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The automaton firefly follows its serene circuit through the mint-green fog. Its blue pulse briefly silhouettes the nearest iron caskets, but it makes no hostile move.

Jerrold does not like the look of the thing, but it has not offered harm, and he will not be the one to start a fight in a catacomb full of the dead. He keeps the mace low at his side and watches the firefly's circuit, trying to make out whether its light is fixed to any path through the caskets or only drifting. "Steady," he says, more to himself than the others. "It's shown no threat. Let it pass."

Jerrold watches through several blue pulses. The firefly repeats the same measured circuit; within the fog’s 10-foot limit, it does not seem to mark a route among the caskets.

Maren keeps the butt of her spear on the stone and lets the firefly make its pass. "A light that keeps to itself is rare enough," she says quietly. "Let's not be the reason it changes its mind." She watches one full circuit, counting the pulses until she's sure of the rhythm, then steps toward the nearest iron casket, close enough to run a hand along its edge, and looks for any nameplate or marking in the blue flash.

In the next blue flash, Maren finds a small plaque fixed above the four-foot iron casket. It bears a name in angular characters she cannot read. The casket stands upright, locked and firmly secured to the wall; touching its edge releases nothing.

Quill keeps his staff planted and his voice low, so as not to startle the thing. "Let it pass, aye. But let's know what it is while it passes." He murmurs the cant for Detect Magic, then studies the firefly's blue pulse and the fog around it, watching for the particular sheen that only true enchantment carries.

Quill’s spell takes hold. The green fog shows no enchantment, but the firefly itself shines unmistakably with magic beneath its blue pulse. Beyond the 10-foot veil he can discern nothing yet. Detect Magic is spent and remains active for 2 turns.

The firefly shows no response to Quill’s spell. It buzzes onward along the same circuit, its enchanted body now plain to Quill whenever it enters the visible fog.

Jerrold keeps his mace low and moves quietly to Maren's shoulder, near enough to study the plaque in the next blue pulse. The angular script means nothing to him—he knows Common and the old church letters, nothing older. "Quill," he says, low, not taking his eyes off the firefly's circuit, "that cant of yours—does it show on the thing itself, or only on the fog?"

Jerrold cannot read the plaque, but he recognizes its angular alphabet as the same one repeated along the inner wall. His quiet approach disturbs neither casket nor firefly.

Maren leaves the firefly to its circuit and moves slowly along the row of upright caskets, spear butt still trailing on the stone. She stops at each plaque in the blue pulse, not trying to read what she cannot, but looking for the one thing the angular script could not hide: any mark in Common, a date she knows, a copper rivet, a boot-scrape. She counts the caskets as she goes, and she keeps one ear on Jerrold and Quill behind her.

Maren completes the row and counts ten upright iron caskets. Each has a different name in the same angular script, but she finds no Common writing, familiar dates, copper fittings, or old traffic marks. The locks look alike at this inspection.

"The thing itself, Jerrold," Quill says, not taking his eyes from the firefly. "The fog is plain vapour. Whatever lights it is worked into its body—a charm, not a lamp." He keeps the staff planted and lets the spell sit behind his eyes, then takes a slow step along the circuit's edge, studying where the blue light falls. "Hold where you are. I want to see if its light catches anything else that's enchanted."

As Quill follows the circuit’s edge, no second aura appears on the exposed plaques, locks, caskets, or inscribed wall. The iron caskets themselves are not enchanted; whatever they conceal remains out of sight.

The firefly completes another circuit, passing within a few feet of Quill before vanishing again into the green fog. It neither alters course nor reacts to the party.

Jerrold leaves the firefly to its circuit and crosses to the wall where the angular script repeats. He holds the mace low in his off hand and, in each blue pulse, traces a few characters above the stone without touching them, comparing the wall's writing to the plaque on the nearest casket. "The same hand, I think," he says quietly. "Plaque and wall both. I know the old church letters, but not this. Quill—when you can spare your eyes from the light, does the script put you in mind of anything?" He works along the wall a few paces, trying to find where the inscription begins, or any group of characters that repeats, as a name might.

Jerrold finds the pattern: one complete sentence repeats around the inner wall, with no marked beginning to the whole inscription. Within each repetition, the same compact cluster occupies a place that could be a proper name, but comparison alone gives him no meaning or sound.

Maren turns from the plaques and studies the stone at the foot of each casket instead, since the names are closed to her. She goes down the row on one knee, setting her spear aside just long enough to feel along the seam where each upright casket meets the floor—looking for a scrape of recent setting-down, wax, dried mud, a drag mark, anything that would show one of these iron boxes had been opened or shifted more than the rest. "Jerrold, that name you found repeating in the wall—does it match any of these plaques?" she says, without looking up. "If the shrine was built to one of them, I want to know which."

