❝
BY THE TIME when the orange sun crept upon its edge of the horizon when the wagon slowed down just about creaking to rest before a lonely, weathered inn that stood like a forgotten whisper among the trees.
Charlotte's fingers curled around the edge of her cloak as she stepped down from the wagon, bolstered by Vladimir's sure hand. Behind them, Saevionh stretched his long, stiff limbs due to hours of travel and craned his neck up at the inn's crooked sign advertising the Hollow Grove Inn. The placard swung slightly in the breeze, its paint faded by rain and time.
"Looks old," Vladimir muttered.
"Very old," repeated Saevionh, "and blind."
The driver, an ancient, bark-and-bone creation, tipped his hat as his eyes lurked in shadow under his brow. "This is where I keep you all. No more comfort beyond the line of this road," he croaked, and whipped the horse on before any could inquire further.
The Hollow Grove was neither rich nor poor. It straddled that strange, cold line between the warmth of comfort and desolation. Its moss-lined stone walls cracked like the veins of the dying: the curling edges of the roof creaked with old age itself. Now Charlotte swallowed her clammy unease because the inn seemed to see them.
As they passed, Bell over the door gave a brittle chime lingering too long in the dimness. Creaky old floorboards welcomed them, ash blended with aged paper. At the reception counter stood a single oil lamp flickering, throwing light like a dying ember, barely onto the shadows conspiring from the corners.
Saevionh scowled, breath knocked out of him. "Who'd on earth let an inn bathe in this much darkness? Are they saving light as if it's sacred currency?"
Charlotte did not mention it, for the quiet was more interesting than the gloom. This silence wasn't empty but held its breath as if something was listening.
With quiet steps, Vladimir detached himself to explore the reception hall, boots tapping onto the ancient wood. Saevionh, born razor-sharp with curiosity, vaulted over the counter, nimble as someone who put more stock in answers than decorum.
Charlotte was tempted by a shelf at the side, brushing her fingers over dust-covered spines. Her gaze moved upward to where dull portraits hung in cracked frames and landscapes smudged by time. It was one painting above all that called to her. A wintered house in the middle of a pale field, small, leafless trees hunched around it like sentinels cloaked in white.
"This thing right here..." she whispered. Voice drifting, she leaned in. "It feels... vaguely familiar."
"Was it?" From behind the counter, Saevionh continued, flipping through the leather-bound logbook. "Goodness, nothing exciting here. Paper, scribbles, guest names from gods-know-how-long ago... oh, and hats. Random hats." He shut the book with a delicate flourish and lay it back exactly as he'd found it. His brows twitched; little ticks always disclosed his discomfort with disorder.
Charlotte did not turn. "That painting. Have you seen it before?"
Vladimir got closer and squinted at the painting. The lines tensed across his face: "That house... it lies hidden deep in Threnloch's grove."
Charlotte turned her head towards him. "Threnloch?"
A stiff nod from him. "The locals used to call it the Black Pool."
"And?" she urged gently.
Yet his voice fell lower, as if the very memory could be heard. "I'd rather not talk about it right now. It comes with things that nobody should remember-especially children."
Before Charlotte could push for any more, however, a voice rang out behind them-not loud, but sharp as broken glass dipped in honey.
"Ah, the Black Pool... It indeed brings back such sad memories to people."
The three of them turned sharply. There stood a tall man whose face and hands were entirely wrapped in white bandages. Even his mouth was covered as he was wearing old-time glasses. His posture was casual, almost theatrical. Everything on his body was fully covered with bandages like a mummy.
He tilted his head. "Did I scare you? I beg your pardon. It's terribly hard to sneak behind silence, but you were all so terribly loud in it."
Vladimir instinctively placed himself slightly ahead of Charlotte. Saevionh narrowed his eyes.
The bandaged one stepped forward, his voice whimsical, yet tinged with an eeriness of undertone. "Cowell Lanswilller," he said with great drama, bowing down, "hatter-resident, willy-nilly part-time gatekeeper of Hollow Grove Inn-however tonight it seems to me also your humble reception."
Saevionh stared at him and pointed a finger that ended with a dry vying laughter. "That explains those random hats under the counter."
