The room was too quiet to belong to the living.
I lay on the bed, eyes half open, watching faint light from the corridor leak through the crack beneath the door. The air smelled faintly of dust and polish, something clean but unmoving, as if the room had been prepared a long time ago for someone who never came. The sheets were smooth, untouched. The warmth of my own body felt intrusive against them.
I tried to sleep, but every time my eyes closed, the image of Mikael's hand returned. The golden particles, the quiet hum, that impossible glow. I had seen fire, reflection, metal, glass, all kinds of light before, but not that. It didn't burn or blind. It moved, like it had thought.
I turned on my side, staring at the wall. The faint pattern on the wallpaper looked like vines winding upward, twisting into symbols I couldn't name. Every few seconds, the house made a small sound, a creak, a breath, maybe something shifting in the pipes. But beneath that, there was something else. A low rhythm, distant, like a pulse buried under the floorboards.
My mind kept circling back to his words.
Like you, I have one too.
I wanted to ask what he meant. I wanted to know what kind of "appointment" a man like him could possibly have, but part of me was afraid of hearing the answer. If someone with power and wealth was also waiting for judgment, then what was I supposed to become in a place like this?
After a while, I sat up. The light under the door hadn't changed. I couldn't tell if hours had passed or minutes. Time here felt like it was breathing differently.
I reached for the glass of water on the nightstand. The surface was still, reflecting a faint shimmer from somewhere I couldn't see. For a moment, I thought I saw movement inside it, just a ripple, too faint to be real.
That was when I heard it.
A knock. Soft. Three times.
I froze, the sound still hanging in the air.
Three slow knocks. Not urgent, not hostile, just deliberate. Whoever it was had meant to be heard. I sat there, motionless, listening for footsteps or voices, but the corridor beyond the door stayed silent.
A part of me wanted to ignore it, to pretend I hadn't heard anything. But that kind of silence is its own command. It drags you toward it, makes you want to know what it's hiding.
I swung my legs off the bed and stood. The floorboards were cold. When I reached the door, I hesitated with my hand on the handle. The knock hadn't come again, yet I could feel someone, or something, still there. Waiting.
I turned the knob slowly. The door opened without sound.
The corridor stretched out, pale and empty. The lamps along the walls burned with a steady amber light. At first, I saw nothing. Then my eyes adjusted, and a figure came into view, a woman in a dark maid's uniform, her head slightly bowed.
"Apologies," she said softly, her voice barely carrying across the space. "I did not mean to wake you."
Her tone was even, almost rehearsed, but her face was harder to read. She kept her gaze lowered, the way servants do when they're told not to be seen too much.
"It's fine," I said, though my throat felt dry. "What is it?"
"The Master asked that I bring you something."
She lifted a tray I hadn't noticed before. On it sat a cup of tea, still steaming, beside a folded piece of paper sealed with black wax.
I didn't move at first. "He's awake?"
"Yes. He does not sleep."
The way she said it left no room for interpretation.
I stepped forward and took the tray. The cup trembled slightly in my hand. When I looked up again, she was already walking away, her footsteps vanishing before they reached the corner.
Back inside, I set the tray down on the table. The wax seal caught the light. It bore a symbol, a circle, split down the middle, with lines curving outward like branches.
For a long moment, I only stared at it. Then I broke the seal and unfolded the note.
Inside, written in careful, slanted handwriting, were three words.
"Come to the garden."
I held the paper between my fingers for a long time, rereading the words even though there was nothing else to find in them. Come to the garden.
The phrasing was deliberate. It wasn't a request, but it wasn't a command either. Something about it felt odder than either of those.
I set the note down beside the tea and stared at the cup. The steam was fading, yet it hadn't cooled. It just lingered, thin and pale, like the air itself was unsure what temperature it should be.
The garden.
When I first arrived at the mansion, I had glimpsed something through the windows, faint lights in the distance, moving like fireflies behind the walls. At the time, I thought it was a courtyard or maybe lanterns along the fence. But now, with those words sitting in front of me, it felt different. The word garden carried something final in it.
Why now? Why summon me in the middle of the night?
Mikael hadn't seemed the type to hold late meetings, yet the note came sealed with his mark, written in his hand. And that maid, whoever she was, hadn't hesitated when she said he doesn't sleep.