Dust lies evenly along all ten bases. Maren finds no wax, mud, fresh scrape, or drag mark; none appears to have been shifted recently. The wall fixings, not the floor seams, hold the caskets upright.

Quill tears his eyes from the firefly long enough to cross to Jerrold's side, though he keeps the spell's film behind them. "It puts me in mind of nothing I can read," he says quietly, studying the wall in the next blue pulse. "Common, and the Neutral tongue—that's my lot. Not church letters, not this." He traces the repeated cluster without touching it. "But Maren's question I can work at, if the light will hold still a moment." He moves from plaque to plaque, matching the compact cluster from the wall against each name, character by character, looking for a twin.

Quill checks all ten plaques character by character. None of their names matches the compact cluster repeated in the wall sentence.

The firefly continues its periodic circuit, serenely weaving past the caskets. Its blue pulse and magical aura remain unchanged.

Jerrold leaves the wall and walks the room's edge slowly, the mace low, counting his own paces against the firefly's pulses. He is not chasing the light; he is taking the measure of the place. He notes where the wall turns, whether there is any break or stair or passage beyond the ten-foot veil, and whether the ten caskets are all the room holds or only the row Maren counted. "One name on the wall, and none of these plaques answers to it," he says quietly. "That name is either someone not buried here, or someone not yet." He stops at each corner and marks it in his mind, so the fog cannot make him lose the shape of the room.

Jerrold fixes the room’s shape despite the fog: a ring between the inscribed inner wall and the alcoved outer wall. The ten caskets are all it holds. He finds no stair or open passage, only the north door and the locked door to the west.

Maren straightens from the row of caskets and crosses to the locked western door. She runs her fingertips along its edge and over the lock, then sets her ear flat to the iron and listens. After a long moment she tries the latch once—not hard enough to force anything, just to learn what holds it shut. "If there's a room beyond, that's where the name on the wall is," she says, low. "Or where they put the ones the plaques don't answer for."

Maren hears nothing she can distinguish through the western door. The latch moves slightly, then stops cleanly against the lock; the door is not merely stuck or swollen.

Quill crosses to Maren at the western door and lays two fingers on the iron near the lock, then shakes his head. "Nothing on it," he murmurs. "No charm. It's held by plain iron, not by any cant I can see." He glances back once at the firefly, still on its circuit, then leans close to the door. "Let me try a small thing. Don't speak, and keep your hand off the latch." He murmurs the cant for Ventriloquism — the one he has carried unused for two years — and sets his voice to a low, wet cough just beyond the western door, at chest height, as if someone on the far side had been standing there all along. Then he falls silent and puts his ear toward the iron, listening for any answer.

The spell places Quill’s wet cough unmistakably beyond the locked door. Silence follows: no voice, footstep, or movement answers it. Ventriloquism is spent and remains active for 2 turns.

The firefly ignores the conjured cough and maintains its exact circuit through the fog. It makes no hostile move.

Jerrold leaves the wall and crosses to the western door, mace held low. He does not touch the latch; he lets the next blue pulse show him the lock, then stoops and studies it as closely as the light allows, comparing its shape to the ten locks on the caskets behind him. "If there's a key to this door," he says quietly, "a man who sealed a place like this may have left it with the dead, or near the only thing in the room that moves." He runs his fingers along the inner edge of the frame and the stone beside it, feeling for any niche, catch, or loose block, and in each pulse he glances up at the lintel and down at the threshold for anything the fog might otherwise swallow.

Jerrold finds no niche, catch, loose block, or concealed object in the frame, lintel, or threshold. The door lock is larger than the casket locks; its visible keyway offers no proof that any casket key would fit it.

Maren pushes off the western door and lets the firefly make its next pass, then falls in behind it at a respectful distance, spear crosswise and low. She does not chase it; she walks its circuit one full turn, watching the floor where the blue light falls and the wall where it thins. At each pulse she notes whether the light lingers on any stone longer than another, and when the circuit brings her back near the western door she drops to one knee and runs her hand over the stone there, feeling for a seam, a draught, or anything the fog has been hiding.

The firefly neither slows nor lingers anywhere in its circuit; each pulse is regular. Near the western door, Maren finds only the known threshold and frame—no hidden floor seam, moving stone, or draught.