"Ah!" Cowell laughed, a soft disorganized laughter. "You have met my children. They do become rather bored in the dark. Pay no attention to them."
Charlotte stepped forward and her heart was still thudding. "Do you live here alone?"
"Not quite," Cowell replied. "There are ghosts, whispers, echoes of what once was, some marauders from the village, and occasionally… guests like yourselves."
There was something in his voice that made it impossible to tell whether he was joking about the last part.
"We'd like to check in," Saevionh said in a firm tone, though his eyes never left Cowell's face.
"Why of course! The Hollow Grove doesn't turn away wandering souls—though it does like to keep a few." Cowell winked or rather the part of his face, which was not tightly bandaged, creased in such a way.
Cowell was moving behind the counter now, and Charlotte stared at the painting once again. The snow, trees, lone house… something deep down tugged at her, a dream not yet remembered but hardly ever forgotten.
The creaking floor groaned softly under their boots as Cowell led them through the narrow corridor of the inn, the spill of warm light from his oil lamp tracking shadows across the weather-worn wooden wall. The mingling scents of old pine and faint traces of tobacco hung in the air—comforting and familiar, yet certainly not repulsive.
"This way," Cowell murmured, glancing over his shoulder as he walked on, the coat swinging lightly about his shoulders.
At the intersection of the hallway, Cowell again spoke, casually but clearly intrigued: "You all seem a little too polished to be locals. Travelers, perhaps? From these lands, or elsewhere?"
Charlotte, lagging slightly behind the men, answered with polite nodding. "We are from Albiana."
The innkeeper slowed for a moment, his face in shadow until the flame illuminated it. "Ah, Albiana… So that's why you seemed familiar with that painting downstairs."
That caught Saevionh's attention. He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Are you from Albiana too?"
Cowell chuckled, almost wistfully. "Not quite. I was born in Gerania. But...life, as it often does, had its way. I moved to Albiana by consequence—family matters, shall we say. Later I was led here to Ivalor to care for this inn left behind by my grandparents."
A short silence fell between them, filled only with the muffled wind sighing outside. Cowell produced a set of brass keys from one of his coat pockets as they reached the last door at the end of the hall.
Saevionh beside him shot a sideways glance at Vladimir. Something was off with his demeanor: a subtle tension in the way he held his shoulders, the faintest frown on his brow beneath his glasses. Saevionh had known him long enough to read the quiet unease etched between those calm features, though what lay at its heart remained a mystery.
Cowell unlocked the door with a light click and threw it wide open. "Here we are. Not much, but it should do for the night."
The room was simple; two twin beds shoved against opposite walls and an aging velvet sofa positioned beneath a drafty window. A little fireplace sat unlit in the corner.
"That should be good," Vladimir said, adjusting his spectacles with calm confidence. "I'll take the sofa."
Saevionh followed him in, his sharp eyes surveying the room with surgical appraisal. He approached the left bed, pinching the corner of the sheet between his fingers as one would with evidence at a trial. "This hasn't been laundered," he stated unemotionally.
Cowell gave a derisive gaze mixed with half a smile. "It's clean. I just put on the new sheets this afternoon."
But his confidence faltered when Saevionh lifted the sheet with a shake, sending a puff of dust swirling into the air. He raised an eyebrow before dropping it nonchalantly as if it said, You were saying?
Cowell huffed, "Fine, fine, you got me. I have been a little behind in my chores lately, but it is definitely cleaner than the majority of inns on this side of Ivalor."
Content with his small win, Saevionh wiped his fingers on a handkerchief and said nothing more.
In the meantime, Charlotte had already rushed to the other bed, skirts rustling as she gleefully fell onto the mattress. "Oh! This is perfect!" she sighed, her voice muffled against the pillow. "This bed is way more comfortable than back home."
Cowell laughed sincerely now. "That is good to hear. If you need anything at all, just ring that bell by the bedside table." He pointed toward a small brass bell that was nestled next to an antique oil lamp. "Just give it a ring."
Cowell nodded one last time and proceeded to turn back to the hallway, leaving the door ajar with lingering notes of old wax and pine trailing behind him.
Vladimir walked toward the sofa and deposited his satchel with painstaking care, yet his eyes lingered at the window. The wind sighed gently, scouring the panes.
