Unfortunately, as the Spymaster had proven, there were still ways to find Houndsberry Hollow. Lucian had been living in the guest room for around a week before the letter arrived.
It had no seal, and was delivered by vine.
Merry laughed when she saw it curled against the dinner table. "It's from a friendly village," she explained. "One who knows I exist."
Lucian tilted his head. "People know you're alive?"
She nodded. "I wasn't always the Candlemere bread girl, you know. I also visited villages helping out from time to time, after the Crown declared me dead. If they can't find you or your Grimoire for half a year, they just assume you or the book died."
That was a bleak prospect—imagining the Queen counting down on a calendar before she could declare Lucian dead and summon a new mortician. But to someone running away, it was a continuous relief.
The vine didn't pulse with magical light, either. It was just alive—the kind of green that grew in places unmarked by palace or prayer.
Lucian read it while the Grimoire pulsed faintly beside his wrist, reacting not with alarm—but with expectation.
Near Staesis's border and the Wilds rests Saltline Village. It is a small place--easily forgotten by most mapmakers. But today, they sent me a letter.
They say the dead are walking again—but not hostile. They just want names. No one remembers them.
These people's hands are clean, Mortician Bowcott. Their eyes do not blink.
When the bell rang, that was where the Echo chose to land.
Please help them.
It was unsigned, but smelled familiar--rosemary, ink, and candle soot.
The Caretaker's parchment.
He imagined the hooded figure writing in his oddly elegant script and handing it off to a vine for delivery. If he didn't see it before his eyes, Lucian would have dismissed it as a silly thought.
But now, Lucian understood that his action didn't just affect Staesis.
Its bell rippled farther than intended.
He rolled the letter closed and looked at Merry.
"There's a village near the salt lines that needs my help."
The druid mortician buttered her dinner roll. "When are you leaving?"
"After dinner."
Merry smiled. "Good answer. We may deal with the dead but we still hunger, Lucian. It's the only thing that separates us from the dead."
"Even when it becomes less interesting?"
She glanced at him like she understood. "When it becomes less interesting and more of a chore, yes. Even then. No matter how close to death we get…we're still only human."
Merry chomped on her dinner roll and hummed. "Nothing quite like homemade bread."
+
As promised, after dinner, he called Alice and explained why they had to leave. She didn't have much to pack, but Merry gave her a satchel full of her homemade bread and cheese. "He might say no, but better to have food than go without."
Alice nodded and Merry carefully adjusted the satchel until it rested snugly against her dress.
"There you go."
Since they no longer had the driver and his fire-maned horses, Lucy called for a regular carriage to take them from Sweetwater to Saltline Village.
They traveled through night-thick woods and mist-heavy trails. Lucian only stopped once—when the Grimoire opened without prompting.
Threadline Stable.
Soil-bound saturation: Complete.
You are now carrying rites beyond the original domain.
Caution: World may listen differently now.
This time, Lucian closed it and his heart remained unsettled. He knew how to respond when the world reminded him.
The closer they drew to the salt line, the more the world felt tilted. Trees leaned in strange directions. Paths ended where they'd once begun. Even the stars appeared unfamiliar.
"The Bell didn't just ring," Alice murmured. "It called something back."
+
The village was small and had no name on its gates. There was only a carving above the arch:
We Remember, or We Are Remembered.
There were no guards, and this puzzled Lucian. Even a small village should have some kind of security concern. But this place looked welcoming, almost. Just candelight in open windows, and the occasional figure walked slowly down the road.
Lucian's eyes widened when he realized:
There were far more living people here.
Everyone's clothes were clean, and the dead smelled of herbs instead of decay. The only difference was in their eyes: the dead's were glass-pale.
Lucian approached the first of them, after one villager closed her door.
"Are you... one of the dead?"
The woman smiled faintly.
"I am a question."
"What's your name?"
She looked down at her hands.
"I was hoping you could tell me."
Lucian stepped back.
Alice grabbed his sleeve.
"There's no malice. But there's hunger."
