Marcus Hartwell had eleven coins left, and a wife and two children waiting three towns away for the day he could send for them. He counted the coins twice on the counter of the corner store, hoping the number might change. It did not. The room above this shop rented by the week, and he could afford four days. After that, he slept in the street. He had come to Duskwood to buy his family a home. So far he had bought himself a shrinking pile of money and a stomach that ached by noon. He was an accountant. He had told the shopkeeper as much, and the baker, and the man who mended boots. Each had shaken his head. Duskwood did not seem to want numbers. It wanted strong backs, and Marcus had thin arms and soft hands. A boy tugged his sleeve outside the store. "The old man at the big house needs a sum-counter," the boy said. "Nobody will go. You go." Marcus went. The manor stood apart, tall and pale, with graceful windows and iron rails. It did not belong near the sagging fences of the rest of the town. A servant led him inside without a word. The old man waited by a stone fireplace, hands folded, rings crowding his fingers. His white hair swept back like smoke. He did not rise. "You count," the old man said. It was not a question. "I do. Marcus Hartwell. I kept books for a trading house for nine years." "Aldrich Pembrose." The rings clicked as he waved at a table piled with ledgers. "My last clerk left. The one before him left. Taxes come due. My accounts are a swamp. Fix them." Marcus opened the top ledger. Columns crossed columns. Sums ran into sums with no order. Money came in from names he did not know and went out to names he could not read. It was the worst set of books he had ever seen, and the largest. "This is a year of work," Marcus said. "You have a month." Aldrich smiled without warmth. "I pay well. Better than anyone in this town could dream. Room here. Meals. Coin enough to bring a family and buy a house, if you finish." Marcus's heart jumped. He thought of his wife's face, his children's beds. Then he looked again at the ledgers, at the numbers that hid something he could not yet name. "Why did the others leave?" he asked. Aldrich's smile did not move. "They lacked the stomach. Do you have the stomach, Mr. Hartwell?" Marcus set his coins in his pocket. Four days of rent, or a home for his family. There was no choice, and both men knew it. "I'll start now," he said. Aldrich rang a small bell. The servant returned and set Marcus's bag by the door. He was hired. He was housed. And bent over the first crooked column, Marcus began to see the numbers hiding money that should not exist.

By the tenth day, Marcus stopped sleeping. The hidden accounts pulled at him. He worked past midnight in the manor's cold study, tracing entries no honest clerk would keep. Aldrich paid him to fix these books. But Marcus wanted to know what they were hiding first. He found the pattern near dawn. Every month, Aldrich shipped large crates abroad. The ledger called them "gifts." Each crate went to one name, written only as Mr. K. No address. No price. Just gifts, again and again, worth more than most men earned in a lifetime. Marcus flipped forward. His finger stopped. Days after each shipment, money returned. Not a little. Millions, deposited into Aldrich's account by parties he could not name. Gifts did not pay you back. Marcus read the columns three times. The numbers held. Aldrich sent crates away and received a fortune in exchange. He sat back, cold. Whatever filled those crates, Aldrich sold it. And someone abroad paid a king's ransom for it. This was the source of the wealth no one in Duskwood understood. Marcus had promised his wife a home built on this money. He needed proof of what the crates carried. He rose and went looking for the storeroom the ledger named. The hall was dark. Marcus carried a single candle. He heard footsteps ahead and pressed himself against the wall. Aldrich passed, close enough to touch, his rings catching the light. The old man did not sleep either. Marcus followed. Aldrich stopped at the end of a corridor and pressed his palm against the wood paneling. A section swung inward. It looked like ordinary wall, seamless, its edges hidden in the grain. A door no guest would ever find. Cold air breathed out from behind it, and a faint smell Marcus could not place. Aldrich stepped through. The panel closed without a sound. Marcus stood frozen. His candle shook. He had come to Duskwood with eleven coins and a plan to earn a house. Now he knew the house would be paid for by whatever waited behind that wall. He reached the panel and ran his fingers along it. He found the seam, then the spot where Aldrich had pushed. He did not press it. Not yet. His heart pounded too hard. Instead he memorized the place. He counted the panels from the corner. Fourth from the left, waist height. Then he returned to the study before Aldrich could climb back out. Marcus copied the shipment records onto a loose sheet and hid it inside his coat. The moniker Mr. K. The dates. The millions returned. He had his answer now, and it frightened him more than an empty pocket ever had. He blew out the candle and sat in the dark. The books were no longer his real task. The door was. Tomorrow he would open it.