I looked again at the symbol in the wax, the circle divided in two. It reminded me of the rune he had shown earlier in the carriage, though this one didn't glow. The grooves in it caught the lamplight just enough to make it seem alive when I tilted it.
The walls around me felt closer than before. Every sound in the house, every small breath of the building, seemed to have shifted to listen.
I thought about ignoring it. Finishing the tea, pretending I hadn't read the note, waiting for morning. But even as I considered it, I knew I wouldn't be able to rest. The words were a quiet hook, already in me.
I folded the paper again, slipped it into my coat pocket, and looked toward the door.
Somewhere in this mansion, there was a garden waiting.
I left the room.
The corridor outside was dim, the lights weaker than before, their glow trembling along the walls as if tired. The air had cooled. I could feel it even through my sleeves, a slow crawl of cold that wasn't entirely from the temperature.
The mansion was different at night. The same hall I had walked earlier now felt endless, its corners stretching in ways that made no sense. Each doorway I passed seemed to lead into darker spaces, rooms with curtains drawn tight, mirrors covered, as though the house hid its eyes after midnight.
I followed the faint scent of grass and damp stone. It led me downward, through a set of staircases that curved too wide for the space they occupied. My hand trailed along the railing. The wood was smooth, cold, and at one point I thought I felt it pulse beneath my palm, just once, like a breath.
Halfway down, I paused. There was a sound below. Faint, rhythmic. Not quite footsteps, not quite wind. Something between.
I waited, listening. It faded.
At the bottom of the stairs, an arched door stood slightly open. Through it came the smell of soil and night air. I pushed it wider and found myself in a corridor lined with glass, a greenhouse passage that stretched toward the back of the mansion. The glass panes were fogged from within, and the plants pressed faintly against them like shadows trapped between worlds.
I walked slowly. The floor was tiled, wet in places, reflecting the light from above. Somewhere beyond the glass, water was dripping at a steady rhythm.
The silence made me think of Mikael again. His voice in the carriage, the calm weight of his words. The rune's light had felt warm, but not human. And now, here I was, walking through his house in the dark, following a message written in that same hand.
I reached a small alcove with a bench and a narrow window. Moonlight, or whatever passed for it in this place, sifted through the fog outside. I stopped to look out.
The garden lay far beyond, a field of faint lights and shifting trees. But between me and it, there was something else, a figure standing motionless by the glass doors at the corridor's end. Too far to see clearly, but close enough to know it was watching.
It didn't move. Neither did I.
For a while, it was just that: two figures, separated by distance and silence, waiting for the other to act.
Then the lamps along the corridor flickered once, and when the light steadied, the figure was gone.
I stood there, heartbeat slow but heavy, until the stillness returned.
Somewhere behind the walls, the mansion exhaled again.
I kept staring at the spot where the figure had been, waiting for my eyes to trick me again, but nothing moved. Only the faint shimmer of condensation on the glass, silver against the dark beyond.
I told myself it had been a reflection, a shadow of my own body caught in the flicker of the lamps. But even as I thought it, I knew it wasn't true. That stillness hadn't been mine.
I began walking.
Each step echoed softly, too loud in the silence. The corridor seemed to stretch as I went, the glass on either side fogging more densely, narrowing my view to little more than the space directly ahead. Behind the mist, I could make out the shapes of plants and branches pressed against the glass, their leaves trembling as if something moved through them.
Near the end of the hall, the air grew warmer, thicker. The scent of soil and wet stone deepened, almost metallic. My hand brushed against the wall and came away damp.
The double doors leading outside were tall and framed in dark metal. Their handles were cold and slick with condensation. For a long moment, I simply stood there, watching my own reflection blur and sharpen in the glass. I looked younger, yes, but the tiredness remained, something deeper than age, a heaviness that had followed me here from the other world.
I opened the doors.
The air outside was different. It carried sound, low, constant, like breathing mixed with wind. The garden stretched before me, wider than the mansion itself. Trees rose in uneven rows, their branches heavy with hanging lights that glowed like captured stars. The ground was covered in pale grass that whispered when I stepped on it.
It didn't feel alive, not entirely. It felt arranged, as if someone had built this place to imitate life and then forgotten what real growth looked like.
I took a few steps forward. The doors shut behind me with a sound softer than a sigh.
