The door had no handle, no lock, no keyhole. Just smooth stone with two sets of marks cut into it at exactly the right height.
Eight-year-old height. Not coincidental.
The marks were the same shape as the sigils on the twins' backs, which Aelara had been looking at since they were born. She had traced them with her fingers when they were infants and she had asked Seraphine what they were and Seraphine had said: keys.
She had understood what Seraphine meant and also not understood, the way you understood the meaning of a word and not the weight of it at the same time.
She understood the weight of it now, standing in the narrow corridor below Silver Hollow with the lamp throwing light across a door that had been waiting since before her parents were born.
— — —
The twins stood in front of it.
