Three days after Circe's midnight visit, I'd become a stranger in my own skin.

  The world had... expanded. That's the closest word I have, though it fails miserably to capture the experience.

  Colors seemed to trail echoes. Sounds carried textures I'd never noticed before. And beneath it all, I sensed currents moving through my keep like invisible rivers—strongest in the ancient foundations, weakest in the newer east wing my grandfather had commissioned during a brief period of prosperity.

  I'd taken to wandering the corridors at night, drawn to spots where these currents converged. My feet would lead me to unremarkable sections of wall or floor, where I'd stand like a fool, fingers pressed to stone, feeling pulses that shouldn't exist.

  "Magnetic stones in the foundation," Willem suggested when he caught me crouched in the wine cellar, hand splayed against a seemingly ordinary flagstone. "Or possibly just the early stages of madness."

  I couldn't blame his skepticism. From the outside, I must have looked like a man rapidly losing his grip on reality—pacing the halls at odd hours, startling at sounds no one else heard, wincing at the burn of candlelight that suddenly seemed bright as midday sun.

  "The court summons remains in effect," Willem reminded me, helping me to my feet. "Five days remaining. Your mother's concerned you won't be... presentable."

  A diplomatic way of saying she feared I'd arrive at court babbling about invisible patterns and glowing stones.

  "I'm fine," I lied, brushing dust from my knees. "Just trying to understand what's happening to me."

  "And the... visitors? Will there be more?"

  I touched the blue patterns that now resembled an elaborate map etched across my chest. They no longer glowed as brightly, but had settled into my skin like an exotic tattoo. "One more. The third Sister."

  Willem nodded, his weathered face carefully neutral. "And will she also appear through locked doors in the dead of night?"

  "I wouldn't be surprised. Their methods aren't exactly conventional."

  "Unlike the Royal Corps, which would have let you die with proper documentation," Willem conceded.

  I laughed despite myself. "At least my corpse would have been regulatory compliant."

  ***

  That night, I couldn't sleep.

  The currents beneath the castle seemed to surge with unusual intensity, making my skin tingle and the blue patterns itch fiercely. Rain lashed against the windows as a summer storm broke over the countryside, lightning illuminating my chamber in harsh, white flashes.

  That night, I couldn't sleep. The currents beneath the castle seemed to surge with unusual intensity, making my skin tingle and the blue patterns itch fiercely. Rain lashed against the windows as a summer storm broke over the countryside, lightning illuminating my chamber in harsh, white flashes.

  With each thunderclap, the patterns on my chest resonated, as though responding to some frequency I couldn't consciously perceive. I paced the room, trying to ignore the sensation that something was building—pressure accumulating like water behind a dam.

  When the largest thunderclap of the night shook the windows in their frames, I wasn't entirely surprised to find I was no longer alone.

  She stood in the center of my chamber, water streaming from her midnight-blue habit onto the stone floor. Unlike her sisters, who had appeared with theatrical flair or dreamlike presence, this woman simply... was. As though she'd always been there, a fact of existence I'd somehow overlooked until now.

  "Sister Hekate Ravenclaw," I said, the name coming to me without introduction.

  She inclined her head, silver hair bound in a long braid that reached her waist. "Lord Magius Greywers. Thy suffering calleth to me across the veil of distance."

  Her formal, archaic speech matched her bearing—regal and precise, with the gravity of ancient ritual. Where Morgana had been all sharp calculation and Circe all chaotic creativity, Hekate carried the weight of ceremony in every measured movement.

  "You're soaked," I observed, reaching for a blanket to offer her.

  "The elements matter not when the calling comes." She made no move to dry herself. Water dripped steadily from her habit, forming a perfect circle around her feet. "Show me where the pain dwelleth deepest."

  I hesitated only briefly before opening my shirt to reveal the blue patterns. In the storm-light, they pulsed with renewed intensity, as though recognizing her presence.

  Hekate approached slowly, and I noticed what I hadn't seen at first—small objects sewn into the fabric of her habit. Buttons, coins, scraps of cloth, tiny carved figurines. Each appeared ordinary yet somehow significant, arranged in patterns that made no logical sense but felt deliberate. The collection of a lifetime, carried on her person.