The deeper I walked, the more the world behind me seemed to dissolve. The mansion's windows, the walls, even the lights inside, they all faded into a thin, indistinct glow. Ahead, the path split in two. One way curved toward a cluster of lanterns beside a fountain, the other descended into darker ground lined with tall hedges.
For a moment, I thought I heard something again, footsteps, faint, behind me. I turned, but the garden was empty. Only my footprints marked the grass.
The air grew colder. The sound of the water ahead sharpened, like glass breaking in slow motion. I followed it, drawn by the faint light flickering near the fountain.
And as I came closer, I noticed something resting on the edge of the stone basin. A single object, half-reflecting the light.
A coin.
Old, worn, its surface engraved with the same divided circle that had sealed the letter.
I reached out, hesitated, and then picked it up. It was warm.
Too warm for the night.
The coin pulsed faintly in my hand, the warmth spreading to my fingers. I turned it over, tracing the edges, half expecting it to hum the way the rune had in Mikael's palm. But it stayed quiet.
Then I heard it, the softest scrape of movement behind me.
I turned quickly, heart hammering before I could think.
Someone stood a few paces away, partly hidden by the trees. For an instant, the dim light from the fountain caught in his hair, and I recognized the color. That faint, impossible gold.
The boy stepped out from the shadow, the same easy grin tugging at his mouth, though here it looked out of place, too bright against the stillness around us.
"Didn't mean to scare you," he said, his tone casual, almost teasing. "You walk quiet for someone who doesn't belong here."
For a moment, I couldn't find words. I had half-expected Mikael to be waiting, not him. Not this boy who'd once been stuck in a vending machine like some restless ghost of youth.
"What are you doing here?" I finally managed.
He tilted his head slightly, as if the question amused him. "That's what I should ask you, isn't it? It's late. People who wander the garden after midnight usually don't wake up the same."
There was no malice in his voice, but something in it felt older than his body.
I glanced around. The paths were empty. The fountain's water moved in slow, deliberate patterns, catching light where there shouldn't have been any. "Mikael sent for me," I said quietly. "A note."
The boy's eyes flicked to my pocket, then back to me. For a heartbeat, the grin faltered. "Oh," he said, softer now. "So, he still does that."
The way he said it unsettled me, the weight on the word still, the familiarity behind it.
Before I could speak again, the boy turned and began walking along the edge of the fountain, hands in his pockets, as though the place belonged to him. The air seemed to follow him, the lights above dimming slightly wherever he passed.
"You should be careful what you answer to in this house," he said without looking back. "Sometimes it isn't really him calling."
Then he stopped, turning his gaze toward the far end of the garden where the trees grew denser. His voice lowered. "He probably won't like that you're here."
"Who won't?" I asked.
He smiled again, but there was no warmth in it this time. "You'll see."
The sound of water filled the space between us again, soft and steady, as if the garden itself wanted to erase what he'd said.
The garden felt smaller now, though I hadn't moved. The fountain's surface rippled faintly, the coin still warm in my palm. The boy stood by the water, the pale lights overhead painting thin silver lines across his face.
"You knew I'd come," I said.
He didn't answer right away. He crouched by the fountain, dragging a finger lightly across the water. The motion left a faint golden streak that disappeared almost instantly.
"I hoped you would," he said finally. "Most people don't. They read the note, and they stay in their rooms until morning. Safer that way."
"Then why me?"
He looked over his shoulder, his eyes meeting mine. In that dimness, they were blue, not bright, but deep, the kind of blue that hides things rather than shows them.
"Because you don't know what you're afraid of yet."
The words sat between us, sharp but quiet. I didn't know how to answer.
"I thought Mikael wanted to see me," I said. "He sent the message."
The boy smiled faintly, and something in that expression tightened the air around us. "Mikael doesn't write at night. Not anymore."
That made me pause. "But his seal was on it. The divided circle."
He nodded once. "That's his mark, yes. But the mark isn't always his hand."
His tone was steady, but it carried a strange sadness, the kind that doesn't belong to someone so young.
I stepped closer. "You talk about him like he's someone else."
He straightened, turning to face me fully now. "He is."
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The water behind him reflected the lights above in fractured shapes, bending and fading as if the garden itself disagreed.
