There was a bird nailed to my door.
Not metaphorically. Not a message wrapped in symbolism. A literal bird. Still flapping, barely. One of its wings was impaled to the wood with a rusted iron spike, and its beak had been sewn shut with red thread that looked... human. I stood there for maybe a minute or two, not because I was brave, or even curious, but because I didn't know if walking past it would curse me, or if turning back would.
You grow up around stories. Curses that get in through your eyes. Names that echo if you say them twice. Birds that bleed like men. I didn't want to give the damn thing the satisfaction.
I had to look away to reach for the handle.
Behind me, the city wheezed. Eltrova—old as rot, dense as sin. Stone streets with no names, just whispered warnings. Everything was uphill, even the alleys. The sky hadn't turned pink in weeks, and the clouds were so thick I was starting to think the stars were a lie we'd all agreed to believe in just to avoid screaming.
I didn't scream. I opened the door.
The smell hit first. Fungal. Like old tea left to steep in a corpse's mouth. My flat hadn't been disturbed, but it still felt wrong. Like someone had walked through my thoughts while I was gone.
I checked the hearth, still cold. I lit a candle anyway. Not because I needed light. But because I needed warmth. I could see my breath, and it wasn't winter yet.
The bird was still flapping.
I tried to pretend I hadn't seen the letter on the floor.
But it had the same seal she used. The wax was violet, barely clinging to the parchment, like it didn't want to be there any more than I did.
I picked it up. My fingers were shaking. I hate that they shake when I read her name.
Lourena.
I didn't open it.
Instead, I sat at the table. The one with the crack running down its center like a scar from a forgotten battle. I put the letter down and stared at it for a long time. My stomach made a noise. I ignored it. Hunger was safer than hope.
"I should burn it," I said.
To no one.
And no one didn't answer.
---
That night, I dreamed of mouths.
Too many.
All of them whispering different things. One called my name. One begged me to die. One just laughed, slow and wet like drowning in teeth.
I woke up with blood in my ear and the candle still burning.
The letter was gone.
---
At dawn—if you can call that pale blue rot in the sky "dawn"—I stepped outside. The bird was gone. The nail still there. No blood. Just a single red thread, curling like a question mark.
I didn't touch it.
Didn't want to know what it would ask.
Instead, I walked down toward the lower quarter. My boots stuck to the stone in places. Streets slick with algae and worse. The fog was low and warm, and that meant the Plague Docks were burning bodies again.
Two boys ran past me carrying a jawbone. I didn't stop them.
A rat the size of a child limped across the road with a knife still lodged in its spine. No one cared. I didn't either. That's what it means to live here. You pretend long enough and hard enough that even Hell starts looking like home.
And then you get a letter.
From her.
---
The Temple was worse than I remembered.
Hollowed out, caved in. The spire had collapsed two winters ago, but no one had the money or the faith to fix it. Moss grew from cracks in the altar. The priest was dead. Had been for a year. But his body still sat in the pew like he was waiting for the last hymn.
I left a coin by his foot. Superstition.
The letter was there.
Same seal. Violet wax. Same handwriting.
I opened it this time.
Don.
The stars are wrong again. The gate is bleeding. I need you.
Come to the chapel below the ash tree. Midnight.
Wear gloves.
—L.
My hands didn't shake this time. My whole arm did.
---
I'd buried her five years ago.
I was the one who slit her throat.