Chapter 47: The Man Who Moved the Stones

The guard outside Lance’s shelter had learned to announce visitors before opening the door.

It was a small courtesy, and one Lance had begun to depend upon.

Unexpected footsteps made the white ridges beneath his skin tighten. A hand moving too quickly toward the latch could send pain from his wrist to his elbow. He did not know whether the response belonged to him or to whatever Silas had placed inside him.

He had stopped pretending he could always tell.

“Marcus,” the guard called. “And Tomas.”

Lance drew his blanket away from his hands.

The door opened.

Marcus carried a narrow book. Tomas had brought a leather pouch and a fresh grounding rod.

Neither sat immediately.

Lance watched the elder inspect the stones beside the bed. Tomas touched one, waited, then exchanged the rod nearest the window.

Only when he was satisfied did Marcus pull the chair forward.

“We need to discuss the keeper again.”

Lance’s eyes dropped to the book.

“I told you where he used to stay.”

“We sent men there. He left before they arrived.”

“I don’t know where he went.”

“Perhaps you can help us find out.”

Marcus opened the book.

Lance recognized his own handwriting on the page.

A payment made in early spring. Another six weeks later. Beside the second, he had written a reminder about replacement markers.

He remembered making the note.

He had been irritated by the cost.

That was what returned first.

Not the man who had taken the money. Not the warnings he had chosen to disregard. The recollection of sitting at a comfortable desk and wondering why the work had become so expensive.

Marcus watched his face.

“Darian remembered something.”

Lance lifted his head.

“Is he—”

“He was resting when I left him.”

“His hand?”

“Improving.”

Lance’s shoulders loosened.

Marcus allowed him the moment.

Then he said, “The keeper brought copies.”

A thin line of light moved beneath Lance’s wrist.

Tomas looked toward it.

Lance pressed his palms against the blanket.

“Copies of the old marks.”

“Darian remembers him saying the old stones wouldn’t know the difference.”

“He was talking about the placements.”

“What does that mean?”

Lance shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

Marcus waited.

The silence was worse than anger.

Lance had once been able to fill a room with explanations until people stopped asking questions. Marcus did not help him do that.

At last, Lance said, “He told me they could replace the damaged stones without disturbing the protections. I wanted the southern markers altered. Silas said the keeper could do it.”

“Altered how?”

“So the passage would open when they entered.”

Marcus’s expression did not change.

Lance wished it would.

He wished Marcus would stand, shout, strike him—anything that might end the quiet necessity of saying what he had done.

Instead, Marcus asked, “Where did the original stones go?”

“I never asked.”

Tomas straightened slowly.

“Were they all damaged?”

Lance looked at him.

“The ones removed.”

“I was told—”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Lance stared at the ledger.

“No. I don’t think they were.”

Leo was cutting bread when Marcus returned.

Noctis had fallen asleep against Celine after an early and strongly expressed disagreement with being put down. Catherine sat near the window, turning a wooden ring between her fingers.

Leo had been instructed to cut quietly.

He was discovering that bread could make a surprising amount of noise.

Marcus stopped in the doorway.

Elara looked up from the hearth.

“Eat first.”

“I need—”

“You can speak with bread in front of you.”

She set out another plate.

Marcus removed his coat.

There was something in the way he did it that made Celine raise her head.

“What did he say?”

Marcus glanced at Noctis.

“He knew the markers were being altered to open the passage.”

Celine’s hand stopped against her son’s back.

Leo laid down the knife.

They had already known enough to understand Lance’s responsibility. Hearing the words plainly still changed the room.

Catherine set the wooden ring on the table.

“And the keeper?”

“He knew how to remove the original stones. Whether he knew what would happen to you is something we still have to establish.”

“Lance didn’t ask that either?” Celine said.

“No.”

Her mouth tightened.

Noctis shifted against her. She lowered her cheek to his hair and waited until he settled.

Marcus continued.

“There was another place. A cottage beyond the eastern ridge, near the old quarry road. The keeper’s sister lived there. Lance sent a payment through her once when the man was away.”

“Once?” Leo asked.

“That he remembers.”

Elara pushed the plate closer to Marcus.

This time, he took it.

“We should send someone,” Leo said.

“Edmund is finding a guide.”

Catherine turned toward her father.

“Do you think he’s there?”

“I think it’s somewhere we haven’t checked.”

She nodded.

It was an answer she could trust.

Celine looked down at Noctis.