"Who are you, then?" I asked.
He hesitated, almost as if searching for the name himself. Then he gave a small nod, like deciding something.
"Call me Cael."
The name fit him somehow, light and fleeting, but with something buried beneath it, something unspoken.
"Cael," I repeated quietly, testing the sound.
He tilted his head. "You say it like a memory."
"I don't think I've ever heard it before."
"Maybe not here," he said. "But names don't always start where we think they do."
The way he spoke made me feel like I was missing half of every sentence. There was meaning behind each word, but it wasn't for me.
I took a breath. "Cael, where is Mikael now?"
He looked past me, toward the mansion in the distance. "Sleeping," he said. Then, after a pause, "Or pretending to."
The lights in the garden dimmed a little more. The air felt heavier, as though the night itself had leaned in to listen.
"You shouldn't have come," he added softly. "Not yet."
"Then why bring me here?"
Cael smiled again, but this time it wasn't teasing. It was almost gentle. "Because you needed to see what he doesn't."
He turned back toward the dark path beyond the fountain, his hand brushing against the coin I still held. For a second, the warmth pulsed again, stronger now, as though reacting to him.
And when I looked up, his reflection in the water had changed, older, shadowed, for just a moment, bearing the same eyes as Mikael.
Then it was gone.
Cael's gaze lingered on the water for a while before he finally spoke again.
"There are things in this house he can't see," he said. "Walls he doesn't touch, rooms he never enters. Not because he's forbidden, but because he believes they don't exist."
His voice carried a strange certainty, as if he wasn't describing a place but a person.
I wanted to ask what he meant, but he was already moving. He turned from the fountain and started toward one of the narrow paths that wound deeper into the garden, his hands tucked into his pockets like a boy wandering through familiar streets.
"Come on," he said. "There's something you should see."
I hesitated only a moment before following. The grass underfoot gave way to stone, uneven and cracked. The air grew colder again, though the lamps along the path still burned.
We walked in silence for a long stretch. The trees pressed closer overhead, their branches forming a canopy that filtered the dim light into streaks. The further we went, the less the mansion looked real. Its windows had vanished from view, swallowed by distance or mist.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"To the part of the house he keeps locked," Cael said. "The part he pretends not to have."
The words felt wrong. "You mean… inside?"
He smiled faintly without looking back. "You'll see."
At the end of the path, a stone arch stood half-buried in ivy. Beyond it was a door, wooden and wide, its surface scarred by age. Cael pushed it open with no effort.
We stepped through, and I realized we were back inside the mansion, though not anywhere I recognized. The walls here were made of dark stone instead of wood, and the air carried a metallic tang, like dust and coin.
"This way," Cael said, and his footsteps echoed softly as he led me down a long corridor that sloped downward. The lamps along the walls grew fewer, then vanished entirely, leaving only the faint glow of the boy himself, not bright, but enough to see by.
The passage ended at a massive iron door. Cael placed his hand against it. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a low sound, almost like thunder rolling beneath the floor, filled the corridor. The door unlocked itself with a deep, deliberate click.
When it opened, the smell hit first, dry, heavy, metallic. Then came the light.
The room beyond was vast, lined with shelves and chests piled high with gold, silver, and things I didn't have names for. Jewels caught the dim light and scattered it across the walls. The air shimmered faintly, as if charged with something more than wealth.
Cael stepped inside, and I followed slowly.
"This is where he keeps what he remembers," Cael said quietly. "Everything he's taken, everything he's afraid to lose."
I turned a slow circle, trying to take it in. "You mean this is Mikael's?"
He nodded. "What's left of him."
The words came too easily. I wanted to question them, but before I could, Cael crouched beside a chest and lifted its lid. Gold spilled from the edge like sand.
"You could live ten lives on this," I muttered.
He glanced at me, his expression unreadable. "And still be poorer than him."
I knelt beside another chest, running my fingers over the coins. They were marked with the same divided circle as before, though some of them looked older, the metal worn smooth by time.
"Why couldn't I find you before?" I asked suddenly. "When I first came here. I looked for you."
Cael didn't answer right away. He closed the chest gently, as though afraid of waking what slept inside.
"I wasn't here," he said finally. "Not really. He keeps me where he doesn't have to think about me. When he sleeps, sometimes I wake. Sometimes I don't."
