Fifteen minutes earlier…

  Andrew tossed beneath the blanket, fists clenched in the warm fabric. Sleep would not come. The box kept surfacing in his thoughts. He rubbed his forehead, trying to quiet them. It did not help.

  Somewhere a floorboard clicked. Then again. Andrew froze. The echo bounced off the walls and rolled along the corridor, fading near the doors to his parents’ room… and Veronica’s.

  She was not asleep either. The room felt locked in stillness, the ceiling her only fixed point.

  What a circus, Veronica thought.

  Her heart beat so loudly she almost missed it.

  It’s yours… find… open… the voice from the box slid into her mind.

  Veronica wanted to scream, but her body no longer obeyed. She rose slowly and stepped into the corridor.

  Hearing the creak of the floorboards, Andrew held his breath. The sound rolled down the corridor and stopped somewhere around the corner. He slipped from bed and eased his door open, peering out.

  Veronica emerged from her room. Her shoulders sagged, her eyes fixed on a single point. She moved with perfect, silent precision that made it unsettling.

  “Veronica…?” he breathed, almost soundless. “Where are you going?”

  She did not answer.

  Andrew glanced at his parents’ door. Closed. All quiet. Careful not to give himself away, he followed his cousin.

  The staircase met them with darkness. Only faint flickers from the dying fire pulsed on the walls. The house felt like a crouched creature, alive but silent. Andrew hid in the corner of the hall, watching. His palms grew damp.

  Veronica descended without touching the banister. There was no hurry in her step, no worry. She reached the cabinet and stopped before the box.

  What are you doing?

  He wanted to call out, but the same whisper that guided Veronica sang in his own temples: don’t interfere. His chest tightened so sharply he could barely breathe. An unseen force pinned him in place.

  Veronica’s hand jerked, as if pushed from within. The box fell. A sharp crack split the silence. From the fracture burst a piercing ring.

  Veronica recoiled. The fog in her head began to clear. She stood in the middle of the hall, unsure how she had got there.

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  “Where am I…?” she whispered, looking around.

  Andrew opened his mouth to answer, but had no time. The latch on the lid snapped off. From the depths came a cold glint of the medallion, and thin cracks spidered across the wood. Blinding light flared, cutting through the dark.

  Andrew squeezed his eyes shut.

  “You see that too?”

  “No… I mean… yes…” Veronica muttered.

  The light gathered into spirals. One shot toward Andrew’s palm. He backed away, but too late. A burning line traced his skin. He drew air through his teeth, fighting the pain.

  Veronica clutched her hand. The same mark flared on hers. Their signs glowed, matching exactly. Their fingers reached toward each other without thought. When they touched, the lines merged.

  Above the box flared the outline of wings, crystalline and weightless, woven from light and dust. They shimmered in the glass, then vanished, scattering into sparks. The air filled again with familiar sounds: the crackle of coals in the grate, the tick of the clock on the wall. Andrew felt faint waves of tension roll through his body. In his palm, where the mark burned, a tingling warmth remained. His knees buckled. He dropped, hands braced on the floor.

  “What was that…?”

  Veronica said nothing. She stood, pressing her palm to her chest, unable to look away from the medallion. It lay among splinters and cracks, broken into sharp fragments. The medallion had not been smashed. It had split open on its own, releasing what it had held for centuries.

  The marks on their hands faded, but the soft heat lingered within.

  “So all this…” Veronica whispered at last, “is real?”

  Andrew did not answer. He looked at Veronica and saw not the mocking cousin, but a frightened child, just like him.

  That was more terrifying than any answer.

  At that moment footsteps sounded behind the door.

  “Quick!” Veronica commanded. “We have to clean this up!”

  She dropped to the fragments and began gathering them.

  The door flew open. Victor and Logan burst in.

  “What’s going on here?!” Victor stepped into the hall and froze. His gaze caught on the box, and something in his face went out.

  It lay open, edges splintered. Among the pieces gleamed sharp, curved fragments of the medallion, now without light.

  “We told you tomorrow,” he said, voice tight.

  “We didn’t mean to—” Andrew began.

  “—break anything,” Veronica finished.

  Logan bent and lifted one shard. Realisation came at once.

  “What have you done…?”

  The children shrank back, as if from a blow they could not prevent.

  “Clean it up,” Victor said. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “Dad, listen…” Veronica tried.

  “Clean it,” Victor cut her off and headed for the door.

  Logan set the shard on the table and followed.

  Confused and crushed, the children silently gathered the remains of what could no longer be saved.

  “It’s gone,” Veronica whispered.

  Andrew clenched his fist. The heat beneath it had not faded. The light had vanished, but they had taken it with them without even touching it.

  When the last fragment was in place, Veronica lowered the lid. A quiet click sounded, and a faint golden shimmer ran across the cracked surface. They exchanged a glance. Setting the box by the fire, they both stepped back carefully.

  Later, lying in the dark, Andrew pressed his hand to his chest. Where a point had pulsed for the last days, it was quiet now. The cold had gone. Only the heat of the mark remained. Andrew closed his eyes.

  Beyond the wall Veronica sat on her bed in the same silence, arms wrapped around herself.

  Reality returned slowly, reluctantly. The body still remembered the heat, but the mind already searched for a way to call it a dream.

  She brought her palm closer. From the burn rose a faint smell of heated iron.

  Dreams do not smell like that.