Saevionh, now sitting on the edge of his bed, glanced at him again. "Does something bother you?"
Vladimir was slow to reply to the question. Finally, in a voice so low it was almost whisked away by the wind, he said, "This place has something strange in it. I can sense it."
Charlotte, already curled in a half-dream, murmured, "It's probably just the cold."
Yet deep inside even she wasn't sure.
Vladimir's voice was low but firm.
"It's not merely the place," he murmured. "It's him."
Saevionh, halfway through unbuttoning the buttons on his coat, looked up.
Vladimir narrowed his eyes, adjusting his spectacles, his gaze lingering at the empty doorway behind which Cowell had vanished. "The man who calls himself Cowell Lanswiller.... There's something off. I can't place it, but I'm sure I've seen him before." Charlotte, still half-buried in the comfortable folds of the blanket and raising her head, added, "You mean, you know him?" Vladimir nodded slowly. "Perhaps not his face; the way he talks, maybe; the tone, the rhythm. There is a layer of truth in what he says as if weaving with... something else. Half-truth. Half-lie. I want to further speculate before he opens up, but my guts seem to hint at him that he is not trustworthy."
A brief silence reigned over the chilled room, through which the wind whispered past the broken seal of the window. The fireplace hadn't been lit, yet the weight of someone's urge stood out to possess its own warmth.
Saevionh, who now sat with a finger tracing the polished line of his silver cufflinks, spoke with focus: "So let us not exert ourselves over some singular, peculiar behavior. We came for something." "Tomorrow we leave to meet the Viscount Marcevalli, then," he said, turning first to Vladimir and lastly to Charlotte. "Delay has been long enough–we shall now return to what brought us here."
Charlotte's face was solemn. "Madam Dorothea's will." Vladimir gave a shallow nod. "Justice." Outside came muffled and distant—a soft murmur of laughter coming from the nearby tavern. The expected raucous barbarians–the mutters of tones laid down on the road–had conspicuously vanished. Vladimir didn't, however, let it get past him.
He rose and walked to the frost-lipped window. "Too quiet in the tavern," he muttered. "Where's everyone else? The ones we met earlier on the way here? I doubt these types would call it a night early." "Hunting," Saevionh simply said, pulling the edge of the blanket taut over the bed. "Or drinking somewhere deeper in the woods. Whatever it is, they're not our concern–unless they make themselves one."
Vladimir didn't answer. He kept looking outside, his reflection superimposed over the blurry lights of Ivalor. Meanwhile, Charlotte had stirred in her bed and was now walking over to the small, dust-ridden bookshelf beside the nightstand, on which she ran her fingers along the spines–most many worn with age and cracked leather. She pulled one out, a thick, almost pale green volume without a title, and turned it open. The pages murmured dryly with brittle sounds.
More than just a bed, thoughtfully Hannah as she spoke. "These books may contain other kinds of the past. Another kind of history. Possible information for the case." Both men turned toward her. If it belonged to Cowell's grandfather's property in this inn, some of their accounts might be here. Inns constantly receive travelers. Some leave more than footprints behind.
Saevionh stood up and walked over, extending over her shoulder to see what she was reading. "What kind of book is it?" Charlotte shrugged. "Maybe a journal, perhaps. Or a ledger, I haven't read enough of it to tell. But it's worth checking. If we're staying the night, we might as well make use of the time." Vladimir finally turned from the window, expressionless as to what was inside it. "Then we search tonight." He walked on over to the bookshelf, snagged another book at random, and sat down on the sofa while opening it without saying a word.
Charlotte smiled gently, sensing that something had changed in the energies among them. Outside, the cold had settled in, inside, however, something warmer took root-focus, perhaps. Or purpose. Ever-steady Saevionh selected a less weighty, clothbound volume while dealing with its pages, gloved hands handling them as in a laboratory.
"If Cowell is hiding something," he said, without lifting up, "this inn may tell us before he ever does."
That was how the three of them settled in; one in bed, one by the cold hearth, one on the aging sofa. Books around them, flickering lamplight aside, and a feeble disposition of all not being as it seemed. Silence settled. The only sound was the occasional turning of pages.