The words were simple, but there was something terrible in them.
"So, you live with him," I said. "In this mansion."
"In him," Cael corrected. "Not with."
I looked at him, the light glancing off his hair, the faint lines of gold threading through the air near his fingers. "And the vending machines? The streets? You said people don't wake up the same after walking this garden, but you were out there. Why?"
For the first time, he laughed, softly, but it sounded wrong in this place, almost painful. "Because sometimes I get out. Not far, never for long. I wanted to see the world he ignores. The things that don't shine."
He walked ahead of me, weaving through piles of gold and broken artifacts, his movements light, unbothered by the wealth around him. "The vending machines are honest," he said. "You give something, you get something. It's a rule he never learned."
I followed him deeper into the vault. The walls grew darker, the air thicker. Gold gave way to stranger things, shards of crystal, old books bound in metal, pieces of armor displayed like trophies.
Cael stopped in front of a pedestal at the room's center. On it rested a single stone, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. It gave off a steady glow, soft at first, then pulsing with quiet rhythm, gold, white, then gold again.
"The most valuable thing in this house," he said.
I stepped closer, the light spilling across my face. It was the same light I had seen in Mikael's hand, living, breathing light. The same hum beneath the skin.
"The lightning rune," Cael said. "His first and last gift."
I stared at it. The glow reflected in his eyes, making them almost identical to Mikael's in that moment.
"He showed me this," I said quietly. "In the carriage."
"I know," Cael replied. "He doesn't remember why he carries it. He only remembers the power it gives him."
He looked down at the rune, his voice lowering. "It's what keeps us both alive. Him by will, me by accident."
I swallowed, unsure what to say. "What happens if it's gone?"
Cael smiled faintly, though there was no joy in it. "Then one of us disappears. Maybe both."
The light of the rune flickered once, just enough to cast two overlapping shadows on the wall, one taller, one smaller, both reaching for the same glow.
I kept watching the rune, the faint rhythm of its light pulsing through the air between us. The longer I stared, the more it felt like the room itself was moving to its beat. Gold flickered. Shadows lengthened. Even Cael seemed to blur around the edges.
"You keep talking like he's someone else," I said finally. "Like there's two of you. What does that mean? Are you… brothers, or is this just some kind of metaphor?"
Cael smiled faintly, the expression both amused and tired. "A metaphor would be kinder."
"That's not an answer."
"No," he said softly, "it isn't."
He stepped closer to the rune, and the light caught the edge of his face. For a moment, I thought I saw Mikael's outline in him again, the same jaw, the same posture, only thinner, younger, stripped of composure.
"He and I share the same body," Cael said at last. "Two halves of the same thing that should've never been split, but can't be whole either. When he wakes, I sleep. When I wake, he's gone. We don't meet, not unless one of us forces it."
I tried to speak, but nothing came. My thoughts tripped over themselves, refusing to settle. "That's not possible," I said.
Cael tilted his head. "You've died once already, Corben. You think this is what's impossible?"
His words landed heavier than they should've. I looked back toward the vault door, half expecting to see someone there, but the air stayed still.
"I saw him today," I said, voice low. "He was, he is real. I sat across from him, spoke to him. You're saying you were asleep inside him?"
Cael nodded. "And dreaming of vending machines."
It should've sounded absurd, but it didn't. The way he said it, quiet and distant, carried too much truth to be dismissed.
"Then how can I believe you're not just some echo?"
He gave a small shrug. "You don't have to. I can show you."
Before I could answer, Cael reached out and pressed his fingers to the rune.
The light surged. It wasn't a flash but a pulse, alive and deliberate, pushing outward in waves that made the air vibrate. The gold around us caught the light and reflected it until the whole room seemed to breathe.
Cael's body stiffened. His eyes widened, the color shifting, blue fading to black. His voice, when it came, was different. Deeper. Controlled.
"What," he said slowly, "did you just do?"
I stepped back. The tone, the weight of the words, it wasn't Cael anymore.
"Mikael?" I said.
He turned his head toward me, and though it was the same face, every trace of the boy was gone. His expression was cold, his movements measured, as if every gesture had purpose.
"You were supposed to be asleep," he said, his voice directed inward, as if speaking to something beneath his skin. "Not wandering around with guests."