He nodded. "They're echo spirits. Not violent. Just... searching."
But what truly unsettled him was that they were present. They wanted to be seen.
"Why do they want this?" he muttered.
"You're surprised they want to be remembered," Alice said softly.
Lucian glanced at her.
"I never did."
She tilted her head.
"You rang the Bell, Lucian. You woke a town. Broke a cycle. Resurrected a name. The world sees you now, whether you like it or not."
He looked away.
"I didn't do it for attention."
"You did it because you couldn't ignore silence anymore," Alice said. "But that doesn't mean you're invisible."
+
He gathered the undead villagers in the chapel.
There were ten of them.
Each sat calmly in pews, like they had done this before. Like they were waiting for a sermon. But no priest came.
Lucian stepped into the altar space. Lit no candle. Spoke no blessing.
Just asked:
"Do you remember what it felt like to be seen?"
One man—face carved with cracks like dry riverbeds—spoke first.
"My mother used to hum while stirring soup."
A woman beside him added,
"I wore shoes that hurt because I wanted someone to notice them."
Another said,
"I didn't cry when my dog died. I buried her in salt and honey and told her to wait."
Lucian wrote each line into the Grimoire.
Then spoke:
"Then those are your names now."
He was about to prepare the ritual when he saw something strange—someone standing in the back, near the broken statue of a saint. Cloaked in navy and black, their silhouette struck something ancient in his memory.
His throat closed.
The Spymaster?
Here?
He stepped down from the altar, cane raised, defensive rites at the tip of his tongue.
But when the figure looked up, it wasn't him.
It was a woman, face pale and lined, wearing the eyes of someone who had seen too many futures and been discarded from all of them.
She spoke before he could.
"I thought he was my way out."
Lucian paused. "Who?"
"The man with the gloves. He told me I was wasting my story."
Lucian stepped closer. "What did you give him?"
The woman didn't flinch.
"My name. My grief. My ability to die normally."
Lucian's breath stilled.
"And in return?"
"Everything. For a while. I could see echoes. Walk between thresholds. Call rites with no incantation. I could even rewrite."
"But?"
"The price, Mortician. It was too much."
Lucian's voice lowered.
"What was it?"
The woman smiled—not bitter, not mocking. Just tired.
"He doesn't charge at the start. He waits until you believe him."
Lucian waited.
But she said nothing else.
She turned and walked out, disappearing between pews like fog through stone.
Alice appeared at his side.
"Do you think she was still alive?"
Lucian didn't answer.
He didn't know.
+
He constructed the First Rite of Feelings-Formed Identity on the chapel floor.
The glyphs weren't sharp.
They curved like the paths of tears, smiles, and touch.
At the center, he placed a single petal from the Garden of Unfinished Names.
He didn't say goodbye.
He said:
"I know you."
The air trembled. Light passed through the windows not as sunlight, but as warmth.
The ten spirits exhaled, like lungs remembered after centuries of stillness.
They became people.
Not alive.
Not dead.
Just known.
+
That night, Alice sat beside him on the inn's steps.
"You're getting faster at this."
"Not faster," Lucian said. "Just... quieter. And I don't feel as tired."
She nodded.
"It's easier to hear people when you're not trying to fix them."
They sat in silence until the Grimoire opened once more.
But this time, the message was not about them.
[CODEX ALERT]
Bell fluctuation detected.
Queen Marguerite has activated a rite of recall.
Target: Lucian Bowcott.
Result: Failed.
Reason: Threadline resistance.
Error status: Intervention blocked by external thread.
Lucian read it twice.
Then again.
"She tried to summon me."
"Why couldn't she?" Alice asked.
The Grimoire shimmered.
Because you are no longer bound to her.
Lucian smiled.
"I didn't think I needed to hear that. But I did."
In the village's chapel, one of the newly-formed souls stirred in the night.
He opened his hands. Touched his chest.
"I feel... sadness."
His neighbor—her hair gray from emotion, not age—answered:
"Then we are both alive."