Kitai opened her eyes for what felt like the millionth time in the past few hours. She braced herself for more darkness.

  Instead, she was greeted by a floral canopy and the sensation of soft sheets beneath her.

  Warmth. Light. A room.

  Soft golden lanternlight flickered from sconces along a high, vaulted ceiling. The air smelled of lavender and aged parchment, an oddly soothing mix that wrapped around her like a blanket.

  She was lying in a massive bed, its wooden frame carved with intricate, swirling patterns. Heavy drapes hung around it in silken folds, pooling on the floor like spilled ink. Kitai pushed herself upright, the sheets rustling, and immediately found her bag nestled beside her as if it had never left her side.

  Her fingers traced its worn edges, grounding herself. Everything still felt too surreal to trust. When she checked inside, her breath caught.

  Something new was there.

  A scroll.

  She pulled it out carefully. The parchment felt old but untouched, its edges glimmering faintly in the lanternlight. The surface seemed to hum under her fingertips as she slowly unrolled it.

  “How did you get in there?” she muttered. “Who even uses scrolls in this day and age?”

  “It’s a Fable Soul,” a voice shrieked from under the bed.

  A pale hand shot out and clamped around her ankle.

  Kitai’s body moved before her brain could catch up. Years of dodging bullies in the orphanage kicked in, and in the blink of an eye she was halfway across the room, back pressed against a towering wooden shelf, scroll clutched to her chest.

  Her heart pounded. She stared as something crawled out from beneath the bed.

  A soft click sounded, and the lanterns brightened, washing the room in a clear, diffused glow.

  “Stop being a menace, Mycroft. She just got here,” someone giggled from across the room.

  Kitai blinked as her surroundings came into focus.

  The ceiling wasn’t just high; it was breathtaking. A stained-glass dome arched overhead, painted in swirling blues, greens, and golds. Moonlight poured through it like liquid silver. Smaller circular windows ringed the dome’s edges, their glass iridescent. Tiny crystal birds flitted in and out of them, each wingbeat scattering prismatic light across the shelves below.

  Kitai nearly dropped the scroll.

  “Watch out!” someone shouted.

  Her bag smacked her square in the face.

  “Are you kidding me?” she groaned, snatching it off the floor. “What is wrong with you people? Who just throws things at strangers?”

  She turned toward the center of the room.

  Two figures had appeared.

  The first was a boy—though at first glance, his posture and bone structure made him look older. He sat cross-legged on the bed, grinning wildly, waving both arms as if trying to flag down an airplane. His features were sharp and bony, long wavy hair tied up in a messy bob. His ears were pointed and slightly off-kilter, poking out at odd angles through his hair.

  Kitai narrowed her eyes and pretended not to see him.

  The second figure held her attention.

  They moved with an easy, practiced grace, like someone who always knew exactly where their body ended and the world began. Their form had a faint translucency to it, yet it remained undeniably solid. Their features shifted subtly as they walked—skin tone, bone structure, even gender presentation flickering through variations so smoothly it felt natural instead of uncanny. They radiated a quiet confidence, a kind of settledness that told Kitai they were entirely at peace with what they were.

  “Sorry about that,” they said, voice warm and smooth. “Mycroft can be an ass sometimes.”

  They stopped a foot away from her, offering an apologetic half-smile.

  “My name is Gemini,” they continued. “And the creep being overly friendly over there is Mycroft. He means no harm. He’s just… impish.”

  They extended a hand for a handshake.

  Kitai stared at it, unmoving.

  After a beat, Gemini chuckled softly and withdrew their hand, tucking it into a pocket that Kitai was fairly certain hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  “Sorry,” Mycroft said cheerfully, bouncing off the bed in a leap that was far too high for physics to approve of. For a second, Kitai was sure he’d hit the stained glass. Instead, he landed on the back of one of the crystal birds, using it as a springboard to launch himself downward again.

  Kitai’s instincts screamed move.

  Before she could, Gemini’s fingers closed gently around her wrist.

  “Don’t,” they said calmly. “You’ll mess up his calculations.”

  Kitai stared at them, then at Mycroft falling toward her.

  “You people are insane,” she muttered, yanking her wrist free anyway.

  The next few seconds were chaos.

  She stepped out of Mycroft’s trajectory. Their eyes met mid-air. Panic flashed bright green.

  In an instant, he vanished.

  He reappeared wedged sideways into a bookshelf across the room, his legs sticking out at an unfortunate angle.

  “I’m fine!” he called weakly. “It just hurts… everywhere…”

  The bookshelf gave a weary groan and toppled over on top of him.

  Gemini sighed, pinching the bridge of their nose. “This is why I told you not to move. He was trying to show off and startle you at the same time.”

  Kitai exhaled slowly, rubbing at her temple. “He teleported.”

  “He’s an imp,” Gemini said. “They all can. It’s just exhausting for them, so they rarely bother.”

  “Oh,” Kitai said, because there was no rational follow-up to they all can.

  For the next few minutes, the three of them silently restacked books. Mycroft, now covered in dust and nursing his pride, shuffled them into uneven piles while humming off-key. Gemini moved with practiced efficiency. Every so often, Kitai caught them sneaking a look at her.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  She let it slide. Until she didn’t.

