Fen had imagined fear as something loud.
A scream in the throat. A wild heartbeat. Legs moving before the mind caught up.
This was quieter.
The restraints crumbled around his wrists, and for one breath he simply sat there, staring at the black flakes scattered across the table.
No light came from the ceiling.
The only illumination left in the room slipped beneath the door from the corridor, thin and uneven, trembling whenever something moved outside.
The hand remained curled around the edge of the curtain.
It was too pale.
Not the pallor of sickness or death, but the flat white of something formed without blood. Seven fingers gripped the fabric. Each one was long, jointed twice where a human finger should have bent once, the nails soft and colorless.
The curtain drew back another inch.
Dagan stepped in front of Liora.
He did not look frightened.
That would have been easier for Fen to understand.
The guard's posture changed instead. His shoulders lowered. His sword angled toward the floor. The red line running through the blade grew brighter, its glow reaching slowly toward the tip.
Liora slipped the copper rings back over her fingers.
The chains tightened across her hand.
Neither of them had noticed Fen was free.
The voice from the corridor spoke again.
One word.
Enter.
Not shouted.
Invited.
The hand pulled the curtain aside.
A man stood behind it.
At least, that was the shape his body tried to resemble.
He was tall enough that his head nearly touched the top of the cell. His shoulders were narrow. His chest was bare, slick with a clear fluid that ran between the symbols carved into his skin. The marks Fen had seen earlier were not wounds.
They moved.
Rows of small black letters crawled over the man's ribs, vanishing beneath his arms before emerging along his back. Some buried themselves beneath the skin. Others rose from it like insects testing the air.
His face had been covered by a strip of gray cloth.
Only his mouth remained visible.
It smiled.
Fen's hands tightened against the edge of the table.
The prisoner stepped forward.
The bars of the cell did not stop him.
His body passed between them.
Not through the gaps.
Between the metal itself.
For a moment, his flesh narrowed, flattening like wet clay squeezed through wire. Bones shifted beneath his skin without breaking. His head folded sideways, then returned to shape once he entered the corridor.
Fen nearly looked away.
He forced himself not to.
The prisoner turned toward the circular room.
Behind the cloth covering his face, something moved where his eyes should have been.
Dagan lifted the sword.
"Vel sarat."
The words carried no meaning for Fen, but the warning inside them did.
Stop.
The prisoner's smile widened.
"Dagan."
The guard's name sounded wrong in his mouth.
Not mispronounced.
Remembered.
Dagan struck first.
He crossed the doorway in a single step.
The sword cut diagonally through the prisoner's chest.
There was no resistance.
The blade passed through flesh, ribs, and spine with enough force to split the man nearly in half.
Fen flinched at the impact he expected.
It never came.
The prisoner's body opened around the sword.
Not wounded.
Opened.
His chest separated along the cut, revealing no organs beneath. Only a dark cavity packed with slowly turning letters.
They spilled across Dagan's blade.
The red line dimmed.
Dagan tore the weapon free.
Too late.
The letters clung to the metal, spreading toward his hand.
Liora snapped her fingers apart.
The chains stretched between them and flashed copper-bright.
A pressure wave struck the prisoner.
His upper body folded backward. The wall behind him cracked when he hit it. Several jars shattered in the room, filling the air with the smell of bitter herbs.
The prisoner remained pinned for half a second.
Then his arms bent in the wrong direction.
His hands slapped flat against the wall behind him.
Seven fingers on each.
He pushed.
The force threw him forward.
Dagan raised his sword.
The prisoner collided with him.
Both vanished from Fen's view.
Metal struck stone in the corridor.
Liora moved after them.
She stopped at the doorway and looked back at Fen.
Her eyes dropped to his wrists.
The broken restraints lay scattered across the table.
For the first time, Fen saw her composure fail.
Only slightly.
Her mouth parted.
Then something seized her from the corridor.
