Theo didn't sleep.
He tried — more for the sake of convincing Magda than because he thought rest was possible — but every time his eyes closed, his mind replayed the voice outside the door.Not the words.Not the threats.The shape of it.
There had been a rhythm in the way it said his name, as if it were savoring each syllable. It wasn't just recognition — it was possession.
He lay there long after Magda's footsteps faded down the corridor, the strange sword balanced across his knees. The hum inside it had softened to something like a distant heartbeat, but every so often it would shift, as if the blade were turning its attention toward something unseen.
The burned symbols on the door pulsed faintly in the darkness. Magda had told him nothing more, only that she'd be in the watchtower until first light, and that the marks would "hold" if he didn't do anything foolish.
Theo didn't know if picking up the sword had already counted as foolish.
By the time the first gray smear of dawn touched the shutters, he'd made his decision.He wasn't waiting for Magda to tell him what was happening — not entirely.If the thing outside knew his name, then the king's warnings, the Council's decree, and the moonwater's strange reaction couldn't be separate threads. They had to be knotted together.
And if he couldn't untie them, he could at least start pulling.
He dressed quickly, strapping the scabbard to his side. The blade sat against him with unsettling familiarity, as though it had been made for his exact height, his exact grip. That hum — faint but constant — seemed to agree with his decision to leave.
The corridor beyond his door was empty. The frost from last night had melted into small rivulets along the floorboards, leaving faint pale stains that wouldn't come out. He passed the room where Magda slept and found it empty. The watchtower's stairs spiraled up into shadow at the far end.
Theo hesitated. Going up would mean running into her. Going down — toward the courtyard, the gates, and whatever lay beyond the bell's reach — would mean he was choosing his own path.
He went down.
The courtyard still carried the chill of night. The great bronze bell at its center hung motionless, its surface etched with the same claw-like marks as his door. Several other doors opened onto the yard, most of them bolted from the inside. A few figures moved at the far wall, carrying buckets of well water, speaking in low voices that stopped when they saw him.
One of them — a wiry man with a limp — set down his bucket and called out:"You're the new one. The wolf."
Theo's stomach tightened. "That's what it called me," he said before thinking.
The man's eyes sharpened. "It?"
Theo glanced around. "The thing outside my room last night."
The man limped closer, lowering his voice. "We don't say 'thing' here. We say guest. Makes it less likely to notice."
"I think it already noticed."
"That's the problem," the man said. "Guests don't knock unless they mean to come in."
Theo felt the hum in his sword quicken, as if reacting to the conversation. The man's eyes dropped to the weapon, and he took a step back. "Where'd you—"
Before he could finish, a voice called Theo's name from across the courtyard.
Magda.
She crossed the yard with long, angry strides, her axe slung over one shoulder. The others in the courtyard scattered at her approach.
"You're supposed to be in your room," she said, stopping just close enough that he could see the frost still caught in her hair from the night watch.
"I needed answers."
"You'll get them when it's safe."
"Safe from what? It knew my name before it ever saw me. You think it's just going to forget?"
Magda's jaw worked. She took a deep breath through her nose, then gestured toward the far wall. "Walk."
They crossed the courtyard to a low stone building set against the outer wall. Inside, the air smelled faintly of cedar and something sharper — like old metal. Magda shut the door and slid a thick bolt into place.
"This is the records room," she said. "Most who come here don't get to see it. But you're not most."
Theo scanned the shelves. Scrolls, bound ledgers, wooden boxes sealed with wax. All marked with the same claw-like sigils.
"You said it knew your name," Magda continued. "That means one of two things. Either it's hunted you before… or it's been told who to hunt."
Theo frowned. "Told? By who?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out." She stepped past him and began unsealing a small chest on the nearest shelf. Inside were several sheets of thin parchment, each covered in neat handwriting. She spread one out on the table between them.
Names.
Dozens of them, each with a date, a location, and a brief note. Next to some were symbols — a crescent, a claw, a drop of water.
Theo scanned down the list. "These are victims?"
"Visitors," Magda corrected. "Some left alive. Most didn't. The marks tell me what the guest was after." She tapped the crescent. "Moonblood." Then the claw. "Shapeborn." Finally, the drop. "Waterbound."
Theo's breath caught. "And what's all three mean?"
Magda met his eyes. "It means they're not just after you. They're afraid of you."
A faint sound interrupted them. Not a knock. Not claws.
A scrape. From above.
Magda's hand went to her axe. Theo's to his sword. The hum inside it sharpened like a drawn breath.
"That's not the roof," Magda murmured. "That's the wall."
The scrape came again, slower now, as though something were dragging itself down the outside stones of the building.
Then — silence.
Magda moved toward the door, but Theo felt something inside him shift. A pull, subtle but undeniable, drawing his attention to the far corner of the room. There, between two shelves, the stonework was different — older, rougher.
The sword hummed harder.
Theo stepped toward it.
"Don't," Magda said sharply. "You don't open doors you didn't close."
