The fire cracked in the quiet, each snap stretching the silence further.

  Not empty. Waiting.

  The kind of quiet that pressed against the walls, thickened the air, made each breath feel heavier than it should.

  Sigmund sat across from me, one leg crossed over the other, watching. Not unkind. Not bored. Just… watching. A flick of his eyes, a shift of posture—measured. Calculating.

  Between us, the book lay still.

  My thumb dragged along the table’s edge. Cool wood under my skin. Something solid. Grounding.

  "I opened it."

  Sigmund inclined his head. "Go on."

  "First time was in the warehouse." Miss Dufresne barely cracked the lid, and it was like—” Words stopped. Mouth worked, but no analogy felt right. Like something reached back. Like time collapsed inward. I nearly passed out."

  Sigmund made a sound. Just enough to show he was listening. Nothing more.

  "Second time was in the carriage. With you." A sharp exhale. "You barely did anything. Just held it, spoke a few words, and I felt it again. Like I was pulled under."

  Sigmund nodded, like that was expected. "And when you opened it yourself?"

  Fingers curled slightly against the table. "It was worse."

  "How so?"

  "It wasn’t just dizziness. It wasn’t just weird. It was in my head. Not controlling, just, enhancing..." A resentful glance at the book. Bastard was still the same, but feeling different. "Not words, exactly. Feelings."

  A pause.

  Panic. Anger.

  Not just those. Something deeper. A feeling without a name.

  Sigmund just watched, as if it was a play taking place in front of him.

  "And now?"

  "Now?" A dry laugh scraped up my throat. "Now it’s behaving. No whispers. No… wrongness."

  He leaned forward slightly, resting an elbow against the chair’s arm.

  "And that... concerns you."

  "Of course it fucking concerns me." The words came sharp, bitter. "I don’t trust it. Not when it was all over me before, and now it’s playing dead."

  A hum. Thoughtful.

  "Perhaps it isn’t playing dead."

  A frown. "What do you mean?"

  He gestured at the book. "Touch it."

  A breath steadied in my chest. Then, slowly, my palm lowered onto the eerie cover.

  Cool leather. Unnaturally smooth.

  But aside from that?

  Nothing.

  Not a sound. Not a damn whisper.

  The pull at the edges of my mind—gone.

  "It doesn’t do anything," words barely more than a mutter. "It’s like it doesn’t even recognize me anymore."

  Sigmund tilted his head.

  "Have you considered the possibility," he said slowly, "of you being the one changing?"

  I swear rich people always talked in dramatic cliffhangers. Must be an ability that comes with wealth.

  "What?"

  "The first time you felt its presence, it overwhelmed you. Recognized you. The second time, you still reacted—but less, perhaps because I was there. The third, you opened it, and it reached for you." A slow tap of his finger against his temple. "Now, nothing. That suggests either it has changed… or you have."

  A scowl pulled at the edges of my mouth.

  "You think I’m… what? Becoming immune to it?"

  "Not immune," Sigmund corrected. "More accustomed. More… attuned."

  Attuned.

  Like the two of us—me and it—were aligning.

  I didn't like it in the slightest.

  Something in me recoiled.

  "Brilliant." The word scraped out, weary. A hand dragged down my face. "Just what I needed."

  The headache had long since faded, but my fingers, out of habit, still ghosted behind my ears.

  Sigmund took a glance at me, then reached forward, fingertips brushing over the book’s surface.

  No warning came as the air changed.

  The fucking air changed.

  Not a flicker. Not a ripple.

  Something deeper. Like it just became something I needed permission to breathe.

  A force that simply existed.

  The fire froze mid-crackle, stretching out in a long, warped groan. The weight of the air thickened—not crushing, but present. Like the moment before an avalanche, when the snow shifts and you realize—too late—you’re beneath it.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  And at the center of it all was him.

  Sir Sigmund Vaelthorne.

  Not a man.

  Not in that moment.

  Then—just as suddenly—

  It was gone.

  The fireplace snapped back into motion, heat pressing against my skin. Lungs pulled in air like they’d only just remembered their function.

