The bone-dagger felt like a weight carved from the marrow of the world itself. Elise had never held a weapon before, not in earnest. Her father had once let her touch the blunted blade of a bayonet salvaged from the war, just to feel its coldness, but that had been play, a child's curiosity under a parent's watchful eye. This dagger, though—it was no plaything. Its edge was jagged, as though gnawed by unseen teeth, and its surface bore grooves like veins. It was meant for one thing: cutting what should not be cut.
The ledger lay open on the crooked table, its parchment fluttering though no wind stirred inside the Keeper's cottage. Elise's name sprawled across the page in strokes so dark they seemed to seep into the fibers of the wood beneath. Elise Marlowe. Every letter shimmered as if wet, though the ink had been there longer than she dared imagine. It pulsed faintly, in rhythm with the burn in her arm. It was alive.
The sixth toll came, shaking dust loose from the rafters. Each ring was slower, heavier than the last, deliberate as a heartbeat in a dying chest. Elise's own heart stuttered in reply, as though her body wanted to fall into that dreadful rhythm and never rise again.
"Strike it!" the Keeper's voice cracked through the air, sharp as splintering wood. Her silver eyes gleamed with urgency, but beneath them lurked something else—expectation, or perhaps fear. "Cross his mark before he crosses you."
Elise lifted the dagger but her arm trembled. Her breath came shallow, uneven, the edges of her vision fraying with black. The fog pressed harder at the windows, a suffocating whiteness, and in that whiteness, a form. Cloaked. Towering. The Watchman. His silhouette bent the fog itself around him, as though it longed to kneel at his presence.
And then came the voice.
It was not sound in the ordinary sense. It was vibration in her blood, a whisper from marrow to marrow. Why mar the gift I've given?
Elise froze. Her grip loosened on the dagger. The Watchman's voice slid into her head like water seeping through cracks.
You belong, Elise. You always have. Your mother whispered to shadows before you learned her lullabies. Your father carried secrets heavier than his tools. All their debts, and you… you are the payment.
Her mouth went dry. The words dug at her memory, unearthing fragments she did not want unearthed. Her mother's late-night weeping, hushed whenever Elise entered the room. Her father's refusal to walk the cliff paths after dusk, though he once loved them. Hadn't there always been a silence between them, too deliberate to be ordinary?
"Elise!" Maris's voice snapped like a rope thrown across a river. She was beside her now, clutching Elise's free hand so tightly it hurt. Her friend's face was pale, eyes wide with fear but stubborn. "Don't listen. Don't let him in. He's not telling truth—only enough of it to poison the rest."
But Elise couldn't ignore the insidious gentleness of the Watchman's whisper. Ink is forever. Let me keep you. No grief, no fear. Only belonging.
Her knees buckled. The dagger nearly slipped from her grasp. "What if—" her voice broke, choked by sobs—"what if I ruin it? What if rewriting kills me faster?"
The Keeper slammed her palm onto the ledger, startling Elise so violently she nearly dropped the weapon. Blood dripped from a fresh cut in the woman's skin, soaking the margins of the parchment. The ink hissed, recoiling, but did not retreat.
Her silver eyes blazed. "Every moment you hesitate, he tightens his grip. The question is not whether you will die, girl—it is whether you will die nameless, swallowed, or die bearing the defiance of your own name."
The seventh toll cracked through the cottage like lightning. Elise clutched her ears, but the sound still rattled her bones. The floor-map beneath their feet splintered, Briarwall's etched streets breaking like glass. Outside, the Watchman's form swelled, shoulders scraping the doorframe though he had not yet entered. One long hand pressed against the barrier, and wood smoked under his touch.
"Elise."
This time her name slithered across the air, unmistakable, undeniable. It was not her father saying it. Not Maris. Not the Keeper. The syllables came from nowhere and everywhere.
Strike the page, and I'll take her instead.
Her head snapped toward Maris. The fog coiled around her ankles now, climbing, testing. Maris gasped but did not pull away. She only gripped Elise tighter, knuckles white. "Don't you dare think of me. He's lying. Even if he weren't—it doesn't matter. I choose it. You do this, Elise!"
Elise's chest convulsed with sobs. Every instinct screamed to protect Maris, to trade herself for her friend. But the ledger's ink pulsed faster, spreading beyond her name, threads seeping across the page like cracks in ice. If she waited any longer, the ink would consume the book entirely—and her with it.
The Keeper's voice cut sharp and low. "Now, or never."
Elise raised the dagger. Her hand shook so violently she thought the bone might snap in two. The Watchman's laughter—deep, hollow, like bells rung under water—echoed in her mind. He did not fear. He mocked.
But Elise's other hand tightened in Maris's grip. Her friend's pulse beat steady against her skin, an anchor. Elise clung to it. She thought of her mother's hearth, the applewood smoke curling warm and sweet. She thought of her father's hands guiding hers on the violin bow. She thought of the girl she had been, before fog crept into every corner of her life.
She raised her arm higher. "I am Elise Marlowe."
And she brought the dagger down.
The bone-point cut across the first letter of her name, gouging parchment. The ledger screamed. The sound tore through the air like metal scraped raw. The ink convulsed, splattering black droplets that sizzled where they landed. Elise felt it in her veins, a searing pain that nearly split her in two—as though she had carved not paper but herself.
Outside, the Watchman staggered. His shadow rippled violently, collapsing inward. The fog recoiled, screaming with him. For a moment, the entire world seemed to shudder—like a ship cracking under storm waves.
The mark on Elise's arm flared so bright she cried out, the burn unbearable. Then, just as suddenly, it dimmed. Not gone, but muted.
The ledger slammed shut, pages snapping with a thunderous crack. The dagger clattered from her hand. Elise fell to her knees, chest heaving, ears ringing with silence where the toll had been.
Silence. No bell. No whisper. Only the ragged sound of her own breath and Maris's sobbing relief.
Elise lifted her arm weakly. The mark was changed. Not erased, but scarred. The Watchman's ink still ran beneath her skin, but across it now was a crude gash—the mirror of what she had cut on the page. Two truths battling for dominance.
The Keeper crouched, her face unreadable. She traced the edge of the mark with one long finger, careful not to touch. Her silver eyes flicked up. "No, child. Not over."
Elise swallowed against the lump in her throat. "Then what did I do?"
The Keeper's lips pressed into a thin line. "You wounded him. None before you have managed such a strike. But wounds fester, and the Watchman is not one to bleed without demanding payment."
Maris's hand still gripped Elise's. She pulled her close, whispering fiercely in her ear, "You did it. You're still here. That's all that matters."
But Elise wasn't so sure. In the silence, beneath the relief, she felt something else—a low hum, faint but steady, deep inside her blood. The Watchman was not gone. He lingered, wounded but watching. And she feared what price he would demand for being defied.
The Keeper leaned back, her shadow flickering against the cottage's wall. "Now, girl, you are no longer prey. You have become his rival. And that is far more dangerous."