He exhaled sharply, then looked at me. "You. Hale. Did he bring you here?"
I couldn't find an answer. The transition had left me unsteady, as if the world had folded in on itself.
"I didn't mean,"
"Enough." The word cut through the air. "You shouldn't be down here. Not yet."
His gaze shifted to the rune still glowing faintly on the pedestal. "And you, Cael, you will stay where you belong."
For an instant, the gold light flickered, as though answering him. Then the room fell still.
Mikael turned back to me. The calm in his voice was thin now, stretched over something raw. "Return to your room. Now."
There was no anger in his tone, not exactly, just exhaustion, and the kind of authority that doesn't need to shout.
I hesitated, but the air had changed. The warmth of the rune was gone, the chill in the room settling deep into my hands. I knew that if I stayed, I'd see something I wasn't meant to.
So, I turned and left.
Behind me, I could still hear Mikael's voice, low and quiet, speaking to someone I couldn't see. Or maybe to himself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The moment the sound of Hale's footsteps faded, silence filled the vault again.
Mikael stood still, hand still half-raised from where he had dismissed him. The light of the rune had dulled, but it hadn't gone out. It never did.
He let out a long breath. The air in here always felt thick, charged with the residue of too many kept things, gold, relics, memories that refused to rest. The walls seemed to breathe with him, a slow rhythm that wasn't quite alive but never fully still.
"You shouldn't have done that," he said quietly.
No one answered. The words fell flat against the stone, yet the echo that came back sounded softer, higher, like a child repeating something it didn't understand.
He rubbed at his temples, a faint pulse beating under the skin. "You're getting bolder, Cael. I told you, no guests. No nights."
A whisper brushed the back of his mind, faint but insistent. You were sleeping too long.
Mikael closed his eyes. "I was resting, not gone."
You forget things when you rest, the voice murmured. You forget what we agreed on.
He ignored it and stepped closer to the pedestal. The rune's surface shifted slightly as he approached, threads of gold and white coiling in slow spirals. It reacted to him, yes, but not for him. It never had.
He reached out, fingers hovering just above it. The air tingled. Tiny sparks jumped to his skin.
"I made you a promise," he said softly. "I keep it, don't I? You have this. You live through it. I protect it for you."
You keep it because you can't make one of your own, Cael whispered from somewhere inside the hum. It isn't yours.
Mikael's jaw tightened. "Everything in this house is mine."
The rune pulsed once, brighter, almost mocking. He felt the vibration crawl up his arm and into his chest, that familiar resistance, that subtle reminder that power borrowed is never the same as power owned.
He pressed his palm harder against it. "You're a child. You wouldn't know what to do with it."
I knew enough to find it.
The air around him quivered. Dust lifted from the gold piles nearby, swirling gently like ash caught in a current. The rune's light flared again, forcing him to step back.
"You'd burn yourself alive with it," he said through clenched teeth. "You think it's just light and thunder. You don't understand what it feeds on."
The whisper grew quieter but didn't vanish. Maybe it feeds on you.
He turned sharply away, crossing the room. The sound of his boots on the stone was loud, deliberate, a way of drowning the voice. His reflection caught in the polished metal of a shield, Cael's outline flickering faintly behind it. The same hair, the same eyes, just younger, softer, questioning.
"Don't look at me like that," he muttered. "You wanted me to wake. Now I'm awake."
For a long moment, he stood staring at that mirrored ghost. His breath came slow, deliberate, as if reminding himself which part of him was in control. The reflection moved a heartbeat late, the delay small but noticeable.
He walked back to the pedestal and covered the rune with a piece of black cloth, cutting off its light. The room dimmed, the hum fading until it was barely audible.
"You don't exist without me," he said quietly.
Maybe, Cael's voice murmured, fading into the edges of thought, but one day you'll sleep too deep to wake, and then we'll see who exists without who.
Mikael's hand tightened around the cloth. "Not while I hold this."
He lifted the covered stone and placed it into a small box carved with the divided circle. The metal inside hissed faintly, sealing it. Only when the sound stopped did he release his breath.
The silence that followed was almost peaceful, though he knew it wouldn't last. It never did.
He turned toward the exit, passing piles of gold that now looked dull and meaningless. As he reached the door, he stopped, glancing back once more at the vault, the vast room that contained everything he claimed to own.
