My mother burned the cloth before I finished explaining.
Not all of it. Just the corner. That was worse, somehow. If she had thrown the whole bundle into the lamp, cursed the Prophet, and told me to run, I might have understood what kind of fear I was supposed to have. Instead, she took one of the spare breathing cloths from her basket, held it near the Heat Grub jar, and watched the edge curl black.
The cloth did not burn like cloth.
It tightened first, shrinking inward as if something inside it wanted to avoid the flame. Then the corner caught. A thin thread of smoke rose from the blackened edge, and the room filled with a sweetness that did not belong near cloth, heat, or lungs.
Rotten fruit left in a warm sealed room.
My mother covered her mouth with her sleeve.
I stepped back so quickly my heel struck the crate behind me. “What is that?”
“Not mold,” she said.
That was not comforting.
The room felt smaller than usual, though nothing had moved. The walls still pressed close around our mats, our water jar, the low shelf, and the thread basket by my mother’s knee. Ash paste covered the corner seam where we had found the pale line before, thick and ugly and ordinary-looking. Outside, the eastern stack murmured with soft voices and softer laughter. Everyone slept better now, which meant more people stayed awake after dark because they had enough strength to pretend they were happy.
My mother pinched the burned corner between two bone needles and lifted it toward the lamp. The blackened fibers clung together in a single strand. Not woven anymore, if they had ever been woven at all.
Grown.
My stomach turned.
“This was one of yours?” I asked.
“No.”
“You said it was from your basket.”
“It was in my basket.” Her eyes stayed on the burned corner. “That is not the same thing.”
I stared at her. She did not look surprised, and that made it worse.
“When did you find it?”
“This morning. At first, I thought one of Saint Rook’s attendants had returned a damaged cloth by mistake.” She lowered the strip into a clay dish and covered it with a flat stone. “Then I looked closer. My stitches do not bend this way.”
“They bend?”
“Everything bends if made poorly enough.”
Very Mara.
Very not reassuring.
She took the rest of her basket and began sorting. Dust filters in one pile. Mold filters in another. Rot filters, double-folded at the nose seam, in a third. Her hands moved with practiced calm, and I hated how steady they were because I knew what had helped make them steady.
A fourth pile appeared near the edge of the mat.
Small.
Wrong.
Every cloth in it looked normal until she held it close to the lamp. Then faint pale fibers shone between the stitches.
“How many?” I asked.
“Five.”
“Who gave them to you?”
“No one.”
“That’s not possible.”
She looked toward the door curtain, where the warm voices of our neighbors moved like water. “Many things are becoming possible.”
Outside, someone laughed. Nara from two rooms down, probably. Before Avaruun came, Nara’s laugh had sounded like a warning thrown into a tunnel. Now it sounded gentle, almost grateful, like broth cooling in a bowl.
I hated it.
My mother wrapped the wrong cloths in scrap hide and tied the bundle with black thread. “Take these to Foreman Vekk.”
“Vekk?”
“He asked for anything strange.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
I blinked. “Months ago?”
Mara did not look up. “Foreman Vekk asks for strange things every few months. Bad dust. Odd mold. Wall-worm paste with discoloration. Cracked Skitter plates. Rotten moss. Anything that smells wrong, burns wrong, grows wrong, or makes old people stop talking.”
“He does?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he is frightened by everything and rude enough to survive it.”
I stared at the wrapped bundle. Foreman Vekk had been collecting wrong things. That changed something in my head. Not much, but enough to make him seem less like a shouting obstacle and more like a shouting obstacle with a drawer full of nightmares.
My mother pressed the bundle into my hands. “If he tells you to burn them, make him smell them first.”
“That sounds like a bad idea.”
“It is. But he will understand faster.”
I tucked the bundle under my coat. The warmth in the room pressed around us. My mother breathed steadily.
Too steadily.
I looked at her chest rising and falling without the wet scrape that had shaped so much of my life.
She caught me looking.
“Do not make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you try to decide whether my breathing is a blessing or an accusation.”