Liora disappeared sideways.
Her shoulder struck the wall with a dull crack.
Fen stood.
The chair scraped backward.
He did not have a plan.
He had less than no plan. He had entered another world, been chased by a buried mouth, arrested by people who could not understand him, tested with a stone that called his existence impossible, and was now standing in a dark room while a man full of moving letters tried to kill the only two people who had not killed him first.
Running seemed reasonable.
There was another door behind the black mirror.
Fen had noticed it earlier, narrow and nearly hidden by the shelves.
He could reach it.
Leave the building.
Find somewhere crowded.
Find someone who spoke his language.
The thought lasted until Dagan cried out.
Not shouted.
Cried out.
A sharp, strangled sound that ended too quickly.
Fen looked toward the corridor.
Dagan lay against the bars of the nearest cell.
His sword was gone.
The prisoner knelt over him with one hand pressed against his face.
Those long fingers covered Dagan's eyes, nose, and mouth.
The symbols from the prisoner's chest poured down his arm.
They crossed onto Dagan's skin.
The guard convulsed.
Liora was on one knee several feet away, clutching her shoulder. Blood darkened her sleeve. One of her rings had broken, and a loose copper chain dragged across the floor beside her.
She tried to lift her hand.
The prisoner glanced toward her.
His other arm stretched.
The elbow did not move.
The forearm simply lengthened, pale flesh unspooling across the corridor.
Fen grabbed the first thing within reach.
A glass jar.
He threw it.
The jar struck the prisoner's temple and shattered.
A cloud of yellow powder burst across his face.
The prisoner stopped.
Slowly, he turned toward Fen.
The gray cloth over his eyes had torn.
There was nothing beneath it.
No sockets.
No bone.
Only a smooth depression extending from forehead to cheek, filled with those black, crawling letters.
The mouth smiled again.
Fen's stomach knotted.
"Yeah," he said, breathless. "That was stupid."
The prisoner released Dagan.
The guard collapsed onto his side, coughing hard enough to spit blood across the stones.
The pale arm withdrew.
Not retracted.
Consumed itself from the wrist backward until it returned to its original length.
The prisoner stood.
He faced Fen fully now.
Liora shouted something.
Fen did not need the words.
Run.
The prisoner took one step.
Fen backed into the table.
There was nowhere useful to go.
The hidden door remained behind him, but reaching it meant turning his back. The room was too small to gain distance. No weapon lay nearby except the knife Liora had used to cut his finger.
Fen grabbed it.
The blade was barely longer than his palm.
He held it anyway.
The prisoner stepped into the room.
The letters inside his chest shifted faster.
Fen felt them before he understood what they were doing.
They were arranging themselves.
Copying.
A familiar shape emerged across the prisoner's sternum.
A square.
A door.
The same gesture Fen had used outside to explain where he came from.
The prisoner lifted one of its hands and drew the shape in the air.
Then it touched its own chest.
"Fen."
His name came out in Fen's voice.
Every muscle in his body locked.
The sound was exact.
Not similar.
His own voice, pulled from his throat and returned by something that had never possessed one.
The prisoner tilted its head.
"Fen Seriphina."
Liora stopped moving.
Dagan raised his face from the floor.
The creature spoke again, still using Fen's voice.
"Twenty-two years old."
Fen's grip tightened around the knife.
Those were words he had said in the field.
Alone.
No one had been near him.
The thing's smile widened.
"No food except two frozen meals."
Fen felt the room drop beneath him.
It knew.
Not the language.
Not only his name.
It knew what he had said before reaching the city.
The creature stepped closer.
"Friday," it whispered.
That one word landed harder than the rest.
Fen saw the landlord's message on his cracked phone.
Friday.
Rent.
The cashier scanning frozen pasta.
Rain hanging motionless beyond the apartment window.
The creature lifted its hand.
"Plenty of options."
His own joke.
Returned to him inside a room that smelled of blood and broken herbs.
