Percy sat in the living room with the pouch heavy in his palm, though there was hardly anything inside to give it weight. Five copper crowns.
He loosened the drawstring again, stared at the dull coins, then pulled it shut. The motion felt pointless, but he did it anyway.
The sum had not changed since the last time he looked, and it left him feeling smaller than he had in years. After the orphanage he had scraped by on more than this.
Even right after waking up in this body, there had been twelve crowns to his name. Now the number sat lower, and the fault rested with choices that were entirely his.
The holster had taken six. It was old leather, scuffed at the edges, something no one seemed to want.
Manageable on its own. The real damage sat in his other hand: a wooden box no larger than his fist yet denser than it had any right to be. He turned it once, feeling the grain under his thumb. A music box, the shopkeeper had called it.
No key came with it. To make it play he would need a screwdriver or some other makeshift tool, an extra step that already felt wasteful. Fifteen crowns for that. The number still stung when he thought about it.
He set the box on the table and leaned back. The chair creaked under the shift in weight. For a while he simply watched the small thing, trying to name the pull that had made him hand over the coins.
It had not been curiosity alone. The same quiet tug had sent him after Harris into the alley without any clear reason, and the memory of that decision sat uncomfortably close to the one that had emptied his purse.
Both moments carried the same faint pressure, as though something outside his own thoughts had nudged his eyes toward certain objects and certain streets.
The crimson-eyed thing returned to mind without warning. A chill moved along his forearms. He rubbed at the skin, but the feeling lingered.
He had tried to treat the earlier incidents as stray impulses or bad luck, yet the pattern refused to stay ignored. Each time he had pushed the memory down almost as soon as it surfaced. That avoidance itself now felt like another clue.
He stood and climbed the stairs. The room at the top was dim, the single window letting in what remained of the afternoon light. From the drawer he took the ink bottle, the quill, and the notebook whose pages were mostly empty.
Ronan had never used it. Percy had added only a handful of entries, none of them recent. He opened to a blank sheet and dipped the quill. Writing in English felt safer; if anyone else opened the book the words would mean nothing.
He listed the questions one after another, keeping the lines short so the thoughts would not tangle.
Why was he being drawn toward certain things? The idea that he might simply be sensitive to whatever lurked behind the ordinary world sounded like something from a cheap novel, yet he wrote it down because no better answer presented itself.
What had been waiting in the alley? Not human, that much was certain. Whether it was a spirit or something that had once been flesh, he could not say. He noted both possibilities.
Why had Harris been there at all? The man's story about his daughter surfaced again. Percy wondered whether that loss had pulled Harris into the same current that now tugged at him. He added the thought without certainty.
The man who had chased him afterward looked ordinary, but something about the way he moved had felt off, like skin worn over the wrong shape. Percy wrote that he was probably not the same kind of creature as the one with the red eyes.
Last, the box. He stared at it where it rested beside the ink bottle. If it was drawing things toward him, keeping it was reckless.
The thought of tossing it out of the window crossed his mind and was dismissed just as quickly. Percy might have done that. He was not Percy. The reminder settled him enough to continue.
He opened the pocket watch that lay near the edge of the table. On the inner cover he wrote two words in English, small and neat, " I'M RONAN " then closed the lid again.
The metal felt cool against his fingers. He returned his attention to the box, found the small screwdriver with the chipped tip, and gave the mechanism three careful turns. Nothing stirred.
He waited, listening to the quiet tick of the watch and still nothing got nothing out of it.
A sigh left him. The disappointment was dull . Part of him had wanted to know what sound fifteen crowns could buy. He set the screwdriver down.
The click came without warning, three rapid taps from inside the wood. Percy went still. A thin, uneven melody began to turn, the notes warped as though the cylinder had sat unused for too long. Then a voice slipped through the gaps between the sounds, soft and almost childlike.
"Aww… it's not working. I was hoping to hear pretty music from it…"
The words hung in the air after the mechanism stuttered to a halt. Percy did not move . He kept his hands on the table, listening to the silence that followed, and waited to see whether anything else would speak.
The room fell into an oppressive silence that lasted a few very tense seconds. Heart pounding, he reached for the revolver tucked inside his beltless holster and drew it . Slowly, he raised the weapon and aimed it directly at the ominous box resting on the table.
He began to retreat step by step. His eyes remained locked on the box, unblinking, as he silently prayed that nothing would stir within it. Every muscle in his body was coiled and ready; he was fully prepared to pull the trigger the instant the box showed even the slightest movement.