When Emberlyth went to bed that night, she was like a child waiting for the first snow, too full of restless anticipation to settle. She lay there, eyes wide in the dark, her mind spinning grand schemes and imagining what secrets the night might yield.
At least, until the small hours crept in and reality followed close behind, whispering its usual truths. She sighed, rolling over. Foolish. You can’t just set a trap and expect someone to walk blindly into it. That wasn’t how the world worked, no matter how much you willed it otherwise.
And even if it did, who exactly was she hoping to catch? Some maid, skulking around to cover a few extra coins spent over at Wilbur’s Perch? Lady Efrain kept the house’s accounts in her head with the precision of a clockmaker; no scrap of parchment would ever outdo her. And why should Emberlyth care about a handful of missing coin?
The family finances wasn’t her concern, that they’d made sure she knew. They were things the adults murmured over, huddled behind closed doors. Secrets whispered over tea and ledger books she wasn’t allowed to open. “Useless papers and boorish records,” they’d said when she was younger, when she still cared enough to ask about the library. She’d been dismissed there, too.
Fine, let the thieves take the lot of it and they can all sink into the Abyss and rot.
Tossing the covers over her head, she let herself sink into the darkness.
“Would be nice if at least a rat fell for my trap, though,” Ember still murmured to herself. A yawn followed, stretching the words. “Haven’t tested if Izbeth can stomach the furry beasts better than the last maids, have I?”
Perhaps I’ll see something new in her? The thought warmed Emberlyth as much as her blankets, and she nestled deeper into bed, her eyelids growing heavy.
But just as sleep began to take her, a sound rose from beneath the quiet hum of the estate.
It wasn’t loud, but it was unmistakable. Last night, it had been a fleeting thing—something she barely registered amidst her own busy thoughts. But now, lying still, she caught it in perfect clarity.
It was a peculiar sound, the meeting of groaning hinges and the heavy scrape of wood against stone. The kind of noise you might expect from a door. Not one of the small, ordinary doors of the estate, but something grand. Something weighty. A hidden door, perhaps. One meant to keep more than just people out—or in.
The sound settled into the stillness, leaving only the soft murmur of the wind outside. Emberlyth lay frozen, her heartbeat quickening, her earlier frustrations forgotten.
And then, just as the silence stretched taut, a muffled thud followed by a sharp yelp echoed up through the floorboards. Small, distant, it might’ve gone unnoticed if she hadn’t been waiting for just that, listening.
Her breath caught. Before she could think better of it, she was moving. The cold bite of the floor met her bare feet as she swung out of bed, her fingers reaching instinctively beneath the mattress. She pulled free her father’s sword, its weight awkward in her hand but reassuring nonetheless.
Whatever was down there, it was no rat.
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By the time Emberlyth reached the first floor, she was sure of it. Whatever invasive species had found itself ensnared in the library tonight was far more sentient than any rat she'd ever encountered.
Low, guttural curses—foreign yet familiar in their emotion—drifted down the corridor where she now crept, Silent Kiss held firm in her hand. The words were not shouted, but spat, strained and breathless. Even so, to Emberlyth’s ears, they might as well have been spoken directly to her. Eavesdropping had always come a bit too naturally to her, for better or worse.
Emberlyth had always caught more than people meant for her to. How many maids hadn’t she overheard muttering about the “mad little lady” they served. She hadn’t minded at first. Not until they laughed about the chef who couldn’t toast bread without burning it. A few rats and spiders introduced to their beds, and those maids had packed their things and fled before the week was out.
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Then there were the guards. One ill-timed sneer at a portrait of her father—one muttered “he ain’t all that, is he?”—was all it took. From that moment, her crusade began. None of those spineless, sneering fools would ever guard the house again. Let them shiver on the grounds, watching over empty stables and crooked sheds.
Even her family whispered. Rarely to her face, of course. But they weren’t as careful as they thought. It wasn’t a gift, hearing what others wished to keep hidden. But tonight, it served her well.
The voice on the other side of the library door huffed and grunted in a language she didn’t recognize. Harsh syllables, foreign and feral. She could make out just enough to be intrigued—and unsettled.
Pulling a lantern from its sconce, Emberlyth shook it until the magi-struct sputtered to life. Light filled the dim hallway. And with it, silence. The voice fell quiet the instant the light touched the cracks around the library door.
