The bone stylus had cut my finger clean and true, blood dropping onto the lock like communion wine on sacred ground. The mechanism hissed and clicked open, revealing secrets that had waited twenty-five years to breathe again.
But something else demanded my attention first.
A sound drifted down from the upper floors, faint but wrong. Radio static, but not the normal kind. This had rhythm, like breathing or a heartbeat transmitted through electromagnetic waves.
I closed the box without looking inside. Whatever inheritance my parents had died to protect could wait a few more minutes. The sound upstairs felt urgent in a way that made my bones itch.
Mercury appeared at my feet, amber eyes reflecting depths that had nothing to do with the basement's dim light. The cat turned toward the stairs and padded upward, tail twitching in what might have been invitation or warning.
"Something's wrong," Bramble said, though he couldn't have heard what I was hearing.
I tucked the box under my arm and followed Mercury up the creaking stairs, each step groaning in a rhythm that almost matched the distant static. Bramble's footsteps echoed behind me, his breathing nervous and quick.
At the top of the stairs, I caught a glimpse of movement through the front door's frosted glass. A tall figure walking away with measured steps, silver-streaked hair catching the morning light. Eizek, leaving as promised.
The radio sound was coming from the kitchen, clearer now. Not just static, but something underneath it. Voices, maybe. Or music played at frequencies that made my teeth ache.
I followed the sound through the house's shifting architecture, walls breathing gently around us as if the recursive magic was settling into sleep. The kitchen doorway stretched wider than it should have, welcoming us into a space that smelled like fresh coffee and something metallic that tasted like old pennies.
Perched on the counter next to a radio I definitely hadn't seen before sat Loki.
