The chalk line on the threshold looked like nothing and had opinions about everything. Patricia drew it each morning—insurance against drafts and the kind of luck that sits on doorknobs. Tonight, as dusk finished its long sentence, the line glowed the way quiet things do when you finally admit they've been speaking.
Thomas had been practicing being harmless: Breath without ripples, Step without squeaks, Stillness until the room considered him furniture. Pride fit perfectly in his pocket. That was the problem.
Cold rose through the stone, not from outside but under, like the house had become a question.
The pane didn't ask.
[SEQ] Penalty — Catacombs
[SEQ] Hidden condition failed: Ward line crossed at dusk.
[SEQ] Status: Imposed.
[SEQ] Objective: Survive / Exit.
The seam widened without moving, the way a thought widens. Floor turned into stair that had never heard of "up." Sound went honest and then smaller. The room inhaled him and swallowed.
He did not fall. Falling is for people who believe gravity loves them. He allowed the stair to place him where it thought he should be and took notes on the rudeness.
Brick gave way to bone. Skulls watched with the patience of attendance clerks. Femurs stacked like tidy anger. Names were rumor; order was not. Lamps burned a color not sold in shops—more suggestion than flame. Water ticked somewhere, the way regret ticks when it has nowhere to go.
He moved the way Night Veil wanted: noticing before doing. The Catacombs listened with their teeth. He gave them nothing to chew.
A corridor narrowed until even air apologized. The walls sweated lime and old secrets. Dust laid its cheek against the flagstones and pretended to be asleep. Thomas paused and let his weight be a question; the floor answered with tiny adjustments, the language of stone.
Noise arrived first, then shape: metal settling into palm, cloth moving across armor. A lantern walked light along the wall in slices, obedient and unkind. The man carrying it wore authority like a scent: coat cut to command, halberd held where halberds prefer, a red tassel at the socket remembering when crimson meant law more than warning.
The place offered the name without ceremony: Red-Guard Captain. Names survive uniforms the way habits survive new vows.
Thomas did not intend to fight a man with a halberd. He intended to leave the conversation without being measured for a shelf.
He let the Captain finish a pattern old as streets: four paces, quarter turn, lantern high; four paces, listen; butt-tap so echo tells the truth. On each tap, dust leapt—honesty you could count. Where it didn't leap was not floor.
Thomas threw nothing. He pressed a single idea into the world: a ghost step where the blind wall made a liar of echoes.
The Captain pivoted like a hinge that had waited years to be useful, blade cutting where a neck would be if Thomas thought necks should volunteer. The halberd found air and argument. The lantern swung to greet the false step and painted urgency on stone.
Thomas slipped into the lantern's shadow instead of its light. Shadows ask fewer questions.
The corridor offered a helpfully unhelpful kink. The halberd butt kissed the corner and made sparks—small, untruthful stars. Thomas let the shaft pass above by the height of a breath and placed two fingers—only two—against the wood. He did not pull. He pressed remember into it: you were a tree; you flex.
The pole stuttered against the stone with the sound of a man doubting himself for the first time. The Captain recovered on training and on pride. Pride, like chalk, thins at the edges under pressure.
The lead boot came down where dust had not leapt. The shallow drain seam accepted it with the politeness of a trap. Weight followed. Balance wrote a warning and delivered it all at once.
Iron rang. The blade lost its sentence and became clauses. Lantern light lurched; the world tried to rearrange voices.
Thomas stepped through the slice of dark that the lantern couldn't reach and set his palm against the wall where the shadow of the Captain's stance crossed.
Cold—river-cold, exact and old—shot into his fingers. The outline noticed him.
The pane arrived and chose not to frighten him on purpose.
[SEQ] Umbra Bind (I) — Eligible Target weakened; Night Veil active. Hold: 3 s.
[SEQ] Cost: Focus drain.
[SEQ] Risk: Backlash (minor).
Three seconds is long for a heart. He made his heart a metronome, not a drummer. He counted one with the small bones in his hand. Two with the tiny muscles around his eyes. Three with the part of him that disliked attention.
The shadow bucked once, indignant—shadows are not supposed to belong.
He held.
(…to be continued)