The copied records burned inside Marcus's coat all morning. He could not keep them at the manor. Aldrich searched the study drawers each night. If the old man found the sheet, Marcus would lose more than his wages. He needed a hiding place beyond the manor walls. The town shop came to mind. He had bought bread there twice. No one would look for Aldrich's secrets in a shopkeeper's counter. Marcus walked into town and pushed open the shop door. A girl stood behind the cashier's table, stacking coins into neat towers. She was maybe sixteen, with a leather apron smudged from work and her hair tied back tight. "My father's out," she said, not looking up. "So I'm counting. If you're buying, be quick." "Emma, isn't it?" Marcus asked. He had heard the shopkeeper call her that. She glanced at him then, wary. "You're the man working up at the manor. Nobody stays there long." "I need a favor." Marcus set a coin on the table. "I have a paper. Something valuable. I can't carry it. Could you keep it somewhere safe? Just for a while." Emma studied him. She did not take the coin. "What's on it?" "Nothing that touches you or your father," Marcus said. "You have my word." She was quiet a moment. Then she crouched and slid open a low panel under the table's surface. "There's a gap here, behind the shelf. Nobody knows but me." She held out her hand. Marcus drew the folded sheet from his coat. His fingers shook as he passed it over. Emma tucked it into the gap and pressed the panel shut. It vanished into the plain wood. "Don't come asking for it often," she said. "People notice things." Marcus thanked her and left. For the first time in days, his chest felt light. The evidence was safe, far from Aldrich's reach. Now he could open the hidden door without fear of losing his proof. He returned to the manor as the sun dropped. The halls were empty. He walked to the corner and counted the panels. Fourth from the left, waist height. He pressed the spot. The wall swung inward without a sound. Cold air breathed out. The same strange smell met him. Marcus lifted his candle and stepped into the dark passage. Something moved on the floor. He froze. A shape crossed the candlelight. It was long, ridged, green as wet stone. Too many legs. Its body curved like a scorpion's, and a wet mouth of teeth clicked as it turned toward the light. No insect he had ever seen looked like this. It should not exist. Marcus stopped breathing. The thing raised its head and fixed one glassy eye on him. Slowly, it began to crawl his way. He understood now what Aldrich shipped in those crates. And one of them was loose, between Marcus and the only way out.

