I didn’t open the door; the wood held like a sealed shell, and the room kept its breath like still water under moonlight.

I waited, patient as winter moss, for the knocking to furl its flags and fade like a spent rain.

Setting aside the swollen ache in my skull and the fact I’d come home, I weighed it like a clerk counting grains in a jar.

It’s a weekday; I should be at school, chalk dust like pale mist, unable to hear the home phone or Selina’s knuckles tapping like sparrows.

Stratford knew that like wind knows how reeds bend.

Did she prepare for no one answering, or gamble on me drifting home at this hour like a leaf on a current?

If it’s the first, this world has no portable devices; lightning doesn’t carry messages, only feet do, so sending Selina was rash as throwing a net into stone.

If it’s the second, the coincidence bites like a cold coin; no lively mind can guess I’d take leave and come home on a workday.

“When they wanted to observe,” I replayed the call, “it vanished,” like fog slipping off the river.

Something that shields me folded like an umbrella in rain right when Stratford probed, letting Dark Realm Erosion prod my brain like thorns—if so, that thing is laughably dumb.

She couldn’t decide I’d rush home with a split skull from just that, like predicting lightning will strike the single yew.

She must have braced for dead air like a fisherman expecting an empty line.

She found my phone number in my file like a key in a cabinet, she knew my street from dropping me off; but the apartment number—what breadcrumb led her here?

Milk?

I only wrote my address on the milk subscription, a thin trail like chalk on slate.

The Dark Realm Research Institute is an imperial Investigative body, kin to the police; they open drawers of citizen data like daylight sliding through shutters.

Thinking that, in an age where messages ride on legs not light, I found myself a rabbit with no burrow on a bare field.

Iron settled on my tongue; I drew a long breath like dust leaving a beam of sun.

The knocking ceased, a rain stopping mid-leaf.

I opened the door, and what I saw was both cloud-clearing and thunder-prickling.

Selina crouched with her back to me, quiet as a nesting dove; her spine curved like a crescent, her loose coat slipped like a fallen leaf, a pale inch of shoulder showing.

“Who are you sulking at with that pose? If someone sees this, they’ll think I tossed you out like broom straw.”

“Thought you weren’t home,” she said, voice light as mist in a grove.

“Didn’t hear you,” I said, picking at the dry peel on my lip like a brittle petal. “If I weren’t home, would you wait?”

“Mm.”

Stratford, you saw how Selina and I moved in Shattered City, and you decided I’d look after her, stone-sure?

Being read like a ledger is sand in my teeth.

I kept her on the threshold like a dam holding a stream and asked, “Who sent you?”

“The Deputy Director.”

“Nothing else?” My words dropped like leaves.

“You’re working with us now, right? An Investigator should assist your work,” she said, gears meshing like cogs in a clock.

“That’s how they put it… how annoying,” I said, smoke curling under the rafters.

“The Deputy Director wanted someone more experienced; I pecked away for two or three days till she agreed,” she chirped, a sparrow winning crumbs.

“Just for show,” I said, a paper lantern kind of help.

Selina tilted her head, puzzled like a curious kingfisher.

I said nothing, then turned and let her in, the stream opening to a pond.

Another Investigator, I could drive off with harsh words and feel no guilt; but Selina isn’t just a passerby—our shared adventure in the Dark Realm is campfire and crossing, not strangers’ shadows.

Besides, I exposed a child’s softness, peach fuzz under armor.

“More experienced Investigator” was bait on a hook, meant for Selina’s ear, to make her volunteer like a moth to a lamp.

Even if I softened toward Stratford in the car, she’s still a thorn in my sandal.

“Professor, where do I sleep?” she asked, eyes searching like a bird seeking a nest.

I eyed Selina; no luggage, no bundle—just a hello wrapped in air. “Why decide to stay at my place all of a sudden?” I asked, wind stirring paper.

“Not sudden. I planned this from the start,” she said, a seed sown long ago.

“On the couch,” I said, a raft on a small river.

“No guest room?”

“No kitchen, let alone a guest room.” I spread my arms so she could take in the matchbox of a place. “It’s small; where could space bloom?”

“Alright, where do you sleep?”

“Up the stairs—bed, wardrobe, mirror and such,” I said, a swallow’s loft stacked under the roof.

“So small, and still split into two levels,” she marveled, shelves stacked to the rafters.

