away. “And the clearing?” He gestured to the hearth. “Is that part of your role?” “No.” Thistle’s answer was immediate. “That is the domain of the Keeper. Or it was.” She studied the cleared space again, her brow furrowed in thought. “The fact that they responded so quickly to you it is unusual. The previous Keeper, Elara, she spoke of decades of careful negotiation before they would even accept raw materials in the clearing.” Her eyes found his again, sharper now. “What else did you find in the archives, Keeper Wren? Besides instructions on tribute?” It was a direct probe. He considered his response. “The archives are extensive but disorganized. I found fragmented notes on the compact, the basic protocols. Nothing about prior Keepers’ specific relationships with the residents.” Thistle nodded slowly, as if confirming a private suspicion. “The archives were curated by the last Keeper, and the one before her. They recorded what they wished to be known.” She began to pace the cleared area, her boots making soft, gritty sounds on the newly revealed stone. “Elara was Keeper for forty-seven years. She was methodical. Patient. She believed in rules, in predictable patterns. The pixies learned her patterns. They learned to ignore them.” She stopped near the wall where Wren had felt the draft. She did not touch it, but she looked at the spot. “You are not methodical, Keeper Wren. You are immediate. You offer honeycomb in the first hour, not after a month of baseline offerings. You explore the dangerous stairs on your first day.” She turned to face him fully. “Immediate actions have immediate consequences, here. You have their attention. That is a rare and precarious thing.” The distant hammering stopped. The sudden silence was profound, making the faint skittering in the walls seem louder. Wren held her gaze. “You seem to know a great deal about the pixies’ habits, for someone outside the compact.” A thin, mirthless smile touched Thistle’s lips. “I am part of the cottage’s structure, Keeper. I hear things through the walls. I see the patterns of wear on the stone. I know which pipes clog and which floors bear weight. The pixies are part of that structure, too. Their movements leave traces, like water wearing a channel in rock. One does not need to understand the language to read the erosion.” She reached into a pouch at her belt and produced a small, folded map, yellowed with age. She held it out to him. “This is not from your archives. It is a survey of the cottage’s sub-floor spaces and wall cavities. My predecessor drew it. It is incomplete, but it is accurate where it exists.” Wren took the map. It was drawn on thin vellum, the lines precise in faded ink. It showed a cross-section of the cottage’s ground floor, detailing the spaces between the interior and exterior walls, the gaps beneath the floors, and a few of the smaller, forgotten passages. Several areas were marked with a small, sharp symbol, like a thorn. One such mark was directly behind the wall he had been examining. “Those symbols?” he asked. “Points of instability. Structural, or otherwise.” Thistle’s voice was neutral. “The area behind you, for instance, is marked. The stonework is sound. The draft you feel is real, but the space it comes from is sealed. Has been for decades.” She paused, letting the implication hang. “Or so the survey says.” He folded the map carefully and placed it in his inner tunic pocket, a comforting weight against his chest. “Why give this to me?” “Because you are the Keeper, and this house will kill you if you do not understand it,” Thistle said bluntly. “The pixies are one hazard. The structure itself is another. There are old seals, forgotten compartments, and mechanisms that have not been tested in Elara’s lifetime. Your predecessor did not believe in exploring. She believed in maintaining the status quo. You clearly do not.” She walked back toward the conservatory. “Do not mistake the salt circle for safety, Wren. It is a welcome mat, not a shield. You have been allowed into the parlor. You have not been invited to sit down.” She paused at the threshold, glancing back at the hearth. “Clean the cottage. Learn its bones. That is your first task. Not with magic, not with grand gestures, but with labor. Sweep the floors. Dust the shelves. Open the shutters. Let the light in. The pixies will help you, if you proceed with care. They are fastidious, and they hate neglect more than they hate intruders.” Her gaze was piercing. “And stay away from the West Stair. For your own sake.” Then she was gone, her footsteps fading down the sunlit corridor. Wren stood alone in the main room, the scent of lemon balm still hanging in the air, the circle of salt glowing faintly in the dust-filled light. He touched the wall again. The draft was still there, a steady, cool breath against his skin. The map in his pocket felt like a map to a maze, not a house. He spent the next hour in labor, as Thistle had instructed. He found a battered broom in a storage closet and began to sweep the main room. Dust rose in choking clouds, thick with the ghosts of decades. He cleared the mantelpiece, the shelves, the sills of the grimy windows. As he worked, he felt the subtle shift in the cottage’s atmosphere. The skittering in the walls grew less frequent, replaced by a soft, almost industrious silence. Occasionally, he would see a flicker at the edge of his vision, a shimmer of movement near the floorboards, but nothing solid. When he lifted a heavy, moth-eaten tapestry from the wall near the hearth, he found not just dust, but a series of small, shallow niches carved into the stone, many packed with lint, tiny fragments of cloth, and what looked like dried flower petals. In one, nestled in a bed of velvet moss, was a single, perfectly spherical glass marble, the color of a deep blue sky. It was beautiful, and clearly placed with care. He left it undisturbed. As he swept the base of the wall marked on Thistle’s map, his broom encountered an obstruction. He knelt, pushing aside accumulated grit. It was not a stone, but a small, brass lever, flush with the floorboards, hidden beneath the lip of the skirting. It was tarnished green, the metal cold to the touch. It was not on the map. He stared at it. A mechanism. An old seal. Thistle’s warning echoed in his mind. This house will kill you if you do not understand it. He reached for the lever, his fingers hovering a hairsbreadth above the cool brass. The choice hung in the silent, dust-filled air: pull it and risk the unknown, or leave it and accept the limits of his knowledge. The circle of salt on the hearth seemed to watch him, a pale, unblinking eye.