The fog did not relent. It pressed against Elise and Maris as they stumbled beyond Briarwall's boundary stones, their lungs searing with every breath. The path before them wound downward into the tangled wood, known among villagers as Hollow Glen—an untamed stretch avoided even in daylight.
Here the mist clung thicker, curling in wreaths between skeletal trees. Yet Maris urged them forward.
"There's one left who may know the way," she rasped, clutching the ledger to her chest as though it weighed more than iron.
"Who?" Elise gasped.
"The Keeper. Old Sareth. She knew the Watchman before any of us were born."
The name stirred half-remembered warnings—children dared one another to whisper it after nightfall, as though it summoned curses. Elise's mind protested, but her burning arm drove her onward. The mark pulsed faster with every step, as if recognizing the glen.
They came upon a clearing where the trees bent inward like ribs around a heart. At its center stood a crooked cottage, its roof sagging beneath moss and time. Lanterns of bone and glass hung from branches above it, their flames dim and unnatural, green-white in hue.
Before Elise could speak, the door creaked open. A woman stood there, bent but not frail, her hair white as bleached driftwood, her eyes glimmering silver like the fog itself.
"You've brought the ledger," she said, voice neither kind nor cruel. "And the chosen." Her gaze pierced Elise's sleeve as if the cloth were no barrier. "The Watchman has written you well."
Elise's stomach twisted, but she lifted her chin. "If you know him, then you know how to unwrite me."
The Keeper smiled faintly. "Unwrite? Child, words carved in fog are deeper than stone. But there are… fractures. Weaknesses. To erase your name, you must pay a price greater than the Watchman's claim."
Maris stiffened. "You told me it was impossible."
"I told you it could not be done lightly," the Keeper replied. She beckoned them inside.
The cottage smelled of salt and smoke. Shelves sagged beneath jars of ash, feathers, and strange bones. A map of Briarwall was etched into the floorboards, but its lines writhed faintly, shifting as though the village itself was alive.
Elise stared at it, heart hammering. "What is the cost?"
The Keeper crouched by the map, touching one trembling finger to the coastline where the sea gnawed at the cliffs.
"The Watchman feeds on remembrance. To break his hold, you must surrender what he covets most: memory. A life untethered. You will live, yes—but as no one you have ever been."
The words sank into Elise like ice. Forgetting her father's smile, her mother's voice, every thread of her own story… It felt like death draped in another mask.
"No," she said hoarsely. "There must be another way."
The Keeper's eyes softened, just slightly. "Every marked soul says the same. But the Watchman leaves no path that does not wound."
The ledger on Maris's lap quivered then, pages rustling as though stirred by unseen wind. The Keeper's gaze flicked to it.
"Careful, child. That book listens. He knows you sit in my house even now."
As if to prove her words, the lanterns outside dimmed in unison. A distant toll rang through the fog—low, deliberate, the Watchman's bell. Elise's mark burned with renewed fire.
The Keeper's expression hardened. "Choose quickly. He does not grant us long."