“Because it’s small, stuffing every pocket feels cozy,” I said, burrow snug in the roots, then flopped onto the couch and found my coat. “Ah, forgot to wash it.”

“That’s what you wore in Shattered City; it’s been a week, right?” she asked, dust like soft frost.

“Seems so,” I said, fog-light.

Selina shook her head, reeds swaying with scold. “This won’t do, Professor. You’re too messy.”

“Quit nagging.” I felt through the coat pocket like a hand in grain, fished out the pocket watch and my notes. “Forgot to give these to the Institute, but it’s all fluff, no harm done.”

“I thought you’d cherish it,” she said, like guarding a lamp in rain.

“What, the watch? Yes, it’s a gift from the Priest, but to me it’s a time tool, a little sun in a lid.”

“But when you repaired it, you looked so pained,” she said, willow bent over water.

Silence sat with me a moment; I set the watch aside like a branch laid down. “A companion of ten years breaks; you grieve, sure, but you don’t wither over it.”

“Mm…”

“Don’t tell me you’re psychoanalyzing me again,” I said, a scalpel trying to carve fog.

“I just feel you’re different from the you in the Dark Realm,” she said, mirror-water versus wildfire.

“In extremes, people show their thin places,” I said, ice cracking under spring sun.

She thought a moment, then said, candle steady beside a storm, “You revealed hidden traits in the Dark Realm. I didn’t—I became the one who comforts.”

“Right. A collapse in one heart tosses ripples into another. So you soothe, you disperse the despair and worry coiling like smoke around a body. That’s part of you too.”

“What’s my temperament?”

“Don’t know,” I shook my head, not a gardener of minds. “I’m not a psychology Professor.”

Selina suddenly rummaged her pockets, fingers gliding like fish through reeds, and pulled out a fine pocket watch.

“This is your payment,” she said, a little moon in her palm.

“Payment?” My voice echoed like a cave.

“I said I’d give you money. On the way, I thought money’s too dull. Your watch broke, so I bought one.”

I took it; about three inches across, good thickness, heavy as a river-worn stone in my hand.

The cover held vines, thickets, and butterflies, engraved so finely every line felt alive like sap.

Inside, the dial was white, golden Arabic numerals like seeds, the second hand leaping like a sparrow, trembling at each tick.

“This costs more than the total you counted,” I said, coins clinking like rain.

“In your eyes, yes. It’s actually cheap,” she said, tin dressed as gold.

I snapped the lid shut; the sound was a small clink, then I murmured, “You show up out of the blue and bring me something this precious.”

“Not precious,” she said, just a pebble tossed in a brook.

“Thirty silver coins or so—mid-grade pocket watch,” I said, middle of the river.

“You knew…” Her eyes lit like lamplight in dusk.

“After mine broke, I thought of replacing it—what do you want?” I asked, a favor stretching like a kite string.

She shook her head quickly, river flowing one way. “In my hometown, when you gift someone who helped you, you can’t ask for a return.”

“But even so, I owe you two favors; you saved me twice in the Dark Realm,” I said, two knots on a rope.

“Add the watch, that’s three. Gifts and favors differ; you must repay,” she said, three stones on a path.

I listened, feeling tricked like a fox stole my bait. “I just wanted to soften the no-return mood, and you’re too clever, steering me to repay in other ways…”

“Looking forward to it, Professor,” she said, eyes bright as stars.

“Can’t think of anything right now,” I said, blank as fresh snow.

A sudden telephone ring cut the thread like a knife; I put the receiver to my ear, heard a familiar “hello, hello,” and hung up at once.

“Who?”

“Mm… a milk peddler,” I said, a cart’s bell in the alley.

On the other end, Eveline watched the phone’s steady beep like a cricket, turned the rotary; the dial spun back with a clear bell-clink.

After a long moment, a click came from the other side, like a twig snapping.

Eveline tested the line, casting a stone into a well. “Hello, hello?”

“Calling now—did Melvina agree?” The voice rose like a flag.

“Wanted to confirm,” Eveline said, a sly smile like a cat with cream, “but she hung up on me.”

“Call again after she agrees,” the reply came, a gate promised open.

“If Selina doesn’t return to the Dark Realm Research Institute tonight, start the Dark Realm Magic research plan,” Eveline said, a torch lit at dusk.

“I’m not interested in your personnel names,” the voice said, names dull as stones.

“This is a signal—proof Melvina agreed,” she said, smoke rising straight.

Then Eveline hung up, decisively, like a blade dropping clean.