The creature crawled toward Marcus. Its jaws clicked. Behind it lay the only door out. Marcus pressed his back to the wall and slid sideways. His candle shook. The light caught the thing's glassy eye, and it stopped, twitching its long feelers at the flame. He understood then. It hated the fire. Marcus thrust the candle forward. The creature reared back on its rear legs and hissed. He shoved past it toward the passage, close enough to feel its ridged body brush his knee. Then he ran. The passage opened into a low stone room. Marcus stumbled inside and froze. Wooden crates stood in rows. Some had cracked open. Inside them, more creatures curled and stirred. But it was the far wall that stopped his breath. A tree grew straight out of the stone. Its branches spread wide and bare. Among the leaves hung human heads, sprouted like fruit. Their eyes were shut. Their skin was cracked like old bark. One face opened its mouth, and a green shape pushed out between its lips. A parasite. The heads were not decoration. They were where the creatures were born. These were the townspeople. The clerks who never left. Aldrich fed them to the tree, and the tree fed his crates, and the crates fed Mr. K. Marcus finally saw the whole machine. The candle guttered. Behind him the first creature returned, drawn but afraid. Marcus grabbed a broken crate slat and swung it through a spider's web of dry twigs at the tree's base. The dead wood caught. Flame climbed the trunk fast. The heads began to scream. The creatures in the crates thrashed and screeched. Marcus ran through the smoke, past the burning tree, up the passage, and threw himself through the concealed door. He crashed out into the manor hall and landed hard on the polished floor. A pair of boots stood before him. Aldrich Pembrose looked down. He wore his evening coat, hands folded, calm as a man greeting a guest. Smoke poured from the open panel behind Marcus. The screaming carried up through it. Aldrich's eyes did not leave Marcus's face. "You opened my door," Aldrich said. His voice stayed soft. "Every clerk before you had the sense to run instead." Marcus rose to his knees, coughing. He had no evidence in his coat now. He had only what he had seen, and Aldrich knew he had seen it. "Those are people," Marcus said. "They were debtors. Like you." Aldrich glanced at the smoke. "You've cost me a shipment. That price comes out of a man one way or another." He stepped closer. Behind the wall, something heavy fell and burst. Aldrich smiled, and for the first time it reached no part of him but his teeth. Marcus was free of the passage. But the man who owned it now stood between him and the front door, and Aldrich knew exactly what Marcus had learned.

Aldrich did not raise his voice. He stepped over the smoke and studied Marcus like a ledger with one line out of place. "You copied my records," he said. "Before the fire. I know they are gone from beneath that counter. But I also know the girl kept a set for you." Marcus said nothing. His mouth went dry. He had trusted Emma with those copies. Now Aldrich held that trust in his hand like a coin. "Two ways this ends," Aldrich said. He raised one finger, gold rings catching the lamplight. "I take a seed from what remains of my tree and put it inside you. Then inside the shopkeeper and his daughter. I collect my records from the bodies at my leisure." He raised a second finger. "Or you bring me those records yourself. In exchange, I give you enough money to buy your family a house in any town you name. You go, you stay silent, and you never think of this place again." Marcus thought of his wife. He thought of his children, three towns away, waiting in a rented room. Eleven coins had brought him here. This man offered him the house he had crossed the country to earn. "You have my word," Marcus said. Aldrich smiled and stepped aside from the door. On the hall table lay a revolver, dark and heavy. "Take it," he said. "The road is not safe at this hour." Marcus lifted the gun. It weighed more than he expected. He walked out of the manor into the cold. The shop sat dark under its torn awning. Marcus knocked. A lamp moved behind the glass, and Emma opened the door in her work apron, hair still tied back from the day's shelving. She smiled when she saw him, the way a girl smiles at someone she has decided to trust. "You came back," she said. "I kept them dry, just like you asked." She crossed to the cashier's table and reached into the gap beneath the top. Her small hands drew out a folded packet of papers. "Nobody found them. Not even Father." Marcus felt the revolver against his ribs. He looked at the papers in her hand. Then he looked at her face, bright and sure, sixteen years old and proud of a job well done. He took the papers. His fingers closed around them. Emma waited for him to speak. "Thank you," Marcus said. His voice cracked on it. "Go upstairs. Lock the door. Tell your father to bolt the shop tonight." Her smile faded. "Marcus, what's wrong?" "Please," he said. "Do it now." She backed toward the stairs, watching him. Marcus stepped into the street with the evidence in his coat and the gun at his side. He had what Aldrich wanted. He could walk it back to the manor and buy his family their home. Or he could keep it and run. Either choice left the girl behind him, and he had not decided which man he was.

