It was a warm day on the Castle's border. The traveler craned their neck, looking up at the sun above the gatehouse. They dismounted, leading the horse up to the gate.

  "Weather cleared up, didn't it?" they said to the guard, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  The guard looked at the muddied horse, and the soggy traveler, and furrowed her brow.

  "Sky's been clear all day," she said. "What'd you do, swim in a creek?"

  There was an awkward pause. "No, it's been—it was pouring on me, until a little bit ago," the traveler said. "The fog was getting pretty bad."

  "Papers." the guard stated. This wasn't their problem.

  The traveler presented them and, for a moment, the interaction proceeded as normal. The horse was tied up; the guard conducted the traveler inside; the big record book was pulled out. The traveler was a scholar in the employ of some secondary House, something that made clothing for factory issue. That was all fine. Then, as passes were examined and entries searched, the guard frowned. "You went to the Castle from here?"

  "Yes; fifteen days ago," the scholar stated.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "You have books to check?" the guard asked.

  "About ten," they replied.

  "I'm not seeing you..." The guard looked at the pass, back at the book, and flipped forward. "You came through here six days ago."

  "I'm... sorry; I've been gone fifteen days," the scholar repeated.

  "Are you sure you went all the way there?"

  "Certainly, I spent the time well enough," they said.

  "No, you're not due back for nine days," the guard insisted.

  Later, after long and fruitless argument on the scholar's part, the gate captain allowed them to pass. It wasn't illegal to cut a trip short, after all. Their story made no sense, but there wasn't anything to detain them for; no contraband, no problems with the papers, nothing. They made a note in the log stating that someone might have crossed the border elsewhere, to enact an off-the-books tradeoff of privately owned material.

  But the day after that, a party of two was expected to return, and they did not. Then, another failed to show.

  After they'd been missed for a week, the captain started going through the policy manual. After reading into the oldest, least legible section, he decided to send a messenger back to the nearest city. Assembly officials would probably laugh at them for raising any sort of alarm, but the rules were rules, and at least he couldn't be charged for following them. According to the faded text, any really supernatural events were to be reported. Missing groups were to be considered part of that category. No patrols were to go anywhere near the border line, and no search parties were to be sent without further authorization.

  "I'd rather send a search," the captain said, "but it's my post on the line."

  "Always knew that place was haunted," one of his guards said.