The orphanage on Barrow Hill had weathered storms before.
It was an old house, old in the way that bones are old, settled deep into the earth with the patience of something that intended to remain. Three stories of grey stone and dark timber, with windows like watchful eyes and chimneys that had breathed smoke for more generations than anyone could count.
Tonight, the storm seemed personal.
Inside, the children slept, or tried to. Only two people remained awake.
The woman at the window had the kind of face that had been handsome once and was now something better: strong. Silver hair pulled back in a practical braid that had given up pretending to be anything other than iron-grey. Her hands, wrapped around a cup of tea that had long since gone cold, were steady. They were hands that had held crying children, signed difficult letters, and, in another life, done things she no longer spoke of.
Tonight, she stood watching the storm with an expression that had nothing to do with the weather.
Something was wrong.
She couldn't name it. That part of her had faded decades ago, when she had walked away from a different life and chosen this one instead. But she could feel it: a pressure at the edges of her awareness. Like a headache that hadn't quite arrived.
"Miss Ingrid?"
She turned.
A girl stood in the doorway, wrapped in a too-large shawl that had once belonged to someone's grandmother. She was gangly, all limbs and sharp angles, not yet grown into the height she'd been given, with dark hair that refused to stay braided no matter how many pins she used. Her face was serious, watchful.
"You should be asleep," Ingrid said. "It's nearly midnight."
The girl wasn't looking at her. She was looking past her, toward the window. Through the rain-streaked glass, a light was moving up the path: a lantern, swinging wildly in the storm.
"Someone's at the gate," she said.
Ingrid turned. She saw it too now: the light, the dark shape behind it, struggling against the wind.
Then the knock came.
Three sharp raps on the front door, distinct and deliberate. It shouldn't have been audible over the storm. But somehow it cut through everything: the rain, the thunder, the howling wind.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Stay here," Ingrid said.
She didn't wait for an answer. She walked to the front hall, her joints protesting the cold. The girl followed anyway, bare feet silent on the wooden floor.
The front door was heavy oak, reinforced with iron bands that Ingrid had always assumed were decorative. Now she wondered.
She paused with her hand on the latch.
Another knock. Softer. Almost pleading.
She opened the door.
Rain rushed in. Lightning flashed, and in that frozen instant Ingrid saw:
Two baskets.
Wicker, old-fashioned, the kind her own grandmother might have used. They sat on the doorstep side by side, perfectly centered, as if someone had taken great care with their placement.
No one else was there. No footprints in the mud. No carriage tracks on the road.
Just the baskets. And the storm.
Ingrid knelt, her knees protesting on the wet stone.
Her hands shook as she pulled back the first cloth.
A baby.
Light-skinned, the warm tone of milked tea, catching gold in the lightning flashes. A crown of dark curly hair, the coils tight and springy even wet from rain. Eyes closed in sleep, small fists curled against the blanket.
And on the forehead...
A mark. Curved like a sickle. Glowing faintly silver.
She pulled back the second cloth. Another baby. Identical in every way: the same warm complexion, the same dark curls pressed against the small skull, the same impossible stillness despite the chaos around them. Same mark, pulsing in rhythm with the first.
Twins.
The marks flared brighter for just a moment, silver light that painted Ingrid's face, then faded.
"Who are they?" the girl whispered. She had crept up behind Ingrid, her shawl pulled tight.
Ingrid didn't answer. Her mind was racing through memories she had tried to bury. Symbols. Prophecies. Things she had promised herself she would never think about again.
But she recognized those marks.
"Help me carry them inside," she said. "Quickly."
They lifted the baskets together, heavier than they looked, or perhaps Ingrid was simply more tired than she'd realized. The girl took the second basket without being told, her thin arms straining under the weight. The moment the twins crossed the threshold, something shifted.
The pressure that had been building all night, that nameless wrongness pressing at her awareness, suddenly eased.
Like a pond absorbing a stone without a ripple.
The storm still raged outside. But somehow, the house felt quieter.
Ingrid set the baskets down in the front hall and straightened, pressing a hand to her lower back.
"Go to bed, Lucia."
"But-"
"Now." Her voice was firm but not unkind. "Whatever this is, it will still be here in the morning. And you'll be useless tomorrow if you don't sleep."
The girl, Lucia, looked at the baskets. At the babies sleeping peacefully inside them.
"Will they be alright?"
"They're safer here than they were out there." Ingrid touched her shoulder, a rare gesture. "Go. I'll sit with them tonight."
She hesitated. Then she nodded and padded up the stairs, glancing back twice before disappearing around the corner.
Ingrid stood alone in the hallway, looking down at the sleeping twins.
One of the babies, the one in the first basket, opened his eyes. Just for a moment. Dark and deep and impossibly old.
He looked at Ingrid.
Then he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
The storm raged on.