My mouth closed.
Her expression softened a little. “Khern.”
“I don’t want it to stop helping you.”
“I know.”
“But I don’t want it near you.”
“I know.”
“Those are opposite things.”
“Yes.”
“What do I do?”
She took my hand. Her fingers were still thin. Still real. “You do not have to solve the whole dark before breakfast.”
“That sounds like something people say before the dark eats them.”
“It is also something mothers say when their sons are trying to become old men too early.”
I looked away.
She squeezed my hand once. “Take it to Vekk. Trust your fear, but do not let it drive alone.”
“That is a very annoying sentence.”
“I raised an anxious son. I had practice.”
I laughed quietly despite myself, then left before the warmth in the room convinced me to stay.
The eastern stack was awake in that soft new way. Doors stood open. People spoke in low voices over broth cups. Children slept in laps because everyone had started staying up later without meaning to. Old workers leaned against warm walls with their eyes closed, not because they were collapsing, but because rest had become something they could almost trust. Someone had hung a fresh prayer charm near the passage mouth, four small arms carved into the bone shape.
Prophet Avaruun’s arms.
The charm swayed gently.
There was no wind.
I walked faster.
Vekk was not at his office. He was not at the duty board either, which was unusual because Foreman Vekk loved the duty board. It gave him names to yell and proof that everyone disappointed him equally. I found him near the lower vents, or rather I found his voice.
“No, not that channel. That channel is dead. Are your ears ornamental? I said lower west bleed-vent.”
A worker answered, “Foreman, the lower west vent sealed itself.”
A pause followed.
Then Vekk said, very quietly, “Sealed itself.”
That was when I rounded the bend.
Three workers stood in front of a vent mouth that should have been open. It was not. The lower west bleed-vent had been sealed from floor to ceiling with smooth pale matter. No tool marks. No wall-worm ridges. No rough paste lines. Just a clean white surface where a black breathing hole had been yesterday.
Vekk stood with a slate in one hand and a pick in the other. The pick looked newly used.
The seal did not have a scratch.
He noticed me immediately. “Why are you here?”
“Good morning to you too.”
His eyes narrowed.
I lifted the hide bundle. “My mother found wrong cloth.”
The workers turned. Vekk’s face changed for only a heartbeat, but it was enough.
Fear.
Then annoyance rushed in to cover it. “Back to assigned posts,” he barked at the workers.
One of them smiled. “Of course, Foreman.”
Vekk flinched at the politeness like he had been spat on.
When the workers left, I handed him the bundle. “My mother said to make you smell it first.”
“Your mother has a cruel sense of procedure.”
He untied the black thread. The moment the hide opened, the sweet smell slipped out. Vekk froze. His torn ear folded tight against his head. He did not need to smell again, but he did, because Vekk was many terrible things, but he was not a coward.
His face twisted, and he wrapped the bundle immediately.
“Where?”
“Her basket.”
“When?”
“She noticed this morning.”
“Who touched it?”
“She did. Carefully.”
His jaw worked. “Anyone else?”
“Me. Maybe. Not much.”
He looked at my hands, and I showed him my fingers. No threads. No pale lines. No obvious doom. Vekk grunted and shoved the wrapped bundle inside a metal tool box at his feet. The box already contained sealed clay jars, black-thread bundles, burned scraps of cloth, and a cracked piece of something that looked like Skitter plate.
I stared.
Vekk snapped the lid shut with his boot. “You saw nothing.”
“I’m getting tired of seeing nothing.”
“Then stop looking useful while doing it.”
That almost sounded like concern.
Almost.
I pointed at the sealed vent. “That was open yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“Wall worms?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
He raised the pick. The metal edge was bent.
“Wall-worm paste chips,” he said. “This doesn’t.”
“What is it?”
“If I knew that, I would be somewhere else yelling the answer.”
A soft humming drifted from the nearby passage. Both of us looked. A group of workers passed at the far end, carrying tools and humming one of the old work songs in perfect rhythm.