“If he knows where the stones were placed, we need him alive.”

Marcus met her eyes.

“Yes.”

For a moment, she seemed to struggle with something else.

Then she said, “I don’t want to be the reason we hesitate.”

“You aren’t,” Leo replied.

She looked at him.

“I mean that. If we find him, if he needs help—”

“We help him,” Marcus said. “And we bring him back to answer.”

Celine’s fingers moved over the blanket around Noctis.

“All right.”

Elara stood beside her daughter’s chair.

She did not tell her how generous she was being.

Celine was grateful for that.

They chose four guards.

Leo objected to the number until Marcus asked which posts he wanted left unwatched.

He looked at the map.

Then he stopped objecting.

Tomas would accompany them. A hunter who knew the eastern ridge agreed to guide the party, and Edmund found an old quarry sketch that showed the cottage above a narrow stream.

Celine examined the route.

“There’s a bridge here.”

“If it’s still standing,” the hunter said.

“And a steep path beyond it.”

“Yes.”

She traced the path with one finger.

“I’m coming.”

Leo had expected it.

He had also spent the morning preparing reasons she might reconsider.

None survived the look she gave him.

Her teacher stood on the other side of the table.

“Two portable anchors,” he said. “You do not stretch a working farther because you dislike moving closer.”

Celine nodded.

“If the ground shifts, release and place them again.”

“I know.”

“Then you will remember.”

Catherine waited until he finished.

“I’m coming too.”

Edran turned toward her.

“The thing at the mill—”

“Is something I may not sense,” she said. “I know. People still fall. Bridges still break. And if the keeper is frightened, I may hear what he’s about to do before someone gets hurt.”

The old man considered her.

Then he asked, “What do you take?”

“My staff. Water. A place in the middle of the group.”

“And?”

She paused.

“The right to say when I’m tired.”

Edran nodded.

“Make use of it.”

Leo watched the sisters check their belongings.

He remembered when leaving home had required planning every uneven stretch of ground. Celine’s chair. Catherine’s hand on his arm. The effort of making a day possible without letting either of them see how frightened he was of failing.

Now Celine packed ward anchors while Catherine discussed the route with a hunter.

The memory did not diminish what stood before him.

It made him look longer.

Celine caught him watching.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was a very occupied nothing.”

He took the strap she had been trying to straighten and pulled it flat.

“I was thinking about how far we’ve come.”

Her expression softened.

Then she handed him the bag.

“Think while carrying that.”

The eastern ridge smelled of damp leaves and stone warmed by weak sunlight.

They passed the last occupied farm before midday.

A child waved from a doorway. One of the guards raised his hand in return, and the child immediately ran inside to announce that he had been acknowledged.

Beyond the fields, the path narrowed.

The hunter walked first.

He used his bow to lift branches and pointed out places where autumn rain had softened the ground beneath the leaves.

Catherine kept one hand lightly against Leo’s arm.

She did not need him to place each step for her. The staff found roots and hollows. Her awareness caught the small movements nearby: a bird lifting from a branch, a guard shifting his pack, a pebble about to slide beneath a boot.

What tired her was the effort of resisting everything farther away.

Fear made distance tempting.

If she listened hard enough, perhaps she could discover danger before it reached them.

Perhaps she could prevent another moment like the dungeon.

Perhaps—

Leo slowed.

She realized her grip had tightened.

“Do you need to stop?”

“No.”

He waited.

Catherine breathed out.

“Yes. For a moment.”

They stopped.

No one looked disappointed.

One guard drank from his flask. Another adjusted the binding around a blister. Celine leaned against a tree and shook a stone from her boot.

The world continued without complaint.

Catherine rested both hands on her staff.

Leo remained beside her.

“I wasn’t tired yet,” she said quietly.

“All right.”

“I was trying to reach too far.”

“Did you find anything?”

“My own headache.”

He smiled.

She heard it in his breathing.

“That sounds familiar.”

She nudged him with her shoulder.

After a little while, they went on.

The bridge was still standing.

That was the first encouraging thing about it.

The second was that someone had repaired the handrail recently.

Everything else needed discussion.

A corner of the stone approach had fallen into the stream. Moss covered the remaining boards, and one support leaned at an angle that made the hunter crouch before putting his weight on it.

Marcus held up a hand.

The party stopped.

Tomas looked down at the water.

“Has anyone crossed lately?” Leo asked.

The hunter touched a muddy mark beside the rail.