  “If you have something to say, just say it,” Kitai muttered finally, sliding a heavy tome back into place. “I hate being stared at.”

  Gemini froze. Their features flickered—masculine, then neutral, then back to something in between. “Sorry,” they murmured. “It’s just… I’ve been briefed about you. And in a way…” Their eyes softened. “I knew you.”

  Kitai’s fingers paused on the spine of a book.

  “You… knew me?” she asked quietly.

  Gemini hesitated, then nodded. Something raw flickered across their face—gone almost as soon as it appeared.

  Before Kitai could ask anything else, a gust of wind slammed into the room.

  The doors burst open. Crystal birds scattered like shards of light, the air filled with their chiming cries. The wind wrapped around Kitai and yanked her off her feet.

  “Gemini!” she shouted, reaching for them as the gale dragged her backward.

  Gemini only smiled, a single tear tracing down their cheek. “It’s alright,” they called over the roar. “He just wants to talk to you.”

  “Who?!”

  “The Crypt-Keeper of Stories,” they answered. “And the man who brought you here.”

  The wind didn’t let her argue.

  It flung her through a maze of hallways, past a kitchen where a huge chef in a stained apron was singing as he chopped fruit. He spotted her flying by, frowned, and flicked a strawberry at her head for reasons known only to himself. It bounced off her forehead as she hurtled down a stairwell.

  She careened through a reading room filled with floating rings, through a corridor lined with portrait frames whose occupants watched her with mild curiosity, and finally into a cool, dim wine cellar.

  The wind slowed.

  At the far end of the cellar stood a small wooden door, unremarkable except for the faint glyphs etched along its frame. The wind gathered itself, coiling into a more solid shape beside her.

  Saon materialized out of it, wings tucked, horn glinting faintly.

  “Saon,” Kitai gasped.

  He just smiled and rapped his knuckles against the door.

  “Come in,” a voice called from inside.

  Kitai’s skin crawled.

  She knew that voice.

  The wind shoved the door open and nudged her through.

  The room beyond was smaller than she expected, half lounge, half study. Shelves crammed with books and glass bottles curved along the walls. A round mosaic on the floor glowed faintly under the firelight. The air smelled like lavender incense, old paper, and something metallic—like wet iron.

  A man lounged in an armchair by the fireplace, one leg slung over the other. He wore an atrocious Hawaiian shirt splattered with orange and green, paired with equally offensive orange Crocs. A teacup floated lazily beside him, orbiting his hand.

  Kitai stopped dead.

  He smiled. “Please, take a seat. We have a lot to talk about.”

  Kitai’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

  He grinned, delighted by the question. “I am the Hermit of the Forgotten. Crypt-Keeper of Stories. Unexalted King.” He spread his arms, as if presenting himself to an invisible audience.

  Then his smile turned sharper.

  “But you,” he said, “can call me Brother.”

  A cup of tea drifted toward Kitai, steam curling in delicate spirals. Dust motes swam in the beam of afternoon light spilling through a narrow stained-glass window. The room was all stone and shadow, shelves and oddities, stitched together by the quiet crackle of the fire.

  The scent of peppermint and honey reached her first.

  “Your favorite,” the man across from her said. Her brother, apparently. He took a sip from his own cup with the unhurried ease of someone who had all the time in the world.

  Kitai didn’t touch hers.

  “I don’t have a brother,” she said flatly.

  The cup faltered mid-air, then wobbled back toward him. He caught it, made a lazy right-angled motion with his free hand. A faint glyph appeared above the tea and sank into it. The faintest white glow settled over the surface.

  “That’s a stasis glyph,” he said, not bothering to look at her. “Keeps it warm. Just in case you change your mind… after we talk.”

  Kitai folded her arms, the bag strap digging into her shoulder. “What makes you think I’m going to drink anything handed to me by a stranger in Crocs?”

  “Stranger?” He slapped a hand over his heart, wounded. “Cruel. Truly cruel. I am your brother, even if your memories are being stubborn about it.” His mouth quirked. “Read the letter. After that, I promise, everything will make more sense. Not enough sense, obviously. But more.”

  Kitai slid the old envelope from her bag. She’d meant to open it after talking to the Deshawns. That felt like a lifetime ago.

  The paper was warm to the touch, like it had been sitting in sunlight. The seal bore a symbol that shimmered when she focused on it, each line rearranging itself so her mind could never quite pin it down. Her pulse stumbled; the seal seemed to sync with it.

  “I was supposed to read this after I talked to the Deshawns,” she said. “Do you know what happened to them?”

  “Yes,” he said. The teasing slipped out of his voice. “And in time, you will too. But not before you read that. You need to know what you are walking into before you start demanding answers.”

  He tipped another glyph into his tea. Steam rose in slow, deliberate spirals.

  Kitai’s fingers trembled as she broke the seal. The sound was too loud in the small room.

  “I’ll give you privacy,” the Hermit said, standing. He didn’t walk so much as drift toward the curved door, the light shifting lazily around him. “Clap twice when you’re done. I’ll come back.”

  The door closed with a soft thud. A heartbeat later, she heard the small, definite snick of a lock.

  Kitai stared at the letter.

  The room felt heavier now. The mosaic under her feet seemed to hum. The shelves leaned in, a silent audience.

  Slowly, she unfolded the parchment.