Marcus stood in the empty street. The papers weighed nothing, but he could not make his feet move. Through the shop window he saw a lamp climb the stairs. He had told Emma to lock her door. He had not decided whether he would keep his word to Aldrich or run. The shop door opened again. Emma stepped out, still in her apron. She had not gone up. She watched him with her father's suspicion in her young face. "You're not telling me something," she said. "You come back after dark. You take the papers. Then you tell me to hide." She crossed her arms. "I'm going to fetch my father. He'll know what to do." Marcus reached for her. "Emma, wait. Please." If she raised her father, if she raised the town, Aldrich would learn of it. Then no quiet trade would save any of them. "Why should I wait?" A carriage rolled to a stop behind them. Marcus knew the horses before the door opened. Aldrich stepped down, gold rings bright under the streetlamp. He did not hurry. He smiled at Emma like a man greeting a friend. "Miss Richardson," he said. "You kept my clerk's papers so well. He speaks highly of you." Emma looked from the old man to Marcus. The truth arrived in her face all at once. She stepped back toward the door. Aldrich moved faster than his years. He caught her wrist. From his coat he drew a small glass jar. Inside curled a pale, ridged thing, like a scorpion folded into itself, its claws twitching against the glass. "No," Marcus said. His hand went to the revolver. It stayed there. His fingers would not close on it. Aldrich pressed the jar to Emma's neck and worked the lid. The creature slid out and vanished under her skin. Emma gasped, then went still. Her eyes stayed open, but something behind them dimmed. "This is what I ship to Mr. K," Aldrich said calmly. "People. Grown quiet, filled, and sent along." He released Emma's wrist. She stood swaying, silent. He pulled a briefcase from the carriage and set it in Marcus's arms. "Two and a half million. More than a house. Enough to forget this town." He leaned close. "If word of the parasites ever spreads, I will come and take care of you. You understand the phrase." Marcus held the case. He did not open it. His hands shook. Aldrich climbed back into the carriage. "Go home to your family," he said. "I am going home to mine, in New York." The door shut. The horses pulled him into the dark. Marcus stood alone with Emma. She breathed slow and even, staring at nothing, the thing already growing inside her. He had the money. He had his family's house. He had let it happen. The briefcase felt heavier than any gun.

Three weeks later, Marcus climbed the stairs to the apartment he had bought his family. Tall windows caught the city light. A fire escape zigzagged past the brick. He carried the briefcase in one hand. He had not opened it since the town. Sarah waited at the door, wiping her hands on a towel. "You're home," she said. She had crossed three towns and a whole country to be here. She pulled him inside by the collar. The kids ran from the kitchen, a boy in a striped shirt and a small girl with pigtails. They wrapped his legs. For a moment Marcus forgot everything. "Show us," the boy said. "You said you'd show us the money." Marcus set the briefcase on the table. Sarah smiled and shook her head. "He's been talking about it all day." She touched Marcus's cheek. "You look tired. What happened out there?" "Later," Marcus said. He wanted this first. He wanted to see their faces. He turned the latches and lifted the lid. No money. Four green shapes lay coiled inside, ridged and smooth, each the size of a cat. Claws twitched against the leather. Yellow eyes opened. Marcus knew them. He had watched one slide into Emma's neck. "Get back," he said. He grabbed for the lid. Too slow. The first parasite sprang. It struck Sarah's throat and vanished under her skin. She gasped once, then went still. The towel dropped from her hand. The boy screamed. A second creature leapt and took him. His scream cut off. The girl turned to run. The third caught her at the ankle and climbed inside her leg. She fell without a sound. Marcus reached for the revolver in his coat. His hand shook, the way it had shaken in the town. The last parasite launched from the case. It hit his face. Cold legs raked his cheek. He felt it push through the skin below his eye. Heat spread through his head. His arms dropped. The gun clattered on the floor. He looked at his family. They stood around the table, breathing slow and even, staring at nothing. The same dim look Emma had worn. Marcus tried to speak Sarah's name. His mouth would not move. His legs folded. He sat against the wall and could not rise. Aldrich had never sent money. He had sent this. A gift for the man who saw too much. Now four quiet hosts stood in a New York apartment. Marcus felt the thing settle behind his eyes. The girl walked to the tall window and opened it. The boy climbed onto the fire escape. Sarah followed. One by one they went down toward the street, toward the crowds and the lights and the millions of people. Marcus watched them go and could do nothing. The parasites had learned a new hunting ground, and the door to it stood wide open.