“Someone. This morning, perhaps. Could have been yesterday.”

“More than one?”

“I can’t tell.”

Celine studied the gap beneath the damaged approach.

“I can shorten the crossing.”

Her teacher’s warning returned before she finished speaking.

She looked at the bank.

Then she moved closer.

The first anchor went into firm ground beside a tree. The second rested in a notch between stones.

She tested both before beginning.

The distance over the weakest part of the bridge drew inward.

Not enough to make the crossing disappear.

Enough that each person could step across without trusting the damaged boards.

Marcus went first.

Two guards followed.

Catherine crossed beside Leo, her staff finding solid ground sooner than her ears expected.

On the far bank, Tomas paused.

He lowered himself carefully beside the remaining abutment.

“There.”

A rectangular recess had been cut into the stone.

Empty.

Leo crouched beside him.

“Another marker?”

Tomas ran his fingers along the edge.

The interior was cleaner than the weathered stone around it.

“Removed deliberately.”

“Recently?”

“Not this morning.”

Celine joined them after releasing the fold.

She looked from the recess to the repaired rail.

“Someone maintained the bridge but left the protection missing.”

Marcus stared up the path.

“Let’s ask why.”

The cottage stood above a garden gone brown for the season.

Smoke rose from the chimney.

A split log rested on the chopping block, its axe still embedded in the grain.

The hunter stopped before the last bend.

Marcus sent two guards around the lower side of the garden. The other pair stayed with the path.

No one drew a weapon.

Not yet.

Leo could hear a faint tapping from within the cottage.

Metal against something hard.

Tomas’s attention sharpened.

Marcus approached the door.

He knocked.

The tapping stopped.

“Who is it?”

A woman’s voice.

“Marcus. From the valley council.”

A pause.

Then, “What do you want?”

“We’re looking for your brother.”

Silence.

Leo watched the window.

A shadow moved behind the curtain.

“He isn’t here.”

Catherine turned her head.

Inside, a chair scraped.

A man’s foot caught against it.

She felt the next hurried movement gather.

“Back window,” she said.

One of the guards moved.

There was a crash inside, followed by a cry of pain.

Marcus tried the latch.

Bolted.

“Open the door. No one needs to be hurt.”

“You brought armed men.”

“Yes.”

The plain answer seemed to disconcert her.

Then came a second voice.

“Leave it, Mara.”

The bolt lifted.

The woman who opened the door held a kitchen knife close to her side.

Marcus looked at it.

She looked at the guards.

Neither moved for a moment.

Then she set the knife on a shelf.

Her brother sat on the floor beside an overturned stool, clutching his ankle.

A narrow tool had fallen near his hand.

Beside the hearth lay an open leather case.

Leo saw rods, chisels, and a folded measuring cord.

The keeper looked past Marcus.

His gaze found Celine.

Then Catherine.

His face emptied.

His name was Oren.

Marcus asked him to say it for the record.

Oren looked at the narrow book and gave a strained laugh.

“You’ve brought a clerk into my sister’s kitchen?”

“I brought a book,” Marcus said.

Tomas knelt beside the injured ankle.

“Can you move your toes?”

Oren stared at him.

“Can you?”

“Yes.”

“Then do so.”

He obeyed.

Mara stood beside the hearth with her arms folded tightly.

Her gaze kept returning to Celine and Catherine.

“You’re the girls.”

Celine stood very still.

“Yes.”

“My brother said there had been an accident.”

“There was,” Catherine said.

Oren closed his eyes.

Tomas began wrapping the ankle.

“It isn’t broken.”

No one thanked him.

Leo thought that was probably all right.

Marcus pulled a chair closer.

“We found records of payments.”

Oren opened his eyes.

“From Lance?”

“Yes.”

“Then ask Lance.”

“We have.”

Oren’s jaw shifted.

Marcus continued.

“We know the old stones were removed and copies put in their place.”

The keeper looked toward the leather case.

Leo moved between him and it.

“We also know protections are failing along the valley’s waterways,” Marcus said. “Something came through the old mill. Another reached the washing ground.”

Mara’s arms loosened.

“What sort of something?”

No one answered her immediately.

Oren did.

“Did it cross a living mark?”

Tomas stopped tying the bandage.

“What do you mean by living?”

“A stone still joined properly to the others.”

“We don’t know,” Leo said.

Oren looked at him for the first time with something other than fear.

“Then you need to find out.”

