Ezra's fingers hovered near the deadbolt.
The Ministry was on the other side of the door. Waiting. Listening. Their knock still echoed in the bones of the apartment, measured and patient, like a game they had played too many times before.
"If you open this door, we can talk," the woman had said.
"If you don't—we'll have to come in."
Ezra's pulse remained steady, but his mind was already racing through the possibilities. The Ministry wasn't the type to ask. If they had come this way instead of taking him off the street, it meant they needed something from him.
And Crowne?
Crowne, who had been dead.Crowne, who had left him the letter, the book, the warnings. He was standing behind him, still and quiet, watching too closely.
Ezra shifted his stance. "If you have something to say, say it through the door."
A pause.
Then the woman's voice again. Calm. Measured.
"Very well."
A rustle of fabric. A controlled breath.
"You are interfering in matters you do not understand. Crowne is no longer your concern. Hand him over, and you may walk away from this untouched."
Ezra exhaled through his nose. A test. A way to gauge where his loyalties lay.
Crowne's voice was barely above a whisper. "They're lying."
Of course they were.
Ezra's fingers curled against his palm. "Untouched," he repeated. "That's a generous way of saying erased, isn't it?"
Silence.
Then the woman sighed. "We were hoping you would be reasonable."
A second set of footsteps. A shift in weight. A signal.
Ezra's body moved before his mind caught up—a hard shove against Crowne, sending him stumbling backward as the lock twisted and the door burst inward.
Two men in dark coats. Quick, efficient, armed.
Ezra moved.
He caught the first man's wrist before the baton could fully swing, twisting sharply—**bone snapped, a curse hissed through teeth—**as he drove his elbow into the agent's ribs.
Crowne was already moving, darting past them toward the open window.
Ezra ducked as the second man lunged, his grip tightening around his knife—
'Enough'
The woman's voice cut through the room like a blade.
The air thickened.
The candlelight dimmed.
For a moment—**just a moment—**Ezra's breath caught in his throat. The edges of the room seemed to stretch and compress all at once, warping like something had folded over reality itself.
Then—
Everything snapped back.
Ezra stumbled, a cold sweat clinging to his skin.
The first agent groaned on the floor, clutching his broken wrist. The second was watching him with something like caution.
But the woman—
The woman hadn't moved at all.
Her coat was immaculate, her dark eyes steady. She studied Ezra with something new. A quiet, unsettling curiosity.
"You're resisting already," she murmured. "That's impressive."
Ezra forced his breathing into control. His vision still swam at the edges, his limbs buzzing with the ghost of whatever had just happened.
The woman tilted her head slightly. "That's why they're watching you, isn't it?"
A chill spread through his gut. They.
But before Ezra could demand answers—
The window slammed open.
And the candlelight went out.
A rush of cold air flooded the apartment.
Then—
A new voice.
Not from the Ministry. Not from Crowne.
Something older. Rougher. Not entirely human.
"Enough of this."
Ezra barely caught a glimpse—a shape, shifting in the dark, the outline of a figure wrapped in something that moved like fabric but wasn't.
The Ministry agents tensed. The woman's lips pressed together in something like irritation.
Ezra felt the weight in the air change.
Like something else had entered the room.
Something that shouldn't be there.
The figure stepped forward, and for the first time, Ezra saw the mark on its hand—
A sigil.
The same sigil that had been carved into the dead man's chest.
The woman's voice was sharper now. "You are interfering in government business."
The figure chuckled, low and hoarse. 'You deal in governments. We deal in reality'
Ezra's grip on his knife tightened. What the hell was happening?
The figure turned toward him. And even though Ezra couldn't see its face, he felt the weight of its attention settle on him.
"You are not ready," it said. "But you don't have time to be."
It extended a hand.
"Come with me, Lockwood. Or stay, and be buried with them."
The Ministry agents shifted. The woman's expression remained unreadable, but Ezra could see the calculation in her eyes.
There were no good choices here.
But staying wasn't an option.
Ezra exhaled sharply.
And he took the figure's hand.
The moment their fingers met, the world shattered.