Alice Wanderlynn had asked six people about the music box, and six people had lied. She stood on the cobblestone path outside the teal cottage with her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. The old woman inside had been the last name on her list. If the guardian of Thornwick kept sleeping, the raiders at the northern border would reach the town by the next full moon. The music box was the only thing that could wake him. Alice had come home three days ago to help. She had not expected the whole town to go quiet at the question. She knocked. The old woman opened the door and looked at the sword before she looked at Alice's face. That was answer enough. Alice smiled anyway, because friendly questions worked better than sharp ones. She asked about the music box. The old woman said she had never seen it. Alice watched her hands. They stayed folded. Alice thanked her and walked back down the path. Six liars meant someone was paying them, or someone had scared them. Alice did not have time to break either. She turned toward the tavern at the end of the lane, where travelers came through who owed the town nothing. Inside, the room smelled of smoke and wet wool. Four cracked leather stools sat empty at the bar. Alice took the end one and ordered nothing. She listened for twenty minutes. A trader complained about the road. A boy dropped a plate. Then a hooded man at the far end of the bar spoke quietly to the keeper about a cluster of purple crystals he had seen for sale two towns over, on a shelf beside a small painted box that played a tune when you opened it. Alice slid off the stool. She did not confront him. She followed him out. He walked a straight path to a shuttered shop, unlocked the back door, and stepped inside. Through the window, Alice saw a dark bookshelf crowded with old books and figurines. On the middle shelf sat a red lacquered box. Beside it, a chunk of amethyst threw purple light across the spines. She waited until he left. Then she picked the lock with the tip of her knife. The box was there. She lifted the lid. The inside was empty. No mechanism. No key slot. A hollow. A folded paper sat where the workings should have been. Alice opened it. A single line, in a hand she did not know: The workings were taken north. Ask at the tower. Alice knew one tower north of Thornwick. Everyone did. It stood in a clearing, covered in runes, and no one who went there came back the same. She folded the paper into her sleeve and shut the empty box. She had her trail. It led somewhere worse.

Alice walked north out of Thornwick before dawn, the folded note in her sleeve and her hand loose on her sword. By midmorning the trees thinned and the clearing opened. The tower stood at its center, black stone streaked with moss, cracked from base to crown. Runes glowed on its face in two colors, pink and pale blue. She pulled the note out and held it up beside the wall. The marks on the paper matched the marks on the stone. Same slants. Same broken crosses. She could see they were the same alphabet. She could not read a single one. She turned the paper. She turned it again. Nothing gave. At the base of the tower sat a low fountain wrapped in moss and vine. Water still ran from its upper bowl. Geodes were set into the stone sides, purple and orange and green, and each geode had a rune cut above it. Alice crouched. She whispered one of the shapes from her note. The water in the bowl went still. Nothing else happened. She tried another. The fountain hummed under her palm, and a thin voice moved through the spray, too soft to catch. "Don't touch it again." Alice stood and drew her sword in one motion. A man stepped out from behind the tower. Dark hair under a green hood. A bow across his back. He held both hands where she could see them. "You're the one asking questions in town," he said. "I've been asking longer." "Name." "Killian." He nodded at the note in her other hand. "That's a lure. The runes on the paper aren't instructions. They're a call sign. Read them out loud at the door and something inside answers. Not something you want to meet." Alice kept the sword between them. "How do you know." "My family died seven years ago. The mark on that tower was carved at the site." He said it flat, the way someone reads a receipt. "I've watched three people come here with notes like yours. None walked out." She studied his face. He did not blink. His hands stayed open. "I need what's inside," she said. "A music box's workings. Thornwick needs them." "Then we don't use the note." He stepped to the fountain and pointed at a rune above a green geode, then a rune on the tower door. Same shape. "They repeat. The fountain teaches the alphabet. Match the door runes to these, and you'll know which stones on the door are safe to press. The note skips that step on purpose." Alice lowered the sword an inch. She looked at the paper in her hand, then tore it in half and let both pieces fall in the grass. "Show me," she said. Killian crouched at the fountain. Alice crouched beside him. The trap was still ahead of her, but the door was no longer a wall she could not read.