Celine took one step forward.

“We’re here so you can help us do that.”

He looked at her feet.

At the way she stood.

“You can walk.”

“Yes.”

“I was told—”

“I know what people were told.”

Her voice remained level.

Oren looked away.

For a moment, Leo thought Celine might say more.

Instead, she drew out a chair and sat opposite him.

“Start with the stones.”

At first, Oren spoke as though they had come to inspect a badly repaired roof.

The oldest protections followed the valley’s water and the boundaries of the ground beneath it. A marker at a bridge did not merely protect the bridge. It held a particular place in a larger arrangement.

Some marked where a stream divided.

Others stood where underground water returned to the surface.

A few lay beside paths that had existed before the present roads.

“You can’t just copy the carving,” he said.

Tomas watched him.

“What else is required?”

“The placement. The depth. Which face lies toward the current. And the joining must be renewed when the stone moves.”

“Who taught you?”

“My father.”

“And who taught him?”

Oren rubbed a hand over his mouth.

“His mother. We kept the eastern lines.”

Edmund would want that written down, Leo thought.

Someone’s grandmother had known how to maintain a protection the council now struggled to understand.

Somewhere between her hands and this kitchen, the knowledge had become a way for Lance to purchase access to a dungeon.

Marcus turned a page.

“Why did you replace the originals?”

Oren’s shoulders rose.

“Some were cracked.”

“All of them?”

“No.”

“Why the sound ones?”

“The replacements were supposed to hold.”

“But they didn’t.”

“They held something.”

Tomas stood.

The movement made Oren shrink back.

“What?” the elder asked.

Oren stared at his wrapped ankle.

“I didn’t know at first.”

Celine said, “And afterward?”

The fire shifted in the hearth.

Oren swallowed.

“Afterward, I stopped taking the work.”

“After we were hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Did you come to see us?”

He shook his head.

“Did you tell anyone what you’d changed?”

“No.”

Mara turned toward him.

“Oren.”

He did not look at her.

“I thought if I went back, he would know.”

“Lance?” Marcus asked.

Oren shook his head again.

“Silas.”

Leo felt heat gather beneath his palms.

He let it fade before speaking.

“Where are the original stones?”

“Some went to the quarry store. Then men came for them.”

“Whose men?”

“I didn’t ask their names.”

“Did you see where they went?”

“No.”

The answers were becoming familiar.

Catherine rested her hands in her lap.

“Did Silas know about this cottage?”

Oren’s head came up.

No one needed his answer.

Outside, one of the guards whistled.

A single sharp note.

Marcus was on his feet before the second sounded.

The man stood halfway up the garden path.

He wore a quarry worker’s coat.

Mud marked the hem. One sleeve had been patched with cloth a different shade from the rest.

At a distance, he might have been a laborer come to ask for a tool.

The guard nearest him kept a spear leveled across the path.

“Stay there.”

The man stopped.

Leo stepped into the doorway beside Marcus.

Catherine remained just inside, with Celine.

Tomas turned toward Oren.

“What did you bring here?”

“Nothing.”

The elder pointed at the open case.

“What did you bring?”

Oren followed his hand.

His face changed.

Outside, the stranger raised his head.

His mouth opened.

“The keeper.”

The words came slowly, as though each had to be placed behind his teeth.

Leo could see no weapon.

That did not comfort him.

“Who sent you?” Marcus asked.

The stranger’s eyes moved past him.

Toward the cottage.

Catherine listened.

There was breathing.

The creak of leather.

A pulse.

But the moments around him failed to settle into any sequence she could follow.

“Leo.”

“I know.”

He did not know everything she meant.

He knew enough from her voice.

The stranger took another step.

The guard shifted his spear.

“Stop.”

The man walked onto the point.

The guard recoiled instinctively.

There should have been a cry.

There was only a wet sound as the coat tore.

Beneath it, pale material pulled apart around the spearhead.

The stranger’s hand closed on the shaft.

“Inside!” Marcus ordered.

The guard let go and retreated.

Celine placed one anchor against the doorstone.

Her second went beneath the edge of the table.

“Move the table,” she told Mara.

Mara stared.

“Now.”

The woman shoved.

Leo stepped outside far enough to give Celine room.

The creature turned toward him.

Up close, its face was worse.

It had the suggestion of a man’s features, but the mouth moved before the cheeks did. One eye sat deeper than the other. The coat had been arranged around it to conceal what the mill creature had shown openly.

