Bex Penbrook's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Bex studied the map again that night, cross-referencing the collector's marks with what the woman had told her. Three more caches. One was marked with double circles—urgent, maybe, or dangerous. Another sat near a town she recognized, close enough to reach in two days if she pushed hard. The mill looked abandoned from the road, its wheel broken and still. Bex circled it twice before going inside. The main floor was empty except for scattered tools and grain dust thick enough to track footprints. She found the wardrobe in the back corner, half-hidden behind a rotted beam. It was too ornate for a mill—carved wood with strange symbols that looked older than anything else in the building. When she opened the doors, shelves lined with ceramic pots and rusted implements faced her, but the back panel sat wrong, catching light at an odd angle. She pressed it and felt it give. The passage behind the wardrobe dropped straight down into darkness. Bex lit a candle stub and descended stone steps that ended at a heavy door. The lock in its center was circular, engraved with suns and stars around two empty keyholes. She tried her lockpicks, but the mechanism didn't budge—it wanted something specific. She searched the workshop floor above for an hour before spotting the grain scoop hanging on a peg near the wardrobe. Its handle was too fancy, wrapped in decorative metalwork. She twisted the top and a key slid free, its teeth shaped like crescent moons. The key fit the left hole perfectly. The right hole stayed empty. Bex tried every tool in the mill, every scrap of metal, but nothing matched. She sat in front of the lock until her candle burned low, staring at the half-turned mechanism. Someone else had the second key. The collector had split this cache too—not just the books, but access itself. Bex couldn't open it alone. She'd have to find whoever held the other half, which meant trusting another stranger or losing this workshop entirely. She climbed back up and closed the wardrobe, the locked door still sealed below. The choice was already made—she'd have to share again, or walk away with nothing.