  "The channels form true," she murmured, studying the patterns without touching them. "Sister Circe hath done her work with uncommon precision."

  "Channels?" I asked. "Circe mentioned something similar, but wouldn't explain."

  Hekate's pale eyes, so light they appeared almost colorless, lifted to meet mine. "Some wounds mark more than flesh, Lord Greywers. They leave impressions upon the very essence of being. I see thy suffering goeth deeper than the physical manifestation."

  "I feel fine," I lied. "The pain has subsided since—"

  "Speak not falsehoods to one who beareth witness to pain," she interrupted, her voice suddenly hard. "I see the echoes of thy suffering as clearly as storm clouds against the moon."

  To my shock, she began unfastening the high collar of her habit, turning to show me her upper back. Across her shoulders and spine spread intricate eye-like markings—dozens of them, closed but somehow watchful. As I stared, several slowly opened, revealing irises of varying colors that swiveled to fix on me with disconcerting awareness.

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  "The eyes witness the suffering I absorb," she explained, refastening her collar. "Each holds the memory of pain transferred and processed. They recognize thy particular anguish—a wound not just of flesh, but of identity."

  I swallowed hard. "What exactly are you going to do?"

  "I shall take that which harms thee and bear it myself for a time, before dispersing it through proper channels." She reached into a hidden pocket and withdrew a silver knife with an ornately carved handle. "The transference requires physical connection."

  "That sounds... intimate," I said warily.

  A flicker of what might have been amusement crossed her severe features. "All true healing is intimate, Lord Greywers. The distance maintained by conventional practitioners is precisely why their methods fail to address deeper wounds."

  Lightning flashed again, and in that instant, I saw something else—faint silvery scars crisscrossing Hekate's exposed skin like a map of ancient roads. They matched the patterns on my chest with uncanny precision.

  "You've done this before," I realized. "With someone like me."

  "The old blood awakens cyclically," she said, neither confirming nor denying. "Lie down. The transference works best when the recipient is at rest."

  I complied, stretching out on my bed as rain continued to drum against the windows. Hekate knelt beside me, the knife gleaming in the storm-light.

  "This shall draw forth not only physical discomfort but memory and identity," she warned. "Fragments of ancestors may surface in thy consciousness. Do not resist them—they are part of what thou art becoming."

  "Becoming what, exactly?"

  Instead of answering, she made a small cut on my chest where the blue patterns converged over my heart. She then cut her own palm, pressing the wounds together.

  The storm outside seemed to move indoors, swirling around us in invisible currents. The blue patterns beneath my skin brightened, then slowly began to transfer—flowing up Hekate's arm in delicate traceries that matched my own. As they moved, I felt a weight lifting that I hadn't realized I'd been carrying.

  Unlike the disorienting probability splitting of Morgana's treatment or the hallucinatory visions induced by Circe, Hekate's transference felt like... remembering. Memories that weren't mine unfurled in my mind, taking root as though they'd always been there.

  A man with my green eyes walking paths invisible to others, following currents beneath the earth to find springs where no water should exist.

  A woman standing at a great stone circle, channeling energy from beneath the ground to heal a child's broken leg without potions or implements.

  A bearded figure in ancient dress using a staff to direct blue light from one location to another, creating a bridge where there was no physical structure.

  With each memory, I felt myself expanding into a history I'd never known I possessed. Generations of ancestors whose names I'd never heard, all connected by a common ability—seeing and manipulating the invisible currents that flowed beneath the world.

  "Thy bloodline once walked the paths between worlds," Hekate's voice reached me through the cascade of memories. "The Greywers were Pathfinders before they were lords—those who could see the currents others could not, who could direct energy from places of abundance to places of need."

  As she spoke, black veins appeared beneath her skin, tracing the path of the transferred patterns up her arms and across her chest. Her face remained impassive despite what must have been considerable pain.

  "The old knowledge was buried, not lost," she continued, voice strained but steady. "Thy blood remembers what thy mind was never taught."