Something in Fen's fear changed.
It did not disappear.
It became narrower.
Sharper.
The thing had reached into his life.
That felt worse than being attacked.
"Stop talking."
The creature paused.
Its head inclined slightly.
Fen had not expected it to obey.
"Those aren't yours."
The prisoner's chest opened wider.
The moving letters rearranged.
"Not yours," it repeated.
A pulse passed through the black mirror behind Fen.
The surface rippled.
The pale figure appeared again.
Tall.
White.
Watching.
This time its head was raised.
Fen still could not see a face.
Only a shape beneath a veil of thin fabric.
The prisoner noticed the mirror.
Its smile vanished.
That frightened Fen more than the smile had.
The black letters scattered across its body.
The creature turned away from him and faced the glass.
For the first time, it recoiled.
Liora saw the opening.
She slammed her palm against the floor.
The copper chains around her hand drove into the stone.
Lines of light spread across the corridor, following the cracks between tiles. They reached the creature's feet and climbed its legs.
The prisoner twisted.
Its body flattened, trying to slip free.
The chains tightened.
Dagan forced himself upright.
Black symbols still crawled across one side of his face, but he ignored them. He reached for his sword, lying near the cell bars, and dragged it toward himself.
The weapon had changed.
The bright red line through its center was almost entirely black.
Dagan looked at it once.
Then wrapped both hands around the hilt.
The blade flared.
The black symbols ignited.
A smell like burning hair filled the corridor.
Dagan roared and brought the sword down.
The blade struck the prisoner at the base of the neck.
This time, it met resistance.
A crack sounded.
Not bone.
Something harder.
The creature dropped to its knees.
Its mouth opened.
The voice that came out belonged to several people at once.
Fen heard Dagan.
Liora.
The exhausted cashier.
Mara.
His own voice beneath all of them.
"You were called."
Dagan pulled the sword free and swung again.
The creature's head separated.
It struck the floor near Fen's feet.
The body remained kneeling.
Black letters poured from the severed neck, spreading over the stone in frantic lines.
The head rolled onto one cheek.
Its mouth continued moving.
"You were called."
Liora tore one of the remaining rings from her finger and threw it.
The copper band landed inside the leaking mass.
Light erupted through the corridor.
Fen covered his face.
Heat rolled over him.
The letters curled inward, blackening at the edges. They made no sound, yet Fen felt something screaming beneath his skin. The sensation crawled through his spine and settled behind his eyes.
The prisoner's body collapsed.
Not downward.
Inward.
Flesh folded into the dark cavity inside its chest. Arms, ribs, legs, and head disappeared one after another, drawn into a point no larger than a pinprick.
Then the point closed.
Nothing remained except scorch marks and a circle of gray dust.
The building fell silent.
Fen lowered his hands.
Liora stayed on her knees, breathing through clenched teeth.
Dagan leaned against the bars.
The left side of his face had gone rigid. The black symbols that crossed his skin no longer moved, though they remained visible beneath the surface, extending from his temple to his jaw.
Fen still held the knife.
His hand shook.
He set it down before anyone mistook the trembling for aggression.
The ceiling stones flickered back to life.
Their white glow exposed the damage.
Cracked jars.
Blood on the floor.
Deep scratches along the walls.
The curtain from the third cell lay in a heap.
The cell beyond it was empty.
Fen looked toward the black mirror.
The pale figure was gone.
A single crack remained at its center.
Liora followed his gaze.
She pushed herself upright and approached the glass.
Dagan spoke.
His voice came out hoarse.
She answered without turning.
Their exchange was quieter now. Fen caught no meaning, but neither looked at him with the same suspicion as before.
That did not mean they trusted him.
The sword returned to Fen's throat within seconds.
Dagan moved more slowly than he had earlier, yet the tip remained steady.
Fen lifted both hands.
"I helped."
Dagan said something bitter.