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Too perfect.
Vekk waited until they were gone before lowering his voice. “You and Veyrun report to Section Twelve after first horn.”
“Section Twelve is storage.”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
“Because things are missing.”
The warmth around us seemed to thicken. “What things?”
Vekk looked at the sealed vent. “Small things. Useless things. Things people forget until they need them.”
That answer felt worse than a list.
Before I could ask more, he shoved the bent pick into my hands. “If anyone asks, you are checking old tool damage.”
“I am?”
“You are now.”
“I don’t know how to check old tool damage.”
“Then carry it with confidence. That fools most officials.”
“Does it?”
“No. But it annoys them.”
He turned away, then stopped. “Khern.”
I looked up.
His voice was quiet enough that I almost missed it. “If your mother finds another cloth like that, do not bring it through crowded passages.”
“What should I do?”
“Burn it outside the stack.”
“And if it doesn’t burn?”
His eyes met mine. “Then wake me.”
The first horn sounded before I found Veyrun. He was already at Section Twelve, leaning against a storage door and wearing the expression of someone who had been assigned a task without enough danger to justify his anxiety.
When he saw the bent pick in my hand, his eyes brightened. “Did you finally attack Vekk?”
“No.”
“Did Vekk finally attack a wall and lose?”
“Closer.”
I told him about the cloths, the sealed vent, and the metal box. His face lost every joke one by one.
“Your mother okay?” he asked.
“She says yes.”
“Terrible source.”
“I know.”
He looked past me toward the warm central passages. “Things are missing here too.”
“What things?”
He pushed open the storage door.
Section Twelve smelled of old rope, dried moss, rust, and dust. Normal storage smells. Good storage smells. Honest storage smells. For once, I was grateful for bad air. Rows of crates lined the walls. Tool racks hung from support beams. Bone needles, lamp jars, spare breathing cloths, Skitter harnesses, patch screens, broken rails, and sealed food jars filled the shelves in the kind of order that only made sense to people who had stopped sleeping years ago.
At first glance, nothing looked wrong.
Then Veyrun pointed.
Empty spaces.
Small ones, mostly. Between stacked crates. Behind tool racks. On shelves where dust marked the shape of things no longer there.
“Inventory clerk says three Scrape Rat traps are gone,” Veyrun said. “Two mold lamps. One old pressure bell. Four coils of black cord. Six sealed ash jars.”
“Who steals ash jars?”
“Someone with terrible taste.”
“Veyrun.”
“I don’t know.” He moved deeper into the storage room. “And one corpse tag box.”
I stopped. “What?”
He pointed to a low shelf.
A square dust mark sat where a box had been. Corpse tags were bone chips with names scratched onto them, used when bodies could not be burned, buried, sealed, or carried home properly. Used when only parts came back. Used when nothing came back but people still needed a name to hold.
Nobody stole corpse tags.
Nobody wanted them.
The warmth in the room felt thin now. “What would anyone need that for?”
“Maybe they ran out of terrible decorations.”
I looked at him.
He swallowed. “Right. Not joking. Sorry.”
I crouched near the shelf. The dust mark was clean-edged. Recent. Beside it, on the floor, was a smear of pale residue.
I did not touch it.
Progress.
Veyrun crouched beside me. “Sweet?”
I leaned closer, but not too close. “Yes.”
He cursed softly.
A voice behind us said, “You boys finding your futures in the dust?”
We both jumped.
Old Jim stood in the doorway with his shovel in one hand and a bowl of untouched broth in the other.
Veyrun clutched his chest. “One day, you will kill me by appearing.”
Jim sniffed. “Then I’ll have accomplished something.”
“You’re supposed to be observing the lower pens,” I said.
“I observed them.”
“And?”
“They’re wrong.”
“That’s not a report.”
“It’s a better report than most.”
He limped into the storage room and looked around. His eyes moved over the empty shelf spaces, the missing traps, and the dust mark where the corpse tag box had been. His face hardened.