  The storm reached its peak, a thunderous crescendo that shook the very foundations of the keep. In that moment, I felt the currents beneath us surge upward through the stone, drawn to the transference like metal to a lodestone.

  Hekate gasped, her eyes widening. The eyes across her shoulder blades opened fully, all turning to stare at the floor beneath us.

  "Unexpected," she murmured. "The node beneath thy dwelling responds to thy awakening."

  "Node?"

  "A convergence point where multiple currents meet. Thy ancestors did not choose this location by chance, Lord Greywers. The keep was built upon a path nexus."

  As the blue patterns continued to transfer from my body to hers, I felt increasingly connected to the stone beneath us—as though roots were extending downward from my body into the earth, tapping into something vast and ancient.

  "The channels form true," Hekate repeated, her voice now rough with the strain of absorption. "But they must be sealed properly lest they draw too much, too soon."

  With her free hand, she reached into another hidden pocket and withdrew a small pouch. "I require a personal token—something that holds significance beyond its material value."

  "Why?" I managed, finding it increasingly difficult to form words as the connection to the currents strengthened.

  "To anchor the transference and establish boundaries for the channels. Without containment, thy newfound awareness would overwhelm thy senses entirely."

  I thought briefly, then pointed to my father's ring on the bedside table—a simple silver band with our family crest, one of the few heirlooms not sold to maintain appearances.

  She shook her head. "It must be something chosen by thee, not inherited. Something that represents thy own connection to thy self."

  I considered, then reached beneath my pillow, producing a small wooden figure—a knight on horseback I'd carved as a boy, the first thing I'd ever made with my own hands. It was crude but honest work, representing what I'd once believed a knight should be before reality taught me otherwise.

  "This," I said, placing it in her outstretched palm.

  Hekate examined it, nodding slowly. "A child's hope carved in tangible form. It shall serve well."

  She placed the figure in her pouch, then returned her hand to mine. The transfer accelerated, the last of the blue patterns leaving my skin and settling into hers. As they did, the eyes across her shoulders blinked rapidly, as though processing new information.

  "There," she said finally, breaking contact. "The physical transference is complete. The patterns shall remain dormant within thee unless activated by need or circumstance."

  I sat up slowly, expecting weakness or disorientation, but instead feeling strangely centered—more fully present in my own skin than I'd been in days. The overwhelming sensitivity had diminished to a manageable awareness, like background music rather than a deafening cacophony.

  "You took it," I said, examining my now-unmarked chest with wonder. "All of it."

  "Not removed—transformed," she corrected, the black veins beneath her skin already beginning to fade. "I have absorbed the chaotic aspects while leaving the beneficial connections intact. Thou wilt find thy awareness more... selective now. Controllable rather than overwhelming."

  She rose, moving to the window where the storm had begun to abate. Lightning still illuminated the countryside in irregular flashes, and I noticed how her silver hair caught the light in unnatural ways, shimmering with hints of blue.

  "The token shall serve as both anchor and beacon," she explained, her back to me. "Should thy patterns reactivate beyond control, its sympathetic connection will summon assistance."

  "You mean it will summon you."

  She turned, fixing me with those pale, ancient eyes. "Each Sister responds to different aspects of need. Thy token resonates most strongly with my particular gifts."

  Something in her tone suggested this wasn't merely procedural—that she had chosen to link herself to me through the wooden figure for reasons beyond medical necessity.

  "The collection on your habit," I said, understanding dawning. "They're all tokens from people you've treated."

  Hekate's expression remained impassive, but her hand unconsciously rose to touch a small buttoned sewn near her collar. "Each carries an echo of the pain I've processed. Together, they form a... library of suffering that informs my work."

  "You keep pieces of everyone you help." I wasn't sure whether to find this touching or disturbing.

  "We all maintain connections in our own ways," she replied. "Sister Morgana through probability threads, Sister Circe through alchemical resonance. I prefer something more... tangible."

  A sudden pounding at my chamber door interrupted us.

  Willem's voice called through the wood, urgent and strained. "My lord! Riders approaching from the south road. Phoenix Collective insignia."