"I know you don't understand me. I'm still right."
Liora stood before the mirror.
She reached toward the crack, hesitated, then pressed two fingers against it.
Her reflection appeared in the black surface.
Only hers.
Fen saw nothing behind her.
She turned toward him.
Her attention went to the broken restraints, then the cut on his finger, then the black flakes beneath the table.
Liora picked up one fragment.
The metal dissolved against her skin.
She dropped it.
Fen did not enjoy the look that passed between her and Dagan.
He pointed to the remains.
"It wasn't deliberate."
They continued staring.
"It just happened."
Liora approached the table and picked up the two halves of the blood-testing stone.
The words inside had faded.
She fitted the pieces together.
A thin line of black appeared between them.
The stone repaired itself.
Fen watched the crack disappear.
Liora touched its surface.
The writing returned, sharper than before.
No lineage.
No covenant.
No recognized origin.
Not recorded beneath Heaven.
A fifth line formed.
Fen leaned closer despite himself.
The witness has entered.
Liora read it.
He could tell from the way the blood left her face.
Dagan looked over her shoulder.
His sword dipped.
The words shifted again.
The letters pushed against the inside of the stone, stretching until the surface began to bulge. A sound emerged from it, soft and distant, like a voice speaking from the bottom of a well.
Fen could not understand the language.
Liora could.
Her hand tightened around the stone.
The voice continued.
Dagan went still.
When it stopped, the stone cracked again.
This time, it shattered completely.
The pieces turned to white dust in Liora's palm.
Fen looked between them.
"What did it say?"
Liora's eyes found his.
Her expression had changed.
Fear remained, but it was no longer directed only at him.
She pointed toward the corridor, then at Fen.
She pressed two fingers to her lips.
Quiet.
Fen nodded.
Dagan sheathed his sword.
That should have made him feel safer.
It did not.
The guard crossed the room and closed the door. He slid a metal bolt into place, then pulled a heavy cabinet in front of it.
Liora gathered the loose copper chain from the floor.
Her injured arm hung close to her side. When she tried to move it, pain tightened her face. Fen stepped toward her.
Dagan's hand dropped to his sword.
Fen stopped.
"I'm not attacking her."
He pointed to Liora's shoulder.
"Help."
She understood the gesture.
After a moment, she allowed Fen closer.
The fabric around her shoulder had torn. Beneath it, three narrow punctures crossed the skin, each deeper than a finger should have reached. Blood ran down her arm in separate lines.
Fen looked around the shelves.
There were too many jars and no labels he could read.
He pointed at them.
Liora shook her head and opened a drawer beneath the table.
Inside were folded bandages, a curved needle, and a bottle filled with pale liquid.
She tried uncorking it one-handed.
Fen took it from her.
Dagan watched every movement.
Fen poured a small amount onto a folded cloth.
Liora grabbed his wrist before he touched the wound.
She pointed at the liquid, then shook the bottle once.
Fen frowned.
"Use less?"
She shook it again, harder.
Something moved inside.
A tiny pale shape struck the glass.
Fen held the bottle toward the light.
A worm floated in the liquid.
It had a human mouth.
He stared.
Liora took the bottle from him, tipped a single drop onto the bandage, and closed it quickly.
The worm thrashed.
"Right," Fen said. "Local medicine."
She pressed the cloth against her shoulder.
Her breath caught.
The wound hissed.
Steam rose from the blood.
Fen had no idea whether that was good.
Liora seemed satisfied.
Dagan sat against the wall.
The black marks on his face had spread another inch.
He touched them with two fingers.
When he pulled his hand away, the tips were stained dark.
Liora saw.
She crossed the room quickly.
Dagan waved her back.
She ignored him.
Their argument was brief and sharp.
Fen stood near the table, uncertain whether moving would make things worse.
Dagan eventually struck the wall with his fist.
The gesture ended the discussion.
Liora's face hardened.