Quill watches the firefly complete its pass, then slips the hazel dowsing fork from his belt. "The fork's no charm," he says, low, "but it's the one tool I'd trust in a place that keeps a locked room behind it. Let me walk the ring with it." He holds the fork level and loose, the way he would over a field, and begins at the western door. Then he walks the circuit slowly—between the inscribed inner wall and the row of caskets—letting the fork turn if it will, noting where it dips or pulls. He keeps one eye on the firefly's blue pulse and one ear open behind him, and he does not let the fork lie to him without writing the spot down.

Quill completes the ring. The fork gives no repeatable dip, pull, or turn at the door, any casket, or any stretch of wall; only his own stride moves it.

The firefly buzzes past Quill’s lowered fork and continues around the ring. Its course and pulse remain perfectly regular.

Jerrold leaves the western door and crosses to the row of caskets, the mace still low at his side. "Maren has looked at the floor and Quill at the names," he says quietly. "Nobody has looked at the locks themselves, one against the next." He begins at the casket nearest the north wall and works along the row in the firefly's blue pulses, bending close to each lock in turn: keyhole, plate, any scratch or shine that would show a key has been used in it, any one that sits differently in its iron. He uses the iron grave-nail only as a probe, tapping it once, softly, against each lock plate to hear whether it is seated true, and he is careful not to turn it in any keyhole. As he goes he counts the locks against the ten Maren counted, and against the one on the western door, looking for a twin or for one that has been changed.

Jerrold’s comparison finds all ten casket locks alike in age, seating, and wear. None shows fresh key scratches or replacement work, and none matches the larger western-door lock. His light taps trigger nothing.

Maren leaves the western door and goes back to the row of caskets, this time looking at what nobody has looked at yet. She runs both hands over the top of each four-foot iron casket—feeling for a key, a loose plate, a wire, any place the dust has been disturbed—then works her fingers, and where they won't fit the blade of her spade, into the gap behind each casket between the iron and the alcove wall. At each one she glances up at the arch above and at the ceiling along the firefly's circuit, looking for a rail, thread, or anything that might carry or guide the little machine. She keeps off its path and lets it pass untouched.

Maren finds no key, loose plate, wire, or disturbed dust atop or behind any casket. Heavy iron fastenings secure each back to its alcove wall. The arches and ceiling hold no rail or thread; the firefly flies unsupported.

Quill moves to the centre of the ring, clear of the firefly's path, and turns slowly with it so it never leaves his sight for a full circuit. He keeps one finger pressed to his ledger, tallying the blue pulses against the ten caskets and against the repeated wall sentence, to see whether the thing's rhythm is blind—or whether it is spelling something out in time that the stones spell in writing. "One full turn," he murmurs, "and I'll know if its count belongs to the dead or to the name on the wall." He lets Detect Magic sit behind his eyes, watching whether the aura itself beats with the pulse or only rides it.

The blue light pulses at an even, unaccented interval, with no grouping that matches ten caskets or the inscription’s divisions. To Quill’s enchanted sight, the firefly’s magical aura remains constant while its visible light brightens and dims.

The firefly completes another silent circuit. Its steady aura and blue pulse do not change.

Jerrold leaves the caskets and walks back to the north door, the one they came through. The firefly's circuit has given him no quarrel, and he does not mean to give it one yet; but a man should know whether the way out still stands open before he goes pulling at locked things in the dark. He sets the mace head down on the stone and runs his palm flat over the door, then the frame, the threshold, the lintel, in each blue pulse. He checks whether the door has swung shut behind them, whether it opens inward or outward, and whether there is any bar, latch, or drop-slot on this side that could seal them in. As he works he glances back once at the row of caskets, counting the pulses between himself and the others, keeping the shape of the room fixed in his mind.

The north door rests closed but unlocked. Its ordinary latch lifts from this side, and it swings northward toward the room beyond. Jerrold finds no bar, drop-slot, or mechanism that could seal the party inside.

"All the quiet ways have been tried," Maren says, low, not taking her eyes from the blue pulse as it rounds the ring. "That door's shut with a key, and the only thing in this room that moves besides us is that light. I'm going to take it." She pulls the oiled canvas from her pack and shakes it out, then steps to the firefly's circuit between two of the caskets, clear of the row. She holds the sheet across the path like a curtain, gathered in both fists, and waits for the pulse to come to her. As it reaches the canvas she folds the sheet over it and gathers the corners, the way she would a hornet against a window—meaning to trap it whole and unhurt. If it slips through, she lets it pass and does not swing at it. "If it carries the key to that door, I want it in my hand," she says. "If it doesn't, I've lost nothing but a little pride."

Maren closes the canvas a heartbeat late. The blue pulse slips beneath one gathered edge and resumes its circuit untouched. The firefly neither attacks nor changes its route.