Alice knelt beside Killian at the fountain. The moss on the rim was cold under her knee. Water slid down the stone bowl and pooled around the geodes, each one lit from inside like a lamp under glass. Above every geode, a rune. On the tower behind them, dozens more. She could match one shape at a time, walk to the door, and check. Then walk back. Then forget which stone she had just cleared. "I need to write these down," she said. Killian patted his coat. "No paper. No charcoal." "Then we bring some." "Town's half a day. And the fountain doesn't stay quiet forever. Touch a rune wrong and the water hums. Hum long enough and the door hears." Alice looked at the ground. Dirt, moss, roots. She tried scratching a rune into the dirt with her thumb. The line filled in as soon as she lifted her hand. She tried a stick. The mark held for a breath and crumbled. She drew her sword. She scraped the flat of the blade along a bare patch of stone at the fountain's base. A pale line stayed. She scraped again, harder, and cut a rune into the stone. It held. "Slow," Killian said. "Faster than forgetting." She worked around the fountain's rim, matching each rune above a geode to a rune on the tower door. Purple geode, three slants. Orange geode, a broken cross. Green, two hooks. She cut each shape into the fountain's base, then a small mark beside it to note the geode color. Her wrist ached. The sword's edge dulled. A fox came out of the brush and sat at the tree line. Red coat, small black mark on its shoulder. It watched her work and did not move. Killian glanced at it once and kept still. "Is that a problem," Alice said. "Not yet." She kept cutting. By the time she reached the last geode, a cluster of purple crystals bright as a lamp, she had eighteen runes carved into the stone in a neat row. She stood and walked to the tower door. She read the runes there against her row. She could name every one. "I can read it," she said. Killian came to stand beside her. He traced the door with his eyes. "Then which stones do we press." Alice matched shapes one by one, ticking them on her fingers. Six stones. She named them by row and column. Killian nodded at each. He agreed on five. On the sixth, he stopped. "That one's wrong," he said. "Look again." She looked. He was right. She had read a hook as a slant. She swallowed. She had her key now. She also had proof she could still misread it. The fox stood, turned, and slipped back into the trees.

Alice sat back on her heels beside the fountain. The row of runes she had cut into the base looked clean and correct. It was not. Killian had already caught one hook she had read as a slant. If she had walked to the door alone and pressed that stone, the water would have hummed, and whatever the note was meant to summon would have come. "I need to check every one again," she said. "Before we touch the door." Killian crouched across from her. His bow stayed on his back. "Then check them." She worked slow. She laid the sword flat on the fountain's rim as a straightedge and matched each carved rune to the one above its geode. Purple, three slants. Orange, broken cross. Green, two hooks, not one hook and a slant. She said each shape out loud, quiet, so Killian could stop her. He stopped her twice. The first time, a rune she had drawn with a closed loop. On the fountain, the loop was open at the top. She scraped the carving flat with the sword's edge and cut it again. The second time, a mark she had given four strokes. The fountain's rune had five. She fixed it. Water slid down the tiered bowl. Moss dripped. The geodes kept their steady light — teal at the crown, amethyst and orange around the basin. Nothing hummed. When she finished, she made Killian read the row back to her while she pointed. He named every one without pause. "Now the door," she said. They walked to the black tower. The stone leaned over them, cracked and mossy, its carved runes glowing pink and blue in the shade. Alice matched her corrected row against the door. Six stones. She named them again. Row and column. Killian nodded at each. He did not stop her. "Press them," he said. "In what order." She had not thought of order. Her stomach dropped. "The note read left to right." "The note was a lure." She looked at the fountain again. The geodes sat in a ring. There was no order there. She looked at the door. The six stones sat scattered across its face. No line. No pattern she could see. A red shape moved at the tree line. The fox again. Same black arrowhead on its shoulder. It sat and watched. Alice lowered her hand from the door. "I can read the stones," she said. "I don't know which to press first." Killian did not answer right away. He watched the fox. The fox watched them. "Then we don't press yet," he said. "We find the order." Alice stepped back from the door. Her mapping was right. Her key fit. But the lock had a second wheel she had not seen, and something in the trees was still counting how long it took her to notice.