“Who else knows?”
“Vekk,” I said.
“Vekk knows many things. Usually too late.”
“That sounds unfair.”
“It is. So is he.”
Old Jim crouched with a groan near the residue. I caught his arm before he touched it. His eyes flicked to my hand, then back to my face.
“You learning?”
“Trying.”
“Dangerous habit.”
He leaned close and sniffed once. His eyes watered.
“Sweet.”
“We know.”
“No,” he said. “Sweeter.”
Veyrun’s ears flattened. “What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like anything.”
“I like being right.”
“Then this must be wonderful for you.”
Old Jim gave him a look that could have scraped stone. Then he stood with effort.
“Corpse tags,” he muttered.
“What about them?” I asked.
He looked at me. “If things are missing, people will be next.”
The room went very quiet.
I wanted to say people were not missing. Then I thought of the Thren Shell-Speaker. The wounded traveler with the cracked shell mask. The one who had warned us. The one who had looked away when Avaruun entered Rooknest.
Had anyone seen them since?
“What about the Thren?” I asked.
Veyrun looked at me. Old Jim looked away.
That was answer enough.
“No,” I said.
Old Jim’s mouth tightened. “Haven’t seen shell-face since white dust day.”
“Maybe they left.”
“Through what gate?”
I had nothing to say to that. The Ivory Gate had been sealed after Avaruun’s arrival. Outer paths were watched. Rooknest was not a place injured travelers simply wandered out of without someone noticing, unless everyone had learned not to notice.
Veyrun stood. “We ask around.”
Old Jim grabbed his sleeve. “No. You listen around.”
“That is the same thing with less dignity.”
“That’s survival.”
We spent the morning listening.
It was harder than asking. Asking made people look at you. Listening meant standing near warm walls while soft-faced neighbors said terrifying things in gentle voices. The Thren? Oh, they were resting. The Thren? Prophet Avaruun arranged safer quarters. The Thren? Poor thing, such a long journey. The Thren? Didn’t someone say they returned to the eastern passage? The Thren? No, no, Saint’s attendants took care of them.
The Thren?
Who?
That last answer came from a mender who had personally helped carry the wounded traveler into Rooknest three days ago. She smiled while saying it. Not lying, exactly. Just unable to hold the memory properly.
That scared me more than if she had screamed.
By midshift, we had a list. Not official. Not complete. Barely even a list. Just names and absences: the Thren Shell-Speaker, missing; Brakka’s assistant Hen, last seen near pen three; Mender Soth, supposedly reassigned to upper vents, though the upper vents had no record; a sick elder named Volla, taken for warm chamber rest; two Scrape Rat boys, brothers everyone assumed were hiding from work because they always hid from work; a Skitter calf from the lower pen, marked red by Brakka; four corpse tag boxes from different storage rooms; one pressure bell; several ash jars; black cord; breathing cloths.
Things used for marking, warning, filtering, remembering, binding, and burning.
Veyrun read the list twice. “This is a bad kind of pattern.”
“There’s a good kind?”
“Yes. Food arriving repeatedly. Vekk tripping on the same step. Attractive people finding me charming.”
“That last one hasn’t happened.”
“Pattern delayed.”
We stood in a narrow side passage near the lower pens, away from the busiest routes. Warmth pulsed through the wall behind us. I did not lean on it. Old Jim sat on a feed crate nearby, pretending not to need rest. Brakka stood across from him, arms folded, face grim. She had joined us after we asked about Hen, or rather after Veyrun said, “Have you seen Hen?” and Brakka grabbed him by the collar and dragged us into a side passage.
“She didn’t go home,” Brakka said.
“Maybe reassigned?” I asked.
Brakka’s stare could have curdled broth.
I nodded. “Not reassigned.”
“Hen knows every Skitter by plate scar. She wouldn’t leave pen three while Split-Tooth was refusing feed.”
“Split-Tooth?”
“The red-marked calf.”
“The missing one,” Veyrun said.