Quill straightens as the pulse slips under Maren's canvas, and for a moment he does not move, watching the firefly resume its exact circuit. "It won't balk like a hornet," he says, low. "It's a machine, so we treat it like one—a gate, not a chase." He crosses to her, shifts his staff into the crook of his arm, and takes the two near corners of the canvas, letting them hold it slack across the circuit at waist height between them. With Detect Magic still a film behind his eyes, he watches the oncoming aura rather than the visible pulse, timing the fold by the steady glow behind the blue. "On the next pass, close it slow and together, like drawing a purse. If it's a key, we don't want to crush it. If it's only a light, we've learned that too."

The coordinated fold fares worse: one corner sags as they draw together, and the firefly passes through the opening before the canvas closes. It remains untouched and continues its circuit.

The firefly makes its next pass without haste or evasion. The failed attempts have not altered its behaviour.

Jerrold watches the canvas fail twice and lowers the mace until its head rests on the stone. "Stop chasing it," he says quietly, to Maren and Quill both. "You tried it as a hornet, then as a purse. It's neither. It's a light kept for somebody this place never buried." He crosses to the inscribed wall, not the door, and opens his burial book to the rite for the missing—the one he has never yet had the right ground to say. He sets his left palm flat over the repeated name-cluster on the stone, not trying to read it, only to hold the place. Then he begins the words, slow and plain, the way he would over an empty grave: no blessing of the body, no commendation to the earth, only the call for the absent one to be found and brought home. He lets the firefly pass as it will, and he does not reach for it.

Jerrold completes the rite for the absent. His words fade into the mint fog; the stone remains cold beneath his palm, and no casket, door, or light answers. The firefly continues its circuit.

"You've tried it as a hornet and as a purse," Maren says, quiet, to Quill. "Then let it meet a wall that breathes." She steps into the firefly's circuit between two of the caskets, clear of the row, and plants herself squarely in its path, spear butt down beside her and her hands empty at her sides. She faces the oncoming blue pulse and does not reach for it. "I won't move. If it goes around me, it's not blind. If it goes through me, it's not solid. Either is worth knowing."

The firefly reaches Maren, rises around her left shoulder without touching her, then returns to its former line. It can perceive and avoid an obstacle; nothing suggests it is insubstantial.

Quill watches the firefly clear Maren's shoulder and return to its line, and he does not move to block it again. "It won't be snared, and it won't be backed into a corner," he says quietly. "But it saw you. That means it has eyes, or something serving for them—and a thing with eyes has a front and a back." He steps to the inner edge of the circuit, well clear of the path, and sets himself to watch one full pass at close range with Detect Magic still a film behind his eyes. As the blue pulse comes abreast of him he studies it squarely: the shape inside the light, where the magical aura is anchored on its little body, whether it carries or trails anything physical, and whether it has any facing—a head, a seam, a keyhole, a hinge. He keeps his hands on his staff and makes no move toward it.

At close range Quill sees a small articulated insect-shaped machine: distinct head, jointed wings, and a pulsing abdomen. The magical aura encloses the whole body rather than trailing behind it. It carries nothing, and he sees no exposed key, keyhole, winding stem, or opening beyond its fine construction seams.

The articulated firefly passes Quill at close range once more, then disappears into the 10-foot fog. It keeps its established circuit.

Jerrold does not lift his palm from the stone. For a long moment he says nothing, and then, low, more to Maren than to the room: "It's Anders. The name on the wall is Anders." He turns his head just enough to look at the firefly as it comes around, and when the blue pulse reaches the turn he says it again, plain and steady, the way he says it alone in the church at night: "Anders Holt." He does not call the light, does not chase it, does not reach for it. He stands with his hand over the name and waits to see what answers to it.

“Anders Holt” receives no answer. The firefly passes without pause, and the unknown characters beneath Jerrold’s palm remain inert.

Maren goes still at Jerrold's words, the spear butt still braced beside her foot. For a long moment she doesn't look at him—only at the blue pulse coming around the ring toward her. Then she shrugs out of her pack, digs one-handed to the bottom, and lifts out the right boot: the one she resoled badly, with the copper rivet through the heel. She doesn't answer him. She steps into the firefly's path between two caskets and holds the boot out at chest height, sole toward the oncoming light, steady as a man offering his hand to a strange dog. "If that name's him," she says, low, "then you'll know this."

The firefly approaches the offered boot, veers around the copper-riveted heel as it would any obstacle, and returns to its circuit. It shows no sign of recognition.

