Arthur didn't sleep that night. He sat in his worn-out chair, the wooden box on the desk before him, and the white card beside it.
Every time he tried to close his eyes, the image of the labyrinthine seal and the little girl's scream haunted him in the darkness.
The silence in his apartment had lost its security, turning into a tense void, waiting for the next knocks that never came.
As the first gray threads of dawn seeped through his window, changing the sky over Athelburg from black to the color of old bruises, Arthur had made his decision.
The fear had not left him; it had settled in his stomach like a piece of cold lead, but resolve had hardened around it like ice. To stay where he was meant waiting for the unknown to return to him.
To move meant to take the initiative, even if that initiative led to greater danger.
He put on his coat, placed the small wooden box in an inner pocket, and held the white card. Its feel was still unnaturally cold and solid.
In the morning city streets, everything seemed painfully normal.
The clatter of metal tram cars, the columns of black smoke rising from distant factory chimneys, the pale, tired faces of passersby on their way to another day of work.
Arthur passed through all of this like a ghost.
He was seeing a world he no longer fully belonged to. How could these people walk so calmly while other dimensions of reality bled into their world through things like an old wooden box?
"Stone Crow Alley" wasn't on any modern city map.
Arthur spent two hours in the municipal archives, flipping through huge, musty-smelling volumes until he found its name mentioned on a map from a century ago,
drawn as a thin line between two buildings in the old commercial district, an area now known for its antique shops and forgotten libraries.
He found himself in front of a small bookstore with a facade of dark, peeling oak, and the name "Volumes of Time" carved above the door in faded letters.
He entered, greeted by the sound of a hanging bell and the smell of old paper and thick dust. Behind a counter piled high with books sat a bald old man wearing half-moon glasses, reading a massive tome.
"Excuse me," Arthur said, his voice sounding loud in the profound silence. "I'm looking for a place... Stone Crow Alley."
The old man raised his eyes above his glasses.
His eyes were hazy, as if they saw things beyond the bookstore's walls. He examined Arthur from head to toe, then said in a raspy voice like dry paper, "That name is no longer on people's tongues. No one goes there. There's nothing there."
"But it exists, doesn't it?" Arthur insisted.
The old man hesitated for a moment, then sighed.
"Go out of here, turn left, and walk until you reach the watchmaker's shop. Right behind it, you'll find a gap between two walls. Most people don't notice it. That's the start. But my advice to you, son, some doors are better left closed."
Arthur thanked the man and left, feeling his gaze follow him until he closed the door behind him.
The gap was exactly as the man had described.
A very narrow alley, barely wide enough for one person to pass, squeezed between the dirty back wall of the watchmaker's and a towering, windowless red brick building. Sunlight never reached its wet stone floor.
The air here was immediately colder, stagnant, and carried a faint smell of damp brick and mold. And on the stones above the alley entrance, there was a faded carving of two crows, their stone eyes worn away by time.
Arthur walked down the alley, the sound of his footsteps echoing strangely off the nearby walls.
After about twenty paces, the alley opened into a small square courtyard, surrounded on all sides by the silent back walls of buildings. And in the middle of the opposite wall, there was one different building.
Number 17
It wasn't a large or terrifying building. It was just a narrow, three-story building of black brick that seemed to absorb light.
There were no windows on the ground floor. Only a massive door of black wood, reinforced with strips of rusty iron.
There was no handle, no bell, not even a traditional keyhole. Instead, in the middle of the door, at chest height, there was a small brass plaque, engraved with the same labyrinthine symbol he had seen on the visitor's hand and on the paper.
Arthur stood before the door, his heart pounding hard. He felt as if he were being tested.
He tried to push the door, but it didn't budge; it was as solid as a mountain wall. He knocked on it, but the sound was muffled and dead, as if he were knocking into a void.
He remembered the old man's words.
Some doors are better left closed.
For a moment, he thought of turning around and going back. But the image of the ghostly smile and the little girl's scream pushed him to stay.
He took the white card from his pocket. His hand trembled slightly as he brought it close to the door. There was no obvious place to put it, just a very thin, barely noticeable slit beneath the brass plaque.
Hesitantly, he pushed the edge of the card into the slit. It slid in with unexpected smoothness.
And for a moment, nothing happened. Then, without any sound, without the creak of hinges or the click of a lock, the heavy door began to slide inward. It moved in complete silence, revealing a profound darkness inside.
Arthur took a deep breath and stepped in.
The door closed behind him with the same absolute silence, plunging him into darkness for a second before a faint light flickered on from above.
The place wasn't old and dusty as he had expected. The smell was the first thing that struck him: the scent of very old paper, leather, and dust, but beneath it was another smell, a chemical, sterile scent, similar to the ozone he had smelled in his vision.
He was standing in a very high reception hall, its walls lined with shelves that stretched upward until they disappeared into the darkness.
There were no books on the shelves, but thousands of wooden and metal boxes, all similar and meticulously numbered. The silence here was heavy, pressing on his eardrums.
"We were wondering when you would arrive, Mr. Hemlock."
The voice came from behind a massive reception desk made of polished black stone.
A middle-aged woman sat there, her gray hair pulled back in an elaborate bun, wearing sharp-rimmed glasses. She looked at him calmly, without any surprise, as if she had been waiting for him all morning.
Arthur froze in his place. How did she know his name?
The woman pointed to the box that was protruding slightly from his coat pocket.
"The First Touch is always disorienting. Please, come forward. We have much to discuss."