The mist knew my name before I ever spoke it. Even the stones watched as I crossed the threshold - as though the house had been waiting not for an heir, but a witness.
It took three days of travel to reach the edge of the map, and half a day more to go beyond it.
The final leg was on foot, my satchel heavy with ink, vellum, and notes, boots already damp from the morning fog that never quite lifted. The old road was barely more than stone and lichen now, half-swallowed by moss and the creeping roots of things that grew unchecked. Every so often I passed the remnants of what might once have been a milestone, a carved marker, or a low wall, weatherworn and nameless.
There were no signs, but I followed the path by memory and instruction. A single page, handwritten and sealed in red wax, had arrived weeks before, bearing a sigil I didn't recognise. The instructions had been sparse: arrive before the full moon, bring tools for transcription, expect isolation. The letter was unsigned.
That suited me.
By the time Vire House came into view, its dark profile rising from the fog like the spine of a half-buried beast, I was already bone-tired and beginning to wonder if the whole affair had been a mistake. A lesser appointment might have had porters, even a guide. But the Circle was rarely concerned with comfort, and archivists were not expected to complain.
I had been sent to catalogue a private collection housed in a long-abandoned sanctuary once maintained by the Order of Sable Light. The name meant little to me beyond a few scattered references in older compendiums,an obscure scholarly brotherhood with a fondness for isolation and a reputation for hoarding lost texts. Their fortress-libraries dotted old coastlines and mountains like forgotten reliquaries. Most were sealed. Some were destroyed. The Order of Sable Light… I remembered little beyond whispers, an old sect of archivists who believed knowledge should be veiled, not shared. They kept to shadows, spoke only through ink, and built their sanctuaries far from the world. Not forgotten, exactly… just quietly erased. Their philosophy held that true illumination could only be found in darkness, in secrecy, in solitude, in the ink of lost languages. Most believed the order vanished centuries ago, their libraries sealed and their teachings scattered like ash in the wind.
This one, apparently, had been left behind.
As I passed beneath the entrance arch,a gaping mouth of ivy and carved basalt,I paused, hand resting on the lintel. A long breath. The silence here was heavier than I expected. Not dead, exactly. Just... expectant. The air smelled of salt, stone, and something older. Paper, maybe. Dry ink.
The door gave under my weight with a groan that echoed down a corridor too dark to see the end of. Inside, the air was dry, chilled, and motionless. Columns lined the entryway, cloaked in shadow and cobwebs. Somewhere, water dripped at regular intervals,a rhythm just irregular enough to keep me from tuning it out.
I lit the lantern they'd sent ahead in a crate with the cataloguing kit. Its warm, flickering light touched carved mouldings, tall bookcases sealed behind iron-meshed glass, and shelves heavy with ledgers tied shut with fraying ribbon. Dust motes rose like soft ash as I stepped forward. The entire place smelled like memory.
It was colder than I expected.
But it was quiet. And mine, for now.
I found the desk they'd left prepared for me,solid oak, inkstained, with a high-backed chair and a fresh sheaf of parchment beside a sandglass. A kettle sat on a cold brazier nearby, and someone,perhaps years ago,had placed a sprig of lavender on the windowsill. It had long since turned grey, brittle, and beautiful in a way that struck me.
I set down my satchel, exhaled, and listened.
The quiet here was different from the quiet of other libraries. Not oppressive. Not ominous. Just… attentive.
I told myself I imagined it. Then I reached for the first volume.
It was a manual on regional herbs, Index Florae Ritualis, Vol. III, bound in cracked leather with faded gold tooling along the spine. The pages smelled of dried leaves and old ink, and the text was meticulously organised into sections: coastal plants, highland mosses, seasonal roots. A pressed sprig of something brittle and pale had been left between two pages, sea rosemary, if I had to guess.
The writing was precise, the diagrams clean. Notes in the margins recorded measurements for infusions, drying times, the proper lunar phase for harvesting certain blossoms. Someone, at some point, had taken this work seriously.
I copied the title into the ledger beside me, noting its condition and approximate date. My handwriting looked too modern next to the book's script.
It was a good place to start, quiet, methodical.
I reached for the next volume, slimmer, bound in grey cloth, when the sound came again.
A faint hum. Not mechanical, not from wind or pipe. Just low and persistent, like something resonating beneath the floorboards or behind the walls. I paused, listening, but it faded as soon as I stilled. Likely just the brazier settling or some echo from the cliffs outside. These old places were full of noises that meant nothing.
I turned back to the ledger, inked in the next line, and had just dipped my pen again when I heard it:
A knock: Clear. Measured. From the front door.
I froze, the tip of the quill suspended mid-air.
It came again, three knocks. Not rushed. Not hesitant. Just... unexpected.
No one was supposed to be here.
I stood, the chair's legs scraping against the stone floor, and took up the lantern. The door waited.