Quill crosses to where Jerrold stands with his palm on the stone, and this time he does not look at the firefly at all. He looks at the wall itself—at the name-cluster and the unknown characters beneath it—with Detect Magic still laid over his sight. He has spent the hour watching the machine and the fog, but never once the writing. "The light has eyes," he murmurs. "Let me see if the wall has a mouth." He leans close without touching, letting the enchanted sight show him whether any part of the inscription holds an aura, whether the unknown characters are only cut stone or something else waiting under the surface, and whether the glow in them keeps time with the firefly's pulse. He copies the unknown characters into his ledger exactly as they stand, stroke by stroke, and he does not speak them aloud.

As Quill’s earlier sweep showed, the inscription bears no magical aura. Its characters are ordinary cuts in stone, with nothing glowing or moving beneath them and no link to the firefly’s pulse. His ledger now holds a faithful copy of one complete repeated sentence.

The firefly continues around the ring, indifferent to Quill’s copying. Its pulse still cuts through the mint-green fog.

Jerrold pulls his palm from the stone and crosses to the row of caskets, the mace still low at his side. "Nobody has read the plaques," he says quietly. "Only the locks and the dust." He begins at the casket nearest the north wall and works along the row in the firefly's blue pulses, bending to each plaque in turn. He reads each name aloud, softly, the way he reads the parish register, and holds each one against the name cut into the wall. If a plaque is blank or broken he says so, and he keeps his hands off the locks.

Jerrold cannot read or sound out the Gnomish names; any pronunciation would be a guess. All ten plaques are intact and distinct, and none matches the likely name-cluster in the wall sentence.

Maren watches Jerrold come back from the plaques, then walks to the inscribed wall and sets the butt of her spear against the stone so the shaft stands beside her. "You said his name," she says quietly. "But not the rest of it. A name on a wall isn't the whole sentence." She puts her left hand flat below the name-cluster, the way Jerrold did, and reads the Common words aloud, slowly, in the order they were cut—whatever comes before Anders Holt and whatever comes after. She does not guess at the unknown characters; where the script turns to something she can't read, she says so, and she counts how many times the same sentence is cut into the wall.

Every word on the wall is Gnomish; there are no Common words for Maren to read, and the repeated cluster is not established as “Anders Holt.” The same complete sentence continues around the inner wall in identical copies, with no first, last, or altered occurrence.

Quill steps back from the wall and into the middle of the ring, clear of the firefly's path, where nobody has yet put their hands. "A thing with eyes and a fixed road," he says quietly, "must have a reason to circle. Let me look at what it won't leave." He slings his ledger into his belt and walks a slow spiral inward from the inner edge of the circuit, dowsing fork held level and loose before him, watching the floor for any seam, grate, drain, or pedestal the fog might be keeping. With Detect Magic still a film behind his eyes he studies the ground at the ring's centre for an aura, and when he reaches it he lets the brass plumb hang at arm's length to feel for a draught, a slope, or the stir of a shaft beneath the stone. He keeps one ear open behind him for the blue pulse and does not let it box him in.

The inner wall encloses the room’s centre, so Quill cannot spiral into it. Across the walkable ring he finds flat fitted stone: no seam, grate, drain, pedestal, slope, or draught, and neither fork nor plumb responds. Detect Magic expired long ago, so it reveals no aura now.

The firefly glides over Quill’s searched stretch of floor and continues its unbroken circuit. Its blue pulse and placid behaviour remain unchanged.

Jerrold does not go back to the door, and he does not go at the light. He walks to the casket nearest the north wall and sets the flat of his palm against the iron, the way he has set it against a hundred coffin lids before the lowering. "The name on that wall belongs to no one in these boxes," he says quietly. "Before I put my shoulder to a locked door, or raise a hand to the only light this place keeps, I want to know whether every box holds what a box should hold." He moves down the row in the blue pulses, one casket at a time. At each he presses his ear to the iron and knocks twice with the butt of the mace—once high, once low—then raps the grave-nail softly along the seam between lid and body, listening. He is listening for the solid, settled silence of a full casket against the ringing hollowness of an empty one, for a shift of contents, for the difference between earth and air. He marks each in his mind and does not open anything yet.

All ten caskets answer alike: hollow iron, slightly muted by something light and settled within. Nothing shifts, scrapes, or answers; none sounds plainly empty or earth-filled. Jerrold’s careful tapping triggers nothing.

Maren watches the blue pulse round the ring once, then turns from it and walks to the casket nearest the north wall, the one Jerrold knocked first. "You've all listened," she says quietly. "I came here to look." She takes the short-handled spade from her pack, sets the blade into the seam between lid and body beside the lock, and leans on the handle with both hands, slow and steady, putting her weight behind it. She means to spring the lid or shift it enough to see whether the box holds a body or only air. She keeps her head turned a little from the seam, and she watches the firefly out of the corner of her eye. If the blade slips, she stops and does not swing at it.

