That night, Lucia couldn't sleep.
Her mind kept circling back to the cellar, the girl's scream, the terrible thing she had felt. Every time she closed her eyes, she was there again. Trapped in someone else's memory.
So she got up.
The orphanage was quiet. Moonlight spilled through the windows, painting silver stripes across the floor. Her bare feet made no sound on the worn boards.
She didn't mean to go to the nursery. She was just walking, trying to tire herself out. But somehow she found herself standing in the doorway, looking at the twins.
They were asleep. Or they should have been.
Marcus was sitting up in his crib. His eyes were open, staring at something in the corner of the room, something Lucia couldn't see.
The moonlight caught his face, and for just a moment, she could have sworn the shadows in the corner moved. Not like wind pushing a curtain. Like something breathing. Something watching back.
Her skin prickled.
It's nothing, she told herself. Just shadows. Just my imagination.
But Marcus was still staring. His tiny hand reached out toward the corner, not grabbing, just... pointing. As if acknowledging something.
Then Darwin stirred.
He made a small sound, not quite a cry, more like a whimper. His hand found Marcus's through the bars of his crib. Their fingers intertwined.
The shadows in the corner drew back.
Lucia blinked. She could have sworn... no. There was nothing there. Just an empty corner. Just moonlight and darkness doing strange things.
Marcus turned his head and looked at her.
Those eyes. Dark and deep. Too old for a baby's face.
He didn't cry. He didn't reach for her. He just looked, and Lucia felt, with absolute certainty, that he knew she was there. That he had known she was there the whole time.
Then he lay back down, curled toward his brother, and closed his eyes.
Lucia stood in the doorway for a long time.
When she finally went back to bed, she didn't sleep. She lay awake until dawn, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince herself that she hadn't seen anything strange.
She almost believed it.
----
He tried again the next night.
Not the book this time. His shoes, sitting by the door. He stared at them until his temples ached, and then, slowly, trembling, they lifted. An inch off the floor. Two inches. He held them there until sweat beaded on his forehead, then let them drop.
His heart was hammering. His mouth tasted like copper.
The night after that, it was the cup on his nightstand. Then the nightstand drawer, heavier, harder, the effort like pushing against a river. His nose started to bleed. He wiped it on his sleeve and kept going.
He couldn't stop. The power answered him differently each time, sometimes smooth and willing, sometimes stubborn, like an animal that hadn't decided whether to trust him yet. But each night it came a little easier. Each night he reached a little further.
Lucia noticed.
"You look terrible," she said one morning, catching him in the hallway. His eyes were shadowed, his skin pale. "Have you been sleeping?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're pushing too hard."
He didn't answer.
"Leo." She grabbed his arm. "We said we'd figure this out together. Not like this."
"I'm careful."
"You're bleeding." She pointed at his sleeve. A faint red stain where he'd wiped his nose at three in the morning.
He pulled his arm back. "I'll stop."
He didn't stop.
He had told himself to stop. Lucia had told him to stop.
But stopping felt like dying.
Because every night, when the house went quiet and the candles burned low, he felt them. The shadows. Pressing against the edges of the property like hands testing a locked door. Circling. Patient. Getting closer.
And in the nursery, the twins slept. Their marks invisible. Their small fists curled against each other.
So he found himself in the attic again.
Past midnight. A single candle for light. His breath misting in the cold air.
The chair, he thought. Lift the chair.
It rose. Shakily at first, then steadier.
Higher.
His nose started to bleed.
The table too.
A heavy oak table trembled and began to lift. Blood dripped from his nose to the dusty floor.
The trunk. The boxes. Everything.
Objects rose around him, a constellation of forgotten things, spinning in the candlelight. Old toys. Broken furniture. Boxes of papers nobody had looked at in decades.
The pain hit like a hammer.
He collapsed. Objects crashed down around him. The candle went out. He lay on the floor, gasping, his head filled with fire. Blood pooled under his cheek.
I'm going to die up here, he thought. And the twins... who will protect them if I'm gone?
Then: footsteps.
"Leo?" Lucia's voice, urgent. "Leo, are you- oh no."
She was beside him, hands on his face, pulling him up.
"You idiot. You absolute idiot."
"Had to... get stronger... they're getting closer..."
"The shadows?" Her voice went sharp. "You felt them too?"
"Every night... circling the nursery... testing the barrier..."
She went silent. When she spoke again, her voice was harder. Different.
"Then we train smarter. Together. Not like this."
It took her a long time to get him down the stairs. She half-carried, half-dragged him to his room, and sat with him until his breathing steadied. At some point her hand found his, and she didn't let go.
For three days afterward, Leo couldn't move anything. His power was there, dormant and sulking, but it refused to answer.
----
The morning after, she found him on the back step.
He moved stiffly. His hands shook when he picked up his tea. Neither of them spoke for a while.
"You nearly died up there," she said.
He didn't argue.
"I've been seeing things too," she said quietly. "In the nursery. Shadows that move. Marcus watches them. They drew back when Darwin touched his hand." She looked at him. "I should have told you sooner."
"Why didn't you?"
"Same reason you kept going to the attic alone." She pulled her knees up. "I thought I could handle it."
He let out a breath. The tree line was quiet. The morning light was thin and pale.
"We can't handle this," he said. "Either of us."
"We need to tell Miss Ingrid."
He nodded. Slowly.
"Yeah," he said. "We do."