  Sigmund sat back, perfectly at ease. Then, with the slow realization of someone acknowledging a minor inconvenience—

  "Oh. My apologies. I think curiosity got the best of me for a moment." A pause. "But nothing happened."

  Nothing—?

  Liar.

  Fucking liar.

  Nothing happened?

  Nothing happened?

  What the hell was that?

  My throat barely worked around the air I’d only just reclaimed.

  Forcing my voice steady— "What do you mean nothing happened?"

  "The book didn’t answer," Sigmund said simply. "Didn’t do anything at all."

  Waited for him to elaborate.

  He didn’t.

  Nothing. Just the slow shift of shadows stretching long across the walls, twisting in the firelight.

  A slow exhale, jaw tight. "But you felt something."

  Sigmund studied me. Then: "I do not know."

  My head turned sharply. "What?"

  "I do not know, Kieran."

  That wasn’t an answer. Not from someone like him.

  A quiet breath left him. "Do you think I have held every unnatural thing this world has swallowed?"

  "But such things demand something in return," he interrupted, tone flat. Cool. "They always do."

  A chill curled along my spine.

  "A price."

  "Always."

  The book remained still.

  Unmoving.

  Unchanged.

  And yet.

  "Then why hasn’t it asked for one yet?"

  The firelight cast shifting shadows over Sigmund’s face. He turned to me, deliberate. Unreadable.

  Breath caught.

  The exhaustion.

  The dullness.

  The… distance.

  Fear and anger—muted. Like screams locked in a basement.

  Had it always been like that?

  Or had something—

  already been taken?

  Sigmund watched. Not with concern. Not with caution.

  Just that same sharp, clinical attention.

  A puzzle.

  A wrong shape in the world.

  Swallowing was difficult. "What did it take?"

  His lips quirked.

  Not quite a smile.

  "Perhaps," he said, "it didn’t take anything at all. It gave."

  The words sat wrong.

  The book sat wrong.

  Silent.

  Waiting.

  And for the first time, I wondered—

  Waiting for what?

  Exhaling slowly, fingers rubbed against each other. Just to feel skin against skin. A reminder. That I was still here. That I hadn’t imagined the way the words had settled—too damn heavy.

  Nothing felt different.

  At first.

  Then—

  Fingers curled around the bitten apple that had been set down earlier.

  Or they should have.

  The apple rolled.

  Not far. Just a small, accidental shift. A mistake.

  But I hadn’t made one.

  I had touched it.

  And yet, for a fraction of a second, my fingers had passed through air before the weight of the fruit finally settled against my skin.

  A small thing. Barely noticeable.

  Except—

  Looking up.

  Sigmund was already watching.

  Not surprised. Not caught off guard.

  Just focused.

  Like he had to shift his attention. Like he had to register me.

  A single heartbeat passed. Stretched thin in the too-still air.

  A slow, deliberate exhale. The apple was set down carefully.

  "Say something," I muttered.

  Sigmund didn’t react.

  Not because he hadn’t heard.

  Because... for a fraction of a second—

  He had to consider me first.

  Like my presence required effort to register.

  Then, smoothly, he blinked. Tilted his head.

  "...You are noticing it now," he said.

  Not a question.

  And that’s when it sank in.

  The discomfort since walking inside. The blandness of the space, the unnatural stillness. The way the quiet felt too thick.

  It wasn’t the room that was off.

  It was me.

  The moment dragged out, hollow and cold—not dramatic, just… wrong.

  My body was still here, still real—but something about it wouldn’t stick the way it should. Like wearing my own skin wrong. A size too small or too big, but never right. Like a picture pinned to a wall instead of a person standing in a room.

  Like a damn ghost.

  Nothing new. Not really.

  Just... homecoming in the worst way.

  Had I always been like this? Felt like it.

  The thought crawled up my brain, slow and unwelcome. Maybe this had been lurking for a while. Hell, maybe it had always been there, just waiting for me to notice.

  Funny. I always blamed people for not noticing me. Now even my own existence seems to agree.

  The air settled too easily, like it had been expecting me.

  Fingers clenched too hard on the arm of the expensive-feeling chair.