The spade blade bites into the seam and flexes under Maren’s weight, but the iron lid and lock hold fast. The gap does not widen enough to see within; nothing vents or moves, and she stops before the tool slips.

Quill watches the spade flex against the iron and lets out a slow breath he did not know he was holding. When the lid holds, he steps to Maren's side and, with a small, deliberate motion, holds out his hand for the copper-riveted boot she showed the firefly. "I've been looking at walls and locks and a machine," he says quietly. "Let me try the thing I was hired for. Give me the boot and keep still." He tucks the boot against his chest with his left arm and takes the hazel fork loose in his right hand, level as a dowsing rod, and walks the row of caskets from the north wall along the firefly's circuit. At each casket he pauses and lets the fork settle, asking it the question he has asked over thirty-one wells and two bodies: where is the man this belongs to? He watches the tips for the turn he felt once under the Wexley hedge, and once more before that in the millpond, and he does not let the blue pulse behind him hurry him.

Quill may ask for the boot, but Maren must decide whether to hand over her property. Until she does, the boot remains with her and Quill cannot perform the proposed sympathetic dowsing test.

The firefly passes the still-closed casket without pause and continues around the fogbound ring. It makes no hostile move.

Jerrold crosses to the firefly's circuit between two caskets and uncorks the flask of chrism oil. He stoops and pours a thin, even line across the stone in its path, from the inner wall out to the casket row, then steps back and corks the flask with care. The mace stays low at his side. "If it's a made thing, oil won't stop it," he says quietly, more to himself than to the others. "If it's a kept soul, it'll know what it's crossing." He sets his back near the row of caskets and watches the next pass, making no move to touch the light.

The firefly crosses above the chrism line without slowing, veering, or changing its pulse. The oil remains on the stone, and Jerrold’s flask is now partly used.

Maren stands still through Jerrold's pouring, watching the blue pulse cross the oil without a hitch, and she says nothing until Quill's hand is still out. Then she looks down at the boot in her own grip, turns it once so the copper rivet catches the light, and sets it into his palm with both hands, the way she would hand a man the last coal of a fire. "You bring it back to me," she says quietly. "It goes home, same as him. It doesn't stay down here." She steps back a pace, clear of the circuit, and plants the spear butt by her foot. "Ask it your question, then. If it points at nothing, that's still a place, and I'll hear it."

Maren’s copper-riveted boot passes into Quill’s keeping. He now has the personal token needed for his proposed test; Maren retains her spade.

Quill takes the boot with both hands as it's set into his palm, and for a moment he only holds it against his chest, letting the weight of it settle. Then he steps clear of the circuit, sets the hazel fork level in his right hand, and lets the boot rest against his left forearm, sole outward, so the copper rivet faces the row of caskets. "Right," he says, low, more to the fork than to Maren or Jerrold. "The man who wore this. Where is he?" He walks the row from the north wall, slow as a man reading water, and at each casket he pauses. Not at the locks, not at the plaques—at the seam where iron meets iron, the same place they listened. He lets the fork settle, tips out, and waits for the turn he felt once under the Wexley hedge and once in the millpond. He keeps his wrists loose, doesn't grip the wood, and he does not hurry for the blue pulse behind him. If the fork points at nothing, he'll say so plainly and mark the miss in the ledger the way he promised himself he always would.

At every casket, the fork settles without a repeatable dip, turn, or pull. It gives no direction toward any tomb, door, or stretch of wall. The test finds nothing; Quill still holds Maren’s boot.

The firefly completes another serene circuit, passing Quill and the borrowed boot without recognition. Its blue pulse remains steady.

Jerrold watches the firefly cross the chrism line without so much as a shiver, and for a long moment he says nothing. Then he turns from the circuit and walks to the door they have all been treating as a wall. "We've asked the light, and the boxes, and the stone," he says quietly. "We haven't asked the door." He sets the mace down against the jamb, takes the iron grave-nail from his belt, and goes over the door slowly: the lockplate, the edges, the hinges, the gap at the sill. He runs his fingertips along the keyhole, then slips the grave-nail into it without force, feeling for wards, for the shape of a key, for any give. He listens at the panel, presses his shoulder to the wood to test whether it is locked or only stuck, and watches whether the blue pulse behind him changes as he does it.

The grave-nail meets solid internal wards but cannot turn them or reveal the missing key’s exact cut. The hinges, sill, and lockplate hide no release. Jerrold’s shoulder confirms the western door is locked, not stuck; the firefly does not react.