"It's not a door," Theo said — but even as he spoke, he saw the outline. A seam in the stone. Faint claw-marks etched around it.
He reached out.
The moment his palm touched the seam, the hum inside the blade surged into a deep, resonant chord. The wall trembled — and something on the other side answered.
Not in words.
In hunger.
The vibration from the sword rattled in Theo's bones.It was no longer a hum but a low, sustained note, as if the blade were holding its breath with him.
The seam in the stone was colder than the frost on his door had been — a deep cold that bit through his skin and seemed to sink toward his heart. His fingertips felt the faintest pulse under the surface, like something sleeping just on the other side.
"Step away from it." Magda's voice was steady but sharper now, the kind of tone that brooked no argument.
Theo didn't move.
"It's calling to you," she said. "That's how they work. The guests don't always knock from the front. Sometimes they whisper through the cracks you don't see."
Theo turned his head slightly toward her. "If this is one of them, why seal it with stone instead of your symbols?"
Magda's silence told him enough.
"It wasn't you who sealed it," he said.
Her jaw tightened. "No. And if you're smart, you won't be the one to open it."
The vibration in the sword dimmed, just a fraction, as if disappointed. But the pull remained — not just in the blade now, but in Theo himself. Somewhere in the marrow, something urged him to press harder, to test the seam, to see what waited behind it.
Magda crossed the room and pulled him back by the collar. "Enough."
The contact broke the cold connection instantly, and Theo staggered slightly, blinking as though waking from a dream. The stone before him looked just like any other — rough, old, and dead.
But he knew better now.
Magda shoved the chest of names shut. "We need to move."
"Where?"
"Watchtower. The walls are safest in daylight." She hesitated, glancing at the sword. "And I want that where I can keep an eye on it."
Theo's grip tightened instinctively. "It was in my room. That means it's mine."
"That means," she corrected, "someone put it in your room. Which means they want you using it. Which should make you wonder why."
They locked eyes for a long moment before Theo finally slung the scabbard back to his side.
Outside, the courtyard felt brighter, but not safer. The air was crisp, almost brittle, and each sound carried too far — the ring of a bucket set down on stone, the mutter of two guards on the far wall, the rustle of wings from a crow circling overhead.
Magda led him toward the base of the watchtower. "You're going to see something you won't like," she said. "But you'll stop asking why I'm careful."
She pushed open the door, and the smell hit him first — not rot exactly, but something sour and metallic, like rust and old rainwater soaked into fabric. The interior was dim, lit only by narrow slits in the wall. As his eyes adjusted, Theo saw the marks.
Not burned, not carved.Scratched.Everywhere.
On the walls, on the stairs, on the ceiling above them. Long, shallow gouges, always in threes, winding and curling into shapes that almost resembled letters — but not in any language Theo knew.
"They come higher than the gates?" Theo asked quietly.
"They climb," Magda said. "And sometimes they test the stones in daylight, just to see if anyone notices."
Halfway up the stairs, they reached a landing with a small window. Theo glanced out — and froze.
Far beyond the walls, in the frost-touched field, something stood. Tall, too thin, its head tilted sharply to one side. Its skin — if that was skin — was the pale blue of moonlight on ice. The distance should have blurred its features, but Theo felt as if he could see its face with unnatural clarity.
And it was smiling.
The hum inside the sword pulsed once.
The figure raised one long hand and made a slow, deliberate motion — three raps in the air, as if knocking on an invisible door.
Theo stepped back from the window.
By the time they reached the top of the tower, his pulse had steadied, but his thoughts hadn't. Magda was scanning the fields with a spyglass, her expression tight.
"It won't come closer in daylight," she said. "Not unless—"
She stopped.
Theo waited. "Unless what?"
Magda lowered the glass, staring at him with a look that was equal parts calculation and regret. "Unless you invite it."
"I didn't—"
"You touched the seam in the stone."
Theo swallowed. "That wasn't an invitation."
"Not to you," Magda said. "But the old ones… they have different rules."
They stayed in the tower until the sun crested the treeline. The figure in the field didn't move again. It just… stood there, tilting its head occasionally, as if listening.
By midday it was gone.
Theo didn't remember falling asleep in the tower's high-backed chair, but he woke with the taste of cold iron in his mouth and the faint echo of that voice — low and hollow — curling through his thoughts.
Little wolf…
When he blinked, his vision swam for a moment, and he saw not the stone walls of the watchtower, but the seam in the records room again, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
And then, just under the hum of the sword, another sound.
Knocking.
From inside the wall.
The knock stopped when Magda shook his shoulder. "Wake up. You've got an audience with the Warden."
"The Warden?"
"He runs the keep," Magda said. "And if that guest knows your name, the Warden's going to want to know why."
Theo rose, legs stiff, sword still at his side. "And if I can't tell him?"
Magda gave him a humorless smile. "Then I hope you like the view from the inside of a locked cell. Because they'll keep you in one until the next moon."
Theo frowned. "What happens on the next moon?"
Magda's smile faded. "That's when the guests stop knocking."