Brakka looked at him.
He lifted both hands. “Listening. Not asking. Mostly.”
Brakka turned to Old Jim. “You saw the Thren last?”
Old Jim scratched at his jaw. “Saw them near the eastern rest alcove after Avaruun arrived. Shell mask cracked. Hands shaking. They kept tapping the same thing.”
“What thing?” I asked.
Jim tapped his shovel handle. Slow, fast, slow, fast-fast. Pause. Again. I did not understand, but Brakka’s face changed.
“You know Thren taps?” I asked.
“A little,” she said. “Handlers trade with them sometimes.”
“What did it mean?”
She hesitated, then tapped the pattern again on her arm. “Not exact. But close to...” Her mouth tightened. “Nest wrong.”
Veyrun blinked. “What nest?”
Brakka looked toward the central hollow.
Ours.
She did not say it. She did not have to.
A horn sounded above.
Not alarm.
Prayer call.
Everyone in the side passage went still. Avaruun had begun holding short midday mercies for workers who needed “softening from toil.” Most people loved them because they lasted only a few minutes and left their hands less sore. Vekk hated them because they made shifts late and workers polite.
The prayer call rang again. Workers nearby began moving toward the central hollow, smiling and calm, a tide of soft faces.
Brakka grabbed her brush bucket. “I have to check the pens before they all wander off.”
Old Jim stood.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Somewhere I’m not invited.”
“That narrows nothing.”
He limped toward the old eastern service passage, the one partly screened by hanging scrap cloth.
Veyrun looked at me. “We are following him, aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
“I hate when questions answer themselves.”
We followed.
The eastern service passage had once connected storage, sick alcoves, and old travel rooms before the newer paths were carved. Now most of it was used for scrap screens, broken lantern cages, dead carts, and the kind of clutter Rooknest called temporary until it became structural. The prayer call softened behind us as we moved deeper, replaced by dripping stone and the scrape of Old Jim’s shovel against the floor.
The warmth followed too.
That was the part I liked least.
It slid along the walls ahead of us, soft and patient, as if the whole passage had been told to rest. The old dust smell remained underneath, but it was muffled.
I missed it.
Old Jim stopped in front of a narrow rest alcove sealed by pale stone.
At first, I thought I was looking at an ordinary wall.
Then I saw the doorframe.
The service alcove had been closed so smoothly that the outline nearly vanished into the surrounding rock. No latch. No cracks. No hinge pins. Just a clean pale surface grown over a place that should have opened.
Veyrun whispered, “That was a room.”
“Was,” Old Jim said.
I stepped closer. “The Thren was here?”
He tapped the wall with his shovel handle, copying the pattern from before.
Slow.
Fast.
Slow.
Fast-fast.
Pause.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the wall answered.
Faintly.
From inside.
The same pattern tapped back, weaker than breath.
My mouth went dry.
Veyrun grabbed my sleeve. “Khern.”
“I heard it.”
“No, I know. That was the problem.”
Old Jim raised the shovel and struck the sealed surface.
The sound was wrong. Not stone. Not wood. Not wall-worm paste. The blow sank into the surface with a dull, fleshy thud, and the pale wall rippled outward before smoothing again.
“Stop,” I said.
Old Jim hit it again.
The answering taps came faster.
Slow-fast-slow-fast-fast. Pause. Again. Again.
Brakka should have been here. Vekk should have been here. Saint Rook should have been here with clear eyes and roots bright enough to split the passage open. Instead, there were three of us: one old man with a shovel, one terrified friend, and me, holding a bent pick that had already lost to a sealed vent.
I wrapped my hand in Mara’s breathing cloth and pressed it against the wall.
Not bare skin.
Still stupid.
The warmth under the surface moved toward my palm.
I jerked back.
The taps stopped.
Veyrun pulled me away by the back of my coat. “Do not think with your entire hand.”
“There’s someone inside.”
“Yes, and I would like us to remain outside of whatever wants them there.”
