They didn't return to Maris' cottage until the moon hung low, pale and warped behind the veil of fog. The air inside was warmer than the streets, yet heavy, stale, as though the house had been holding its breath in their absence. Maris bolted the door behind them, pulling down the shutters until not even a blade of light escaped.
On the table lay the book they'd stolen from the chapel archives—the one etched with the Watchman's sigil: an eye drowned in spiraling mist. Its cracked leather cover looked almost wet in the lamplight, as though the salt of the sea itself had seeped into the hide centuries ago.
Elise sat opposite Maris, her arms trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline. Her sleeve slipped, exposing the faint mark on her forearm where the Watchman's cloak had brushed her in the undercroft. The skin there had darkened into a pale, ghostly frost-print, the edges faintly glowing whenever she drew breath.
Maris saw it and grimaced. "It's deeper than I thought. You're bound now."
Elise pulled the sleeve back down, forcing composure into her voice. "Then I need answers fast. Open it."
Maris hesitated only a moment before flipping the book open. The brittle pages crackled like dry leaves, revealing text written in a mix of archaic English, Latin, and strange symbols neither could decipher. Water stains bloomed across entire sections, blurring ink as though the sea itself had reached out to erase forbidden truths.
They skimmed page after page until Maris stopped at one lined with drawings—dark, jagged etchings rendered by an unsteady hand. It showed villagers kneeling in a circle on the cliffs, lanterns raised high, the sea crashing below them. Standing at the cliff's edge was the Watchman, his lantern lifted like a star, fog spiraling outward from its light.
Beneath the illustration, words had been written in three overlapping scripts, as though multiple hands had transcribed the same ritual over centuries:
"To summon him, one must breathe the sea.
To bind him, one must yield a name.
To break him, one must give the tide its due."
Elise frowned. "Give the tide its due? That's vague at best, useless at worst."
Maris traced the ink with her fingertip, whispering almost to herself. "It doesn't mean giving something. It means giving someone."
The weight of her words sank into the silence. Elise felt her throat tighten.
"You're saying… to end the pact, someone has to take the Watchman's place?"
Maris nodded slowly. "A life for the lantern. A soul to command the tide."
Elise leaned back, trying to steady her breath, but the words clawed at her thoughts. If she accepted what Maris suggested, it meant the curse was unbreakable without blood—and someone, perhaps one of them, would have to be swallowed by the fog willingly.
As they pored deeper into the book, Elise began noticing something strange: her name. It appeared faintly in the margins, scratched as though by a fine blade rather than ink. Not written once, but many times, layered over itself in different sizes and hands.
Her stomach turned. "Maris… look."
Maris leaned closer, her expression tightening. "It's not just yours." She turned several more pages, revealing other names scrawled the same way: Jonas Pierce, Martha Pell, Arthur Cray.
Every name on the sheriff's list.
"They were written before the bell ever tolled," Elise whispered. "Before Jonas vanished."
Maris' lantern flickered violently, shadows lurching across the walls. "That means the book isn't just a record—it chooses the marked."
Elise slammed it shut, her breath ragged. "Then we have to destroy it."
Maris shook her head violently. "No. If this is what binds him, if this is where the names come from, then destroying it without understanding it could seal us to him forever."
Lightning flashed outside, sudden and blinding, and a low rumble of thunder rolled across Briarwall. Elise stood, restless, pacing the narrow room. The cottage walls felt too close, the fog pressing against the shutters like a living thing. She could swear she heard faint, damp tapping against the glass—like fingertips.
Maris lifted her head sharply, eyes narrowing. "Do you hear that?"
The tapping grew louder, faster, insistent. Elise stepped cautiously toward the window and pulled back the shutter just enough to peek outside.
The fog on the moor rippled unnaturally, as though something vast was moving beneath it.
"Elise," Maris whispered sharply, "step back."
She did—but not before she saw him.
Far off, barely visible through the curtain of mist, stood the Watchman, lantern raised high. Its eerie blue-white flame burned brighter than before, and though he did not move, Elise felt the pressure of his gaze—a weight that pressed into her chest like stone.
Then she heard it again, faint but distinct, carried on the damp wind:
"Elise…"
This time the voice was joined by another.
"Maris…"
They both froze.
The fog pressed harder against the windows now, whispering as it slid across the glass. Shadows moved within it, countless, indistinct, like shapes just beneath the surface of deep water.
Maris snapped the book shut and clutched it tightly to her chest. "We're running out of time."
Elise met her gaze, forcing steel into her voice despite the tremor beneath it. "Then we find the ritual. We break the pact. Before the bell tolls again."
Outside, from somewhere deep within the fog, came the faint, hollow sound of metal striking metal.
One toll.
The second had begun.