The address was a narrow townhouse that looked empty on purpose.
Three stories of dark brick, windows blinded from inside, a door that didn't belong on the street. Tess used a key she didn't explain and went first, like the dark already knew her. I came after with the duffel—motel soap, garage still on the soles, Level 13 sitting in my head until I had a door I could lock.
Halfway down the hall the air changed.
Dying Gaze used to be a tint. Alleys. The plant. Corners that watched. This was weight.
Every threshold carried leftovers. A woman at the foot of the stairs, hands out, years gone, washed thin. Someone in the kitchen who had sat down and stayed there. On the second landing a short outline that made my stomach drop until the skill corrected itself: adult, small-framed, 1970s, a fall. Older residue lived in the walls. The basement pulled hardest. My eyes kept wanting the floor.
I stopped.
"Helio?" Tess was ahead, coat untouched. She wasn't reading any of it.
"Give me a second."
I put a shoulder to the plaster and let the skill talk instead of flooding me.
It wasn't a camera. It was a ledger. Death clung to rooms the way grease clung to a loading bay. Fresh stains were bright and wet; those were the tracks Pulse Step could run. Old ones stacked gray and turned into weather. Violence shouted. Quiet endings just sat. Anything supernatural had a different grain, like the Shadows had signed for it. The three that used to stand in 3B had been an audience. This building was filing cabinets. People had finished here by accident, on purpose, and—downstairs—by appointment.
Pushing bought detail: how a body landed, whether it faced the door, whether something fed after. Push too far and the centuries piled until I couldn't tell which one I was standing in. That was the cost. The Gaze did not care if I still had a bag to unpack.
I hauled it back. The hall dimmed. The woman on the stairs collapsed into a cold patch.
"This place is soaked," I said. Tired. Done being polite about it. "You put me in a grave with furniture."
"I put you in walls that already know how to keep a secret." She looked at the basement door and left it shut. "Upstairs is clean enough. Don't sleep down there until you have better manners."
Second floor: bedroom, bath, a window on a brick alley I had no history with. Bed made. Sheets that didn't smell like smoke. She set the key on the dresser.
"Standstill holds. You consider work when I send it. You don't vanish. I don't bleed you in your sleep." Almost gentle, still courtly. "Try not to redecorate with hedge witches. The neighbors complain."
Then she was gone. The front door closed like she had never needed one.
I sat on the mattress, duffel at my feet, and let the System speak.
Level 13
Unassigned stat points: 6
New nodes available.
I did the math behind my eyes so I wouldn't light up a room this crowded.
Will first. Pulse Reflect was a gun that went off in my own ribs if I guessed wrong. Laundry would laugh at fifteen. Tess wasn't fifteen either. The witches hadn't been. Three points there.
Will: 15 → 18
Two into Vitality. I was tired of opening like paper. The Trait already cheated. I wanted the rest of me to catch up.
Vitality: 11 → 13
One into Agility. The garage had been strength and mess. Not being where the next hand landed still mattered more.
Agility: 10 → 11
Strength: 12
The tree opened. Old roots. Then the nodes that had slammed in on the concrete.
Lv. 8 — Vein Map (Passive)
Already on. Nearest hostile drum in a short radius. Nothing in the bedroom. Downstairs, something old and slow that wasn't a heartbeat. I left it.
Lv. 9 — Scarpace (Active)
Ten counts of Will-fed speed. Afterward, tremor. Emergency only. I didn't need to come apart in a house that already had ghosts.
Lv. 10 — Pulse Reflect (Active)
Live. I read it once and didn't touch it. Every five beats, a burst inside them. Higher Will: they end. Equal: a shove. Lower: I take the hit, stack to ten, throw ten times back. Full mend if they drop. A quarter if they don't. Break-glass. Not a toy.
Lv. 11 — choice
Deep Ledger or Hard Step.
Ledger. This address would chew me otherwise. The Gaze dropped a layer; labels instead of a crowd. Old. Quiet. Fed-after. Not tonight.
Lv. 12 — choice
Tidewell or Iron Spine.
Spine. Panic could stay. I just couldn't fold in the middle of it.
Lv. 13 — choice
Named Absence or Reflect Discipline.
Discipline. I wanted a way to set the bomb down before it dumped.
The menus faded. Cold spots remained. Deep Ledger refused to pretend they were décor.
Status
Level: 13
Strength: 12
Agility: 11
Vitality: 13
Will: 18
Notebook on my knee. Smaller handwriting.
House has a body count. Tess calls that privacy.
Will 18. Reflect is live. Didn't fire it.
Standstill. Bed. No Gift.
Dad would hate this place. He'd still tell me to sleep.
Vein Map stayed quiet.
I took the side of the bed that faced the hall, shoes on, bag where I could reach it.
The Gaze thinned to a watermark.
I did not go downstairs.
If sleep came, it could argue with the ledger without me.