Old Jim raised the shovel again, but a voice behind us stopped him.
“That will not help.”
We turned.
Avaruun stood at the mouth of the passage with two Saint guards and one of his attendants. White veils drifted around him, almost brushing the old scrap screens without snagging. The prayer call continued somewhere beyond him, gentle and distant, and for one irrational moment I was angry that it did not stop.
Avaruun looked at the sealed alcove with sorrow, then at us.
“Old fear finds old doors,” he said.
Old Jim spat on the floor. “Old doors usually open.”
“One hopes so.”
“Then open it.”
The guards stiffened.
Avaruun did not. His eyes moved to the wall, and the warmth in the passage deepened.
“This was a rest alcove,” he said. “An injured traveler was placed here to recover. The walls closed after strain. It happens in places that have been hurt too long.”
Veyrun’s voice came thin. “Walls do not usually choose medical care.”
Avaruun looked at him. “No. They choose pressure. We name it afterward.”
That sounded almost like Saint Rook.
That made it worse.
I forced myself to speak. “We heard tapping.”
“Yes,” Avaruun said gently. “So did the guards. So did the attendants. Fear can live in stone after panic. A body trapped in pain leaves echoes.”
Old Jim laughed once. “Convenient echo. Knows Thren taps.”
“Memory often keeps the shape of terror.”
“That is a pretty sentence for shut up.”
Avaruun’s expression softened. “You think I am your enemy because I do not answer cruelty with cruelty.”
Old Jim gripped his shovel. “No. I think you’re my enemy because the animals stopped eating.”
The passage went still.
Avaruun lowered his eyes for a moment, as if receiving an insult he had expected and forgiven before it arrived. Then he looked at me.
“Khern,” he said.
I hated how my name sounded in his voice. Like it had been warmed before being handed back.
“You have seen much that frightens you. That is not shameful. But fear can make a wound into a prison and a locked door into proof of malice. Your mother knows this. She has spent years making cloth for people who mistake breath for survival and survival for living.”
My grip tightened around the bent pick.
“Do not use her.”
“I am honoring her.”
“You don’t know her.”
A small change moved through the guards. Shock, maybe. Offense. The attendant’s eyes lowered.
Avaruun did not become angry. That was the problem. He looked almost proud.
“No,” he said. “I do not. But I know what it means to watch suffering become a person’s measure of worth. I have seen workers thank pain because pain is familiar. I have seen children inherit fear and call it wisdom. I have seen Saints crushed beneath the gratitude of people who never meant to crush them.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
Because part of it was true.
Because Saint Rook was tired.
Because Mara was breathing.
Because my cuts had healed where he touched them.
The wall behind him tapped once.
Not an echo.
Not memory.
Once.
Avaruun’s lower hand lifted, and the tap stopped.
I saw it. So did Veyrun. So did Old Jim. The nearest guard’s fingers trembled around her spear.
Avaruun turned his head slightly toward her.
The trembling stopped.
He faced us again, kind as ever. “Escort them back. Gently.”
The tall guard bowed. “Yes, honored Prophet.”
Avaruun looked once more at the sealed wall. His lower hand brushed its surface. The wall pulsed under his fingers.
Soft.
Obedient.
Then he walked away, white veils trailing behind him.
The sweetness lingered long after he was gone.
The guards escorted us to the central hollow gently, which made it worse. No threats. No chains. No punishment. Just calm hands and quiet instructions while Rooknest smiled around us. People glanced over, curious but unworried. A child waved at me from the lower steps, and I could not wave back.
At the base of the passage, the tall guard released my arm. Her fingers trembled once before she clasped them behind her back.
“Do not return to that passage,” she said.
I looked at her. “You heard it too.”
Her face emptied. “No.”
“You did.”
“No.”
Veyrun opened his mouth.
She cut him off. “If you care for Saint Rook, stop pulling at sealed wounds.”
Then she turned and walked back toward the Domain.
The phrase stayed behind.
Sealed wounds.
Not passages.
Wounds.