  A shallow breath. Don’t panic. Not now at least. The last thing I needed was another anxiety spiral.

  That, and I also didn't have any money to pay for furniture repair services.

  "What the hell is this?"

  Sigmund exhaled, somewhere between a sigh and boredom. Just... a dragging, deliberate kind of patience. Like someone who’s been through this a thousand times. Maybe.

  "Your first mistake," he said, "was assuming the book took something from you."

  His fingers tapped against the chair’s arm. Deliberately slow. Like he had the whole damn evening to waste, and I was the only idiot making this too dramatic.

  Can't blame me.

  Maybe I was.

  Chest felt tighter, like a rope was starting to pull. "Then what did it do?"

  He thought first. Long enough to be noticeable. Which, obviously, was a bad sign.

  And, to wrap things up—

  "That’s what it did. Marked you."

  The word hit, slow and heavy. Sank in like a swallowed stone.

  Marked.

  No. That wasn’t right.

  And yeah, somehow, that sat worse in my head than I expected.

  Let out the slowest breath, without even realizing. Dramatic, huh? "Alright, what the hell does that mean?"

  His expression didn’t shift—not mocking, not cruel. Just... watching. Like waiting for a slow student to figure out an obvious problem.

  "You're not the first. Far from it… and you won’t be the last."

  Something about the way he said it—soft, certain—made my skin crawl.

  Then, casually, like he hadn’t just said something that made my stomach turn, he leaned forward.

  "There are things in this world," he said, "that tread the path. That have stepped past the line. Touched the Other Side. But still… they remain close enough to ignore it."

  The shadows bent strangely along the room’s edges.

  Sigmund’s voice stayed even. Measured.

  "The Marked are the first step toward that."

  Fingers twitched against the table.

  So there it was. An answer.

  And yet, no relief. Not even close.

  "Then… if someone is Marked, they could still walk away?"

  A pause.

  "Some," Sigmund admitted. "If their experience was… shallow. A glance, a passing touch. If they do not recognize the Other Side, if they choose not to see… then yes. They remain. Whole."

  A beat of silence.

  "But that’s not my case."

  Sigmund studied me for a second too long.

  "No," he said. "It is not."

  The words settled in the air.

  Heavy.

  A realization. A weight.

  "Because of the book," I murmured.

  "Because of the book, mostly," Sigmund agreed.

  My throat felt dry. "So then I—"

  "You have choices."

  His smooth voice didn’t change. No pressure. Just a fact spewed in my face.

  "You could try to... rid yourself of it. Destroy it. Some have done so, in similar cases."

  Hope slithered in—brief, uninvited.

  I exhaled slowly. "And?"

  "And… I would not recommend it."

  Right there. That was the kind of thing people said right before something bad happened.

  "Of course you wouldn't."

  Yeah. Hope is a bitch. Smiles just enough to let you think she’ll stay, then leaves you cold.

  "What would happen if I tried?" I guessed.

  Sigmund tilted his head slightly. "I don’t know. Not exactly. Some things hold loosely, others… dig in. If it’s merged with your soul…" His fingers drummed against the chair. "Then tearing it away could leave you… less."

  My stomach tightened like the bite of a snapping turtle.

  Less.

  Fucking hated that word.

  "And the other option?"

  A long, slow pause.

  "Awakening."

  I frowned. "And that means?"

  Sigmund leaned back slightly. "It means you will take a step further. That you will no longer stand at the threshold, but cross it."

  A pause.

  Waited for him to elaborate.

  He didn’t.

  Exhaled sharply, shifting in my seat. "You’re going to have to be more specific."

  His fingers tapped idly against the chair’s arm. "It’s not the easiest thing to explain to someone who hasn’t… walked the path. But in simple terms—" A slight pause. "You will change."

  I stared at him. "That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?"

  One corner of his mouth twitched.

  "You will change—if you survive."

  Stomach clenched.

  "Survive what, exactly?"

  Sigmund studied me.

  Then, finally—

  "You will see soon enough."

  The fire crackled. The shadows stretched.

  And for the first time, the sinking feeling settled in, cold and unshakable.

  I was in way, way over my head.