She gathered the copper chains and knelt in front of him.
Dagan closed his eyes.
She wrapped the broken links around his wrist.
The copper brightened.
The black marks beneath his skin began moving again.
Not spreading.
Pulling toward his arm.
Dagan's jaw clenched.
Fen watched the symbols crawl from his face to his neck, then under his armor. A moment later, they appeared along his forearm, gathering beneath the chains.
Liora tightened them.
Dagan groaned.
The skin split.
Black letters rose from the wound like smoke.
Liora caught them inside the rings.
One copper band cracked.
Then another.
The last of the letters vanished.
Dagan sagged against the wall.
The chains around his wrist had turned black.
Liora removed them carefully and dropped them into an empty jar. The metal continued twitching after the lid was sealed.
Fen looked away.
His gaze returned to the third cell.
"What was he?"
No one answered.
Fen pointed toward the empty space where the prisoner had vanished.
"What?"
Liora followed his hand.
She looked exhausted now. The control in her face had thinned, revealing someone younger beneath it.
She crossed to the table and used one finger to draw in the dust.
A circle.
Inside it, she drew a smaller circle.
Then another.
A spiral.
Fen recognized it.
Not from anywhere in Moria.
From the place beneath his apartment.
The bands of light turning through endless darkness.
Liora tapped the outer edge of the spiral.
Then she drew a line beyond it.
Outside.
She pointed toward the empty cell.
Fen's skin prickled.
The thing had come from beyond the spiral.
Or had been touched by it.
Liora touched the center of the drawing.
Then pointed to the floor.
Here.
Moria.
She traced the line from outside the spiral toward the center.
The prisoner.
Then she erased it.
Fen waited.
Liora drew another line.
This one did not begin outside.
It began nowhere.
Her finger hovered over the dust, then touched down halfway across the table and continued into the spiral.
She pointed at Fen.
The room felt colder.
"No."
Liora tapped the line.
Then him.
"I came from Earth."
He pointed upward, then drew the square again. A door.
Liora shook her head.
She pointed at the spiral.
Then outside it.
Then at Fen.
Dagan watched from the wall.
His expression held no confusion.
Only something close to dread.
Fen looked at the drawing.
The broken testing stone had said he had no recognized origin.
Not recorded beneath Heaven.
The creature had known his name before reaching him.
The figure in white had followed him from the field to the mirror.
He thought of the voice in the darkness.
Enter.
Not welcome.
Not come.
Enter.
As though something had opened a door.
As though something expected him to walk through.
A sound rose from beneath the floor.
Fen froze.
A faint scraping.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Liora heard it too.
She swept her hand across the table, erasing the spiral.
Dagan stood despite the pain.
The scraping moved beneath them.
From one side of the room to the other.
Then stopped under Fen's feet.
Nobody breathed.
Three knocks came from below.
Fen stepped back.
A fourth followed.
Liora grabbed his arm.
She dragged him toward the hidden door behind the mirror.
Dagan pulled the cabinet away from the entrance instead.
Liora shouted at him.
He shook his head and pointed toward the corridor.
Another knock came from the floor.
A crack opened between the stones.
Black fluid welled through it.
The liquid did not spread.
It wrote.
One letter at a time.
Fen could read the sentence before it finished.
THE GATE WAS NOT FOR YOU.
The black fluid shifted.
THE CITY WAS.
Dagan saw the writing.
His face changed.
He turned toward Fen.
For the first time, he spoke slowly, choosing each word as though he believed Fen might understand through effort alone.
"Vara."
He pointed at Fen.
"Vara."
Liora pulled open the hidden door.
A narrow stairway descended beyond it.
Fen remained still.
"What does that mean?"
Dagan seized the front of his coat and dragged him close.
The guard's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Curse."
That word Fen understood.
Not through magic.
Dagan had spoken it in Fen's language.
Before Fen could ask how, the floor split open.