Old Jim watched her go. “She’s scared.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good.”
I looked at him.
He leaned on his shovel. “Scared people can still wake up. Soft ones can’t.”
Veyrun’s voice was small. “What do we do now?”
Before either of us could answer, a cheer rose from the central hollow.
Avaruun had appeared on the upper balcony beside Saint Rook. The crowd quieted into reverent attention as if every throat had been gently held closed. Saint Rook looked down at his people, pale and tired. His smile was soft. Avaruun’s hand rested on his shoulder.
“Rooknest,” Saint Rook said, his voice carrying through the hollow, “has endured many fears.”
People bowed their heads.
“Some old fears remain in our walls. Some in our hearts. But not every closed place is a prison. Some are wounds allowed to heal.”
Old Jim went very still.
Veyrun looked at me.
My stomach dropped.
Saint Rook continued, “Trust the hands that tend you. Rest when relief is given. Do not let old terror teach you to strike at mercy.”
The words were his, and so was the voice, but the eyes were not. Not fully. Above him, Avaruun’s fingers rested gently against his shoulder, and the crowd began to murmur: Prophet’s mercy, Saint’s wisdom, let wounds heal. The phrase moved through the hollow, soft and warm and almost impossible to fight without looking cruel.
Old Jim turned away.
“Enough.”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To find something that still knows how to scream.”
He limped toward the lower pens.
Veyrun and I followed because by then, following Old Jim into terrible places had become one of our few reliable skills.
Brakka was waiting near pen three.
Her face told us before her mouth did.
“What?” I asked.
She opened the pen gate.
Inside, the red-marked Skitter calf lay on its side.
Split-Tooth.
The missing calf was not missing now. It had returned, or been returned. It breathed slowly, legs folded too neatly beneath its body, black eyes open and wet. Across its shell, pale threads ran in delicate lines, like someone had tried to stitch it closed from the outside.
Brakka crouched beside it. “I found it in the pen after the prayer call.”
Veyrun swallowed hard. “Alive?”
“Yes.”
The calf’s mouth opened, not to chew and not to cry. Its front legs tapped weakly against the floor in the same uneven pattern Old Jim had made with his shovel handle.
Slow.
Fast.
Slow.
Fast-fast.
Pause.
Again.
My blood went cold.
Brakka looked at us. “What does that mean?”
No one answered.
The calf tapped again.
Then its mouth stretched wider than any Skitter mouth should have, and the sweet smell filled the pen. Its voice came out as a whisper that was not a voice.
“Closed.”
Veyrun stumbled back into the fence. Brakka made a sound like a wounded animal. Old Jim raised his shovel, but the calf’s body collapsed inward before he could strike. It did not rot or bleed. It emptied. Its shell folded as if whatever had filled it had been pulled through the floor.
Pale thread snapped across its plates. One strand whipped upward and struck Old Jim’s wrist.
He cursed.
I grabbed him.
Brakka slammed a feed scoop down on the thread, and Veyrun seized a lantern hook to drag both of us backward. The strand shriveled under the metal scoop. A thin wisp of sweet smoke rose, and then it was gone.
The Skitter calf lay still.
Normal.
Dead.
Small.
Above us, the crowd continued chanting. Let wounds heal. Let wounds heal. Let wounds heal.
Old Jim stared at his wrist. A pale line had appeared across the skin, thin as hair. He looked at it, then at me, and for the first time since I had known him, Old Jim looked truly afraid.
“Burn it,” he said.
Brakka grabbed the nearest Heat Grub jar.
Old Jim held out his wrist without arguing.
That scared me more than the thread.
The flame touched his skin.
He screamed.
A real scream. Raw, ugly, and alive. The sound ripped through the lower pens, and every Skitter answered him at once. Pen after pen erupted, hundreds of bodies shrieking, legs scraping, mouths open, vents flaring, every animal in Rooknest giving back the fear the people had forgotten how to keep.
Above us, the chant broke.
For one breath, Rooknest sounded like itself again.