Jerrold steps back from the door and Maren is already looking past him at the inner wall. "You've asked the door and it said no," she says quietly. "The wall's the only thing left with a mouth, and all it does is say the same thing over. Maybe it's not meant to be read. Maybe it's meant to be opened." She crosses to the inscribed wall and sets the butt of her spear against the stone, then works along it slowly, palm flat, from the floor to as high as she can reach, pressing each repetition of the sentence in turn—hardest at the name-cluster Jerrold keeps calling Anders. With the spade handle she taps the stones, listening for the difference between solid wall and a space behind. She watches for any seam hidden in the letters, any stone that sits a hair proud or a hair back. She does not speak the words. She treats the wall as a lid that hasn't been lifted.

Maren’s full sweep finds solid masonry throughout. Every tap answers alike; no letter conceals a seam, catch, hollow, or movable stone. The repeated cluster remains only unidentified Gnomish carving, not an established name.

Quill stands where the fork last settled and for a long moment only looks down at the wood, as though it has lied to him. Then he says it quietly, to the fork as much as to the others: "It points at nothing. Mark it." He opens the hit-and-miss ledger on his knee and writes the line in full—place, token, method, and in the margin a single word: *miss*. He closes the book with the same care he always does, then crosses to Maren and sets the copper-riveted boot back into her hands, sole up, the way she gave it. "He isn't in the boxes," he says. "If he were, I think the fork would have argued." He does not stop there. "But this room keeps a middle it won't let us at," he says, looking past her at the inner wall. "Let me see over its shoulder." He chooses the casket nearest the inner wall, tests the lid with the butt of his staff, then steps up onto it, facing the inscribed stone, and looks down over the wall into the enclosed centre as the firefly's next blue pass comes around. He is looking for what the wall holds in: a pit, a pool, a raised slab, an open shaft, the source of the fog. He keeps his staff braced and does not lean so far that a slip would carry him over.

Quill records the miss and returns the boot to Maren. The climb he proposes is impossible: every upright casket stands in a 5-foot outer alcove with only about a foot above it, while the inner wall rises to the ceiling. There is no top edge or enclosed centre to look over; his staff tap triggers nothing.

The firefly crosses the chrism line yet again and keeps its calm circuit. Its light, speed, and course remain unchanged.

Jerrold watches the firefly slide back into the fog and this time he does not wait for it to come around. He steps into the circuit behind it, close enough that the blue pulse still catches the stone ahead of him, and follows it into the fog. He keeps his left palm on the outer wall as he walks, feeling every joint and edge, and taps with the iron grave-nail where the wall is too far from the light to read. He is counting paces, listening for an opening, a draught, a change in the floor—watching whether the firefly passes through some gap or simply comes around the far side. He keeps the mace low and makes no move at the light itself. "It goes somewhere," he says, over his shoulder. "We keep meeting it coming back."

Keeping within the blue pulses, Jerrold watches the firefly trace one continuous loop around the ring. It never enters a gap or leaves the room; the fog alone hid the far part of its course. His hand finds only the ten alcoves and the known north and west doors—no third opening, draught, or floor change.

Maren listens to Jerrold come back out of the fog, and she looks at Quill for a long moment. "You said it yourself," she says quietly. "A thing with eyes has a front and a back. Every time we went at it, we went at its front, and it saw us coming." She shakes the oiled canvas out once, then folds it down small and takes it in both hands, the corners hanging loose. She does not step into the circuit. She stands just off the firefly's line, between two caskets, and lets the blue pulse pass her by. Then she turns with it as it goes, steps in soft behind it, and casts the canvas over it from behind like netting a bird—not gathering it, just dropping the whole sheet over the light before it can veer, then closing the edges under it if it comes down. If it darts free, she lets it go and does not swing at it. "Now we've asked its front enough," she says, low. "Let's see what its back has to say."

Maren’s cast lands squarely from behind. Blue light blooms through the canvas as the firefly drops beneath it; she closes the edges before it finds an opening. The articulated machine buzzes and taps inside the bundle, captured and unharmed.

Quill is at Maren's side before the canvas stops moving, staff set aside on the stone and the brass plumb-and-line already unreeled between his hands. "Don't gather it tighter than it wants," he says, low. "A machine caught in a net either stops or breaks itself; let's make sure it doesn't have to choose." He passes his line around the neck of the bundle where the corners meet, knotting it just enough to hold the edges closed without cinching the thing inside, and leaves a long tail so Maren can open it again in one pull. Then he crouches beside the captured light, close enough to study the blue glow through the cloth, and looks for anything the canvas can show them: the shape of the wings, whether it has legs or a wind-up key, whether the tapping is blind flailing or the work of something with a purpose. He does not touch the bundle with his bare hands, and he keeps his face a little turned away in case it finds a seam.