Cross-legged on the bed, Charlotte has a small stack of books beside her. The wooden chair before the fireplace has been taken over by Saevionh, his long fingers spinning through the pages of a leather-bound ledger with deftness. Most of the time Vladimir was by the sofa, spectacles dangling from low on his nose, yet listening as much as he read lines but seemed to be listening for anything odd beyond the walls.
The reading material was about what one would expect; old bibles, parables, and battered storybooks dating back more than a century. Some were dedicated to names not recognized by any of them. Others, though a few more were different. Different countries, faded, or long dead languages. Journals. Not like the rest, torn spines, thinner paper, ink uneven, like field notes or hurried scribbles made on the road.
Charlotte paused at one, a volume with plain brown cover. It was as unremarkable as it could get. She opened it carefully, the pages stiff with time. Her eyes moved quickly, a frown working on her brow. After a moment, she called out softly:
"Saevionh... Vladimir. I think you should see this."
The two men looked up. Vladimir was the first to rise, crossing the room with careful steps. Saevionh followed, brushing dust from his gloves as he approached.
Charlotte turned the journal to face them and tapped the page with a finger. "There's no name. But they who wrote this stayed in this very inn. They wrote about it—of waiting here for a something."
Adjusting his glasses, Vladimir leaned over, following the ink—messy, sharp strokes pressed hard into the paper—with his eyes.
Charlotte read aloud,
[["It has been twenty-nine days since I arrived at the inn in Ivalor. Still, he has not come. I see his shadow in every tall figure, hear his name in every hushed whisper.
They say revenge rots a man from within. I fear they are right. But how can I leave while he still breathes freely?
I've watched from a distance. Every traveler. Every merchant. Every pale coat and tall collar.
He ruined everything.
If I see him again, I don't know if I'll speak—or draw the blade first."]]
Each of the three exchanged glances, one unspoken alarm moving between them like a chill.
Saevionh spoke first, low-pitched and certain. "Whoever this was, they weren't just waiting. They were hunting. Someone was targeted. This sounds like notes of an assassin, or a person desperate enough to act like one."
Slowly turning pages, Charlotte suddenly jerked in shock. "There's more. Look—here."
She pointed to another neat paragraph among the others, giving the impression that the writer had reined in themselves before setting their thoughts onto paper.
[["I told him I was loyal. I wore the colors, said the words.
The Duke believes I am his shadow—his silence in the dark.
He thinks I serve his cause.
What a fool.
He speaks of rebuilding Erythria in secret, but what he truly builds is a marketplace of flesh. A quiet empire of stolen women and moppets, traded like aurics beneath the city's skin.
He calls it necessary. Evolution. A purification of power.
I call it filth.
Still, I smile when I stand beside him. I nod when he speaks. He does not know what I carry beneath the folds of my dress, nor the names I've memorized.
I follow his orders. But my orders come from another.
My true Master sent me not to protect him—but to bring him down."]]
Charlotte looked up, voice soft. "They were working for him. The former Duke of Erythria… Theocropolis."
Saevionh's stare turned molten. Eyes thought deep while stroking the edges of his chin, a frown had settled on his brows. "That wretched title again. Even after his banishment."
He turned away from the window where soft sleet was beginning to patter against the glass. "He must be planning something; pulling strings from wherever he's hiding."
Charlotte nodded. "This journal says he was organizing something. It mentions… It's vague, but…" she hesitated, nervousness choking her voice. "Human trafficking. Of women and children for slavery."
Saevionh muttered a curse under his breath while clenching his gloved hands.
Vladimir, on the opposite hand, simply closed the book he had been holding and leaned back slightly. "If that is indeed true," he said, his tone calm and even, "then allow the right authorities to take care of it. I don't believe that's why we are here."
Charlotte stared hard at him, but he continued: "Our mission," he said, "is justice for Madam Dorothea. We can't just be flung in every direction by every horror we stumble across; that is how we lose sight of the truth."
Saevionh did not argue. He returned to the fireplace and slowly sank back into the chair; his eyes fixed on the flickering shadows on the wall.
"I agree," he said at length.
"But we make note of it. The duke may not be done with his plans yet."