Chapter 28 · A Graveyard Behind Home

The door dropped Marcus onto familiar floorboards, and the first thing he smelled was dust and old varnish and three months of unpaid rent.

His shop.

But the air tasted wrong. Thin. Like it had been holding its breath too long.

Marcus's palm was still split down the center, blood cool and slow where it leaked between his fingers. He pressed it against his jacket and looked around. Same crooked workbench. Same half-stripped cello propped in the corner. Same water stain on the ceiling that looked like a map of nowhere.

Except the walls were breathing.

Not moving. Breathing. The plaster expanded and contracted in a rhythm he felt in his teeth. He stepped toward the bench and the floor gave a little, like walking on a trampoline made of memory.

"You made it back."

Marcus spun. Orin stood by the door to the back room, hands in his coat pockets, face calm as always. But his edges were blurred. Not like before, when he'd been solid enough to hand Marcus a knife or a map. Now he looked like someone had drawn him in smoke.

"What the hell is happening to you?" Marcus crossed the space in three steps.