Through the glowing cloth, Quill sees the known head, six jointed legs, folded wings, and pulsing abdomen—no winding key or carried object. Its movements are deliberate: it crawls from fold to fold, testing the closure for an exit rather than flailing. The loose tie holds without crushing it; Quill’s plumb-line is now securing the bundle.

The firefly works around the bundle’s inner edge, probing each fold and the tied neck. It finds no opening this round; the line holds and its blue pulse remains steady.

Jerrold watches the bundle for a long moment, the blue pulse softening and sharpening under Maren's canvas like a heart behind cloth. Then he leaves it to Quill's knot and Maren's grip, picks up the mace from the jamb, and crosses to the north door they have all passed and none of them has put a hand on. "The west door said no," he says quietly. "This one hasn't been asked." He sets the mace against the wall and goes over the north door exactly as he did the other: lockplate first, then edges, hinges, sill. He runs a fingertip around the keyhole, slips the iron grave-nail in without force to feel the wards, then sets his shoulder to the panel to learn whether it is locked or only stuck. He listens at the wood, and he keeps one ear behind him for the bundle and its tapping.

Jerrold’s second inspection confirms what his first found: the north door’s ordinary latch is unlocked, its hinges are free, and no bar or hidden catch holds it. The grave-nail meets no engaged wards. He hears nothing distinct beyond the wood; the door will open northward when its latch is lifted.

Maren keeps the bundle cradled against her side, one hand loose at the tied neck but not tightening it. She steps to the north door where Jerrold stands, plants the butt of her spear against the jamb where she can snatch it, and puts her free hand to the latch. "You said this one hasn't been asked twice," she says quietly. "I'll hold the lamp." She lifts the latch and draws the door back just enough to put an eye to the gap, letting the firefly's blue light spill through ahead of her. She does not step through yet, and she does not let the canvas slip.

The latch lifts quietly and the door opens a hand’s breadth. Mint fog curls into a clearer chamber beyond. Each muffled blue pulse shows only a narrow slice: fitted stone floor, the corner of a workbench, and glass vessels upon it. Nothing moves within Maren’s limited view, and the bundle remains secure.

Quill stoops to take up his staff from where he set it aside, then crosses quietly to Maren's side, just outside the arc of her spear arm. He does not crowd the doorway. He puts one eye to the gap and lets the firefly's muffled blue pulse sweep the slice of chamber beyond: the fitted floor, the corner of the bench, the glass vessels ranked upon it. He is looking for the things a room like this would tell him—dust on the floor and whether it has been walked, tool-marks on the bench, stoppers and the colour of what the vessels hold, any glint of a key or a pair of boots set neatly beneath the bench. He listens for the small sounds that mean something alive or winding down. "Go slow," he says, low, to Maren. "A bench and glass means somebody's hands worked here. If those vessels are stoppered, let's leave them that way until we know what's in them. And keep the bundle off the stone—I'd rather not find out what the blue light does to whatever's in the jars by smashing one against it."

Quill’s longer watch resolves a little more. The bench is old, cut and stained by use; the visible vessels are stoppered, but their dark contents cannot be identified in the muffled blue light. The dusty floor near it is scuffed, though the narrow angle reveals no clear track. He sees no key or boots and hears no distinct living or mechanical sound.

The firefly finds the bundle’s tied neck and presses beneath it, but Maren’s loose grip closes the fold before it can force through. The line holds; the machine remains captured and unharmed.

Jerrold holds the door where Maren drew it open and lets the next blue pulse sweep the chamber again. "Keep the lamp on the glass, Maren, and off my shoulder," he says quietly. He steps through the gap, mace low, and puts his back a moment against the inner side of the jamb so the fog can settle around him before he moves. He looks up first—the ceiling, the corners, any shadow the blue light does not reach—then down at the scuffed dust near the bench, reading the marks the way he would read a floor worn by a hundred mourners' boots. He crosses to the workbench with slow, even steps, tapping the stone ahead of him with the butt of the mace before he sets each foot, and stops just short of the vessels. He does not touch them. He studies the bench for a key, a written page, a tool laid down mid-task, a maker's mark—and for any sign of a second door or a set of irons beside the bench.

Jerrold’s first steps reveal a low, plain ceiling and no overhead threat. The scuffs converge on the workbench. Before he can inspect its drawers or surface, his mace-tap wakes a small gloop guard curled beneath it; the creature jerks upright with a wet gasp and stares at him. No blow has yet been struck.