The Root of Midnight
The locked case sat beneath the mural like a tomb. The serpent painted above it twisted into itself, devouring its own tail—an ouroboros rendered in dark, almost wet-looking strokes, like it had been painted with something other than ink.
Isla couldn't tear her eyes away.
"The First Sin," Old Marla said, voice low and thick like mist on a grave. "It began there."
She moved with surprising ease for someone who looked like she had been stitched together from bone and fog. Her fingers—long, calloused, and ink-stained—found the iron latch on the case. With a soft click, it opened.
Inside lay a single book.
Its leather binding was cracked and worn, the spine held together by old thread and something darker. The pages shimmered faintly, as though resisting the lantern light.
Marla lifted it reverently, like a priestess cradling a relic, and set it on the table. "This was written before Hollowmere was ever called such. Before the kingdoms divided. Before names meant anything."
Caius frowned. "Who wrote it?"
Marla looked up, and for the first time, something like fear flickered in her pale eyes. "The Circle. Or someone who escaped them. No one knows for sure."
She opened the book.
The air changed. It grew colder—sharp, metallic, like old blood and burnt parchment. Even the redwood scent that lingered through the library retreated.
Isla leaned in. Strange symbols danced across the parchment—spindled spirals, jagged runes, markings that looked as though they'd been scratched by claw instead of quill.
"There," Marla said, tapping one sigil in particular.
Caius stiffened. "That's… that's the mark on me."
The spiral. Blackened and cruel. Isla had seen it before—in the alley, in her dreams. And now, etched in a book older than the soil beneath their feet.
"It's a tether," Marla murmured. "One of thirteen. They branded the chosen with it, tied them to the Veil. To feed it. To open it."
"Open what?" Isla asked, her voice a whisper.
Marla's eyes turned on her. "The door between the living and what comes after."
For a moment, no one spoke.
Caius ran a hand through his hair, pacing. "And this Circle—they're still doing this? After all these years?"
Marla nodded slowly. "They never stopped. But the First Sin… that's where it all began. A kingdom swallowed by its own greed. A bloodline cursed because one of their own tried to defy death."
She turned the page. A drawing—half-rotted, half-sketched—spread across it. Hooded figures around an altar. A child. A sigil glowing in fire.
"They sacrificed one of their own to call something forth. Something from beyond the Veil. It came, but not as they hoped. It didn't obey. It whispered. It fed."
Isla's heart thudded painfully. "So they made a pact."
Marla's lips pressed thin. "They made a mistake."
The shadows seemed to move closer, as though listening.
"And the bloodline?" Caius asked, voice hoarse.
Marla didn't answer immediately. She flipped to a different page—an entry scrawled in a hand more hurried, less stable. There, drawn among symbols and old text, was a pendant. A design shaped like a crescent carved through a spiral.
Isla froze.
"That—" Her voice caught. "That was my mother's. She wore it the day she disappeared."
Marla's expression darkened. "Then the curse runs deeper than I feared."
"What does it mean?" Isla asked, dread curling inside her.
"It means," Marla whispered, "your mother was part of it. Or fleeing from it. And now, they've turned to you."
The air turned to frost.
Caius looked at Isla, but she couldn't meet his gaze. Her mother. The secrets. The pendant. The Circle.
Everything was a thread—and now they were being pulled into the center of the web.
"What do we do now?" Caius asked.
Marla closed the book. The slam echoed like a coffin lid.
"You listen," she said, voice low and trembling with ancient weight. "You learn. The Circle thrives in ignorance. But knowledge… knowledge carves the first crack in their silence."
Isla's breath caught.
Because outside the stained-glass window, the shadows began to stretch.
And the bells of Hollowmere began to chime.
One.
Two.
Three…