Leo brought fire and lightning together.

The stranger stopped.

It recognized the light.

Then its body folded sideways.

Not falling.

Avoiding.

The plasma cut through the empty shoulder of the coat as the thing dropped toward the garden wall.

Marcus pulled the guard clear.

A pale arm struck the place where the man had stood.

Stone burst from the wall.

Inside, Oren shouted.

“The cord!”

Tomas had reached the leather case.

A measuring line lay coiled beneath the tools.

Most of it was ordinary hemp.

At its center sat a blackened knot.

The knot was moving.

Celine felt the pressure reach the doorway.

She closed the fold.

For an instant, the creature’s outstretched hand seemed farther from the cottage than the garden gate.

It struck against the altered distance.

The anchor at the threshold clicked against the stone.

Celine braced herself.

Her teacher was not beside her.

There was no stronger working waiting to catch what she lost.

She planted both feet.

“Leo. I can’t hold it long.”

He heard her.

He also saw the creature learning.

It no longer pushed directly toward the door. Its fingers spread against the edge of her working, seeking the place where the fold met the ordinary world.

He moved to bring the plasma across its arm.

The creature retreated again.

It was afraid of the flame.

That gave him something to use.

He advanced.

Behind him, Tomas lifted the coiled cord with a pair of tongs.

Oren struggled to stand.

“Don’t pull the knot apart.”

“Then tell me what to do.”

“I don’t know.”

“Think.”

Catherine heard the cord scrape against the case.

She could feel Tomas’s hand tightening.

The iron tongs would slip.

The coil would fall beside his boot.

“Set it down,” she said. “On the hearth. Now.”

He moved.

The tongs slipped as the cord reached the stone.

Something inside the blackened knot struck the iron.

A sharp crack rang through the room.

Oren made a broken sound.

Mara backed into the cupboard.

Catherine found the edge of the table with her hand.

“Is there water?”

“By the hearth,” Mara whispered.

“Bring it.”

Outside, Leo forced the creature toward the lower wall.

A guard moved to flank it.

“Stay back,” Leo said.

The man stopped.

The creature twisted.

For a moment, its false face turned toward the cottage.

“The keeper.”

Celine’s anchor shifted.

She felt the fold begin to slide.

“Leo.”

There was no panic in her voice.

That frightened him more.

He drove the plasma downward across the creature’s reaching hand.

The pale fingers separated.

Dark threads recoiled from the heat.

Inside the cottage, the cord jerked across the hearth.

Tomas pinned it with his staff.

“Here!” he called.

Leo looked toward the door.

The creature struck.

Catherine heard the guard’s warning and felt Leo’s boot slip on loose gravel.

“Left!”

Leo threw himself sideways.

The pale arm passed his shoulder.

He hit the ground hard enough to lose his breath.

The plasma faltered.

Celine saw the creature gather itself.

She released the doorway.

For one terrible moment, the cottage lay open.

Then she placed the fold across the garden path instead.

The creature stepped toward Leo and found the ground carrying it past him.

Its reaching hand struck the wall.

“Get up,” Celine said through her teeth.

Leo got up.

He ran for the hearth.

The black knot had tightened around Tomas’s staff.

Hair-thin strands climbed the wood.

Leo crouched beside it.

“Move.”

Tomas pulled back.

The staff resisted.

Leo cut through the strands.

The elder stumbled free.

Beyond the doorway came the crack of breaking stone.

Celine made a low sound.

Leo held the plasma close to the hearth.

The knot opened.

For an instant, he saw a tiny hollow within it.

Not darkness.

Depth.

Something looked back.

He burned it before he could decide what he had seen.

The cord flared white.

Outside, the creature collapsed against the garden wall.

The stolen coat fell over a shape that could no longer hold itself together.

Celine released her working.

Both anchors dropped flat.

No one spoke.

Leo stared at the blackened patch on the hearth.

His hand shook so badly that he closed it against his knee.

Then Catherine’s fingers found his shoulder.

“Everyone?” she asked.

Marcus answered from the doorway.

“Here.”

One guard had a cut across his cheek. Another held his left wrist against his chest.

The hunter was helping him sit.

Celine lowered herself onto the floor beside the table.

Leo moved toward her.

She caught his hand before he could ask.

“I’m tired.”

He knelt.

“All right.”

“Very tired.”

“I know.”

She leaned her forehead against his.

This time, neither tried to make a joke.