They know, she thought. Whoever was in there knew she was coming.
She stood perfectly still, listening. The faint scrape of shifting weight, a labored breath barely stifled. Someone, or something, was trying desperately to move without making a sound. Trying, and failing.
But it wasn’t the noise that held her attention. It was the wax.
Her eyes flicked to the edge of the doorframe, to the thin trail of candle wax she’d left there. A seal, much like those on letters, meant to break if opened while she wasn’t there.
It was intact.
The door hadn’t been touched. Which meant… whoever was inside hadn’t entered through here?
Her pulse quickened, a flicker of cold excitement lighting her veins. She tightened her grip on Silent Kiss.
“Well,” she murmured to herself, her voice soft as a spider’s web, “this just got interesting.”
The window…? Emberlyth considered, but she dismissed the notion almost immediately. Unless she was truly dealing with some foul-mouthed rat-man, the narrow slit of a window couldn’t possibly admit anything larger than a starling. Besides, it was locked, thick glass reinforced with iron fittings, and a hatch she definitely shut.
That left her with one troubling conclusion: they had been in the library at the same time she was.
That unsettled her.
How did I not see them? she thought, pulling Silent Kiss free from its sheath. The blade caught the light from her lantern, a cold gleam of reassurance.
Carefully, she nudged the door open with her foot, both hands occupied by her weapon and light. The hinges gave a faint groan, and the silence within pressed down heavier, like a held breath. Whoever was inside had stifled their movements, though whether it was out of fear or cunning, she couldn’t say. Not that it mattered.
The room offered little in the way of concealment: five shelves aligned along the walls, a few scattered piles of loose documents. No shadows deep enough to hide much more than a spider. Her eyes swept the room quickly—and landed on the figure sprawled in the center of it all, upside down, one leg raised awkwardly toward the ceiling as if snagged by an invisible snare.
He wasn’t much older than she was. His face was a mess of ink smudges and dirt, hair sticking up in haphazard tufts. From his ridiculous position and the dim light, it was hard to tell much else about him. For a long moment, they simply stared at each other, silent except for the faint creak of his strained posture.
Finally, he let out a long, theatrical sigh. “A bit unfair, this, isn’t it?” he said conversationally, gesturing toward his left leg, still awkwardly hoisted in the air. “Traps are meant to be set before someone enters the premises. You can’t just slap them down after I’ve already been here for weeks. How was I supposed to know to look for it?”
Emberlyth’s thoughts stumbled over each other in rapid succession. Weeks? Then, Ah, you do speak the common tongue? And finally, the one she said aloud: “Mister Gardener?”
She’d only seen their ghastly gardener once before, in passing, when he was first hired some months ago. Never this close, though. Certainly not from this particular angle.
“Ah, yes. A pleasure to meet you, Lady Draekart,” he replied with a smile that might have been charming under different circumstances. “But before we get too far into pleasantries… would you mind letting me down? I’m rather fond of having the majority my blood flow away from my head, and this position isn’t exactly conducive to that.”
Emberlyth’s eyes flicked toward his gesturing hand but didn’t linger on his trapped leg. Instead, her gaze locked onto something else entirely: the fifth shelf, the one that had always been part of the wall. Except now, it wasn’t.
Her heart gave a small, uncertain leap. A Journal of the Abyss, Entry 14:1:3, Endless dungeons and mysteries in the dark. Emberlyth knew what this was. A secret door. A hidden passage. But not deep within the Abyss. In her own home. She’d spent eighteen years exploring its every dusty nook and cranny, convinced she’d uncovered every dull secret her family’s estate had to offer. And yet, here it was, yawning open as if mocking her.
“What’s… this?” she asked, voice low and steady as she turned back to the young man.
He’d just tried to push himself off the floor, only to slip and crash back down with a graceless thud. A pained groan escaped his lips, followed by what sounded suspiciously like a curse muttered under his breath.
She’d been ready to catch stray rats or, at best, confront a misguided maid this night. Instead, she’d found so much more.
Emberlyth tilted her head, Silent Kiss steady in her hand as she looked him once more. “Now this,” she murmured, more to herself than him, “is shaping up to be a very curious night.”