"I built all this to keep you safe," he said quietly, though there was no one to hear. "Don't make me bury you in it."
He closed the door behind him.
The lock turned with a low, heavy click.
For a few seconds, there was only the faint hum of the rune inside the sealed box, then, a single pulse of light escaped through a crack, soft and rhythmic, like a heartbeat refusing to die.
The walk back to his chambers was long, but Mikael preferred it that way. It gave him time to silence the echoes that followed him, the hum of the rune still trembling faintly in his bones, the ghost of Cael's voice trailing just behind his thoughts.
The corridors of the mansion were nearly dark now. Only a few lamps burned, steady and low. He passed the glass hallway that led toward the garden, and for a moment he caught sight of the faint glow of the fountain beyond, dim and distant like something half-remembered. The boy's footprints would still be there, fading slowly into the damp earth.
His reflection followed him in the windows, calm, sharp, almost regal. You'd never know that another lived inside that same skin.
When he reached his room, he shut the door quietly and locked it. The sound echoed more loudly than he expected. The space around him felt too large, too clean. The bed was untouched, the desk still covered with neatly stacked papers, an untouched cup of tea, and a few vials of black ink that hadn't dried.
He went first to the table near the wall, where a series of small glass containers lined a shelf. Each one held a plant, small, pale things, roots coiling through transparent soil that glowed faintly from within. They were fragile, nearly colorless, but alive.
Mikael leaned down, touching the rim of one jar with the back of his knuckle. The plant inside quivered slightly, responding to warmth.
"I know," he murmured. "You're hungry again."
He unlatched the top and poured in a few drops from a small vial. The liquid shimmered faintly, then vanished into the soil. The roots pulsed once, faint light returning to them.
"These," he said softly, "are what obedience looks like."
He watched them a moment longer, then straightened. The room was silent except for the low hum of something buried in the walls, machinery, maybe, or memory.
Cael's voice flickered faintly through the stillness. You talk to them like they can hear.
"I talk to what listens," Mikael replied under his breath. "You might learn something from that."
He sat down at his desk, opening one of the books spread across it. Its pages were filled with lines and sigils, diagrams of runes, and a map of the city beyond the Garden, the territory that belonged to the Order. He traced the symbols absently with his fingertip, his mind not on them but on what came next.
Hale's face came to him, the uncertainty, the worn patience, the quiet hunger of a man who'd lost everything. There was usefulness in that kind of loss. It stripped people down to something real, something malleable.
"He doesn't know what he is yet," Mikael said quietly.
He doesn't need to, Cael whispered faintly.
"Oh, he does," Mikael said. "He's part of this, whether you want him to be or not."
He turned the page. The rune diagrams blurred together into spirals of meaning only he could see. Hale was more than a stray. The man's death hadn't been an accident, and his arrival here wasn't coincidence. The Order didn't summon people like him without purpose.
"I'll need him awake tomorrow," Mikael said. "And you quiet."
Why?
"Because they'll want proof that I've kept you contained. That I've mastered the instability." He smiled faintly, a hollow curve of his lips. "You wouldn't want them to take you away, would you?"
The silence that followed was answer enough.
Mikael leaned back in his chair, eyes half-lidded, feeling the exhaustion begin to sink in. The weight of command was heavier when no one could see it. Cael was restless. Hale was curious. Both dangerous. Yet both necessary.
Hale, with his stubborn morality, his need to make sense of a world that had none, he could move where Mikael could not. And Cael, with his untamed energy and childlike will, he was the key that made the impossible happen.
Pieces on a board. All in motion.
Mikael rose, extinguishing the lamp beside his bed. The room fell into shadow, the faint glow from the glass jars casting narrow threads of light across the floor.
He stood there a moment longer, listening to the soft breathing of the house. The night here was never truly still.
"Tomorrow," he said quietly, to no one and to both of them, "everything will come to light."
He turned toward the window. The city beyond the garden was asleep, its towers rising like black teeth against the colorless sky. Somewhere within those streets, the Order waited, patient, observant, ready to weigh those who had returned from death.
He closed his eyes.
"When we meet them," he whispered, "there will be no turning back."
The faint pulse of the rune deep in the vault answered with a single, distant thrum.
Then the room fell silent.