Oren watched Tomas examine the remains of the cord.

“I checked it.”

The elder did not look up.

“When?”

“Before I left the quarry.”

“How?”

Oren opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

Mara stood beside the window.

The creature’s discarded coat lay beyond the garden wall.

She had not stopped looking at it.

“You brought that here.”

“I didn’t know.”

“To my house.”

“Mara—”

She turned.

“Pack what you need.”

He stared at her.

“We’re leaving with them.”

For once, Oren did not argue.

Marcus checked the two injured guards while Tomas wrapped the burnt cord in a dishcloth and placed it inside an empty iron pot.

Nothing in the leather case would be carried casually back into the valley.

Celine rested until the trembling in her hands eased.

Catherine sat beside her.

Leo went outside.

The hunter had found a covered cart behind the woodshed. One wheel needed tightening, but it would carry Oren and anyone else who needed to rest.

They worked on it together.

The ordinary task steadied Leo more than he expected.

A pin.

A wheel.

A problem that stayed solved when the pieces fitted.

When he returned to the cottage, Oren was waiting near the door with a bundle on his knees.

The keeper looked at him.

“You saved me.”

Leo thought of Celine holding the fold alone.

Of Catherine listening past her fear.

Of the guard with blood on his cheek.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Leo was too tired to make the answer gentle.

“Because you were here, and that thing was going to take you.”

Oren looked down.

After a moment, he reached into his coat.

Marcus caught his wrist.

Slowly, Oren opened his hand.

A small brass key lay against his palm.

“There’s a box,” he said. “Beneath the floor in the quarry store.”

Marcus released him.

“What’s in it?”

“The placement book. My father’s measurements. The alterations I made.”

Tomas turned from the hearth.

“All of them?”

Oren hesitated.

Celine watched him from her chair.

“Yes,” he said.

Marcus took the key.

For the first time since they had entered the cottage, Oren looked slightly less as though he was waiting for an opportunity to escape.

They reached the valley after sunset.

Word of their return traveled ahead of the cart.

Elara waited near the council house with Seraphine and a lantern.

She looked at the bandaged guard first.

Then the cart.

Then her daughters.

Celine held up a hand before she could speak.

“I rested on the way.”

“Good.”

“I ate.”

“Better.”

“I intend to sit down.”

“Excellent.”

Celine gave a tired laugh.

Elara took her face between both hands and kissed her forehead.

Catherine leaned against her mother a moment later.

Leo stood nearby until Elara caught his sleeve and drew him in too.

For a few breaths, Marcus watched the four of them.

Then Seraphine asked who had been hurt, and the evening resumed.

Oren was taken to a room near the council house.

A guard remained outside.

Mara was offered a bed elsewhere. She chose a chair in her brother’s room, though she did not speak to him.

Tomas went directly to the map.

Marcus placed the brass key beside it.

“We’ll send for the book in the morning.”

Leo looked at the widening pattern of wooden markers.

They had brought back a man who might explain it.

They had also seen a creature dressed to pass for human.

Both facts would have to fit into the same night.

Tomas studied the key.

“The copies may tell us what was removed.”

“And how to put it back?” Leo asked.

“Perhaps.”

It was enough to begin with.

For tonight, it had to be.

Deep beneath the mountains, Silas stood before the stone slabs.

The hand from the Hollow rested on one of them.

Its fingers were spread wide.

Two now bore dark marks.

“The keeper is in the valley,” Silas said.

The fingers did not move.

“The cord is gone.”

Silas waited.

He had expected anger.

The silence was harder.

At last, the hand withdrew from the stone.

“He has kept something.”

Silas looked up.

“What?”

“The little men who measure our walls always keep their measurements.”

Silas thought of the keeper’s leather case.

The careful rows of tools.

The man’s insistence on writing down distances before agreeing to alter anything.

“The book,” he said.

From behind the doorway came the scrape of another slab.

This one was wider than the others.

Its face carried a circular mark around three branching lines.

Silas recognized none of it.

“What is that one?”

The hand settled on the broken edge.

For a moment, the symbols shone.

Far above them, water shifted in a channel no living person had entered for years.

“The place where they began.”

Silas stared at the stone.

Then at the dark passage beyond it.

And in the valley, while Leo finally held his sleeping son and Celine rested against his shoulder, Tomas unfolded the oldest map Edmund had been able to find.

At its center lay a blank space.

Someone, long ago, had cut a small square neatly from the parchment.