✧ Chapter Twenty-Seven ✧
The Man Who Walked the Tunnels
from Have You Someone to Protect?
by ©Amer
The door was closing.
Stone grinding against stone, slow and final.
Lhady's breath caught, eyes fixed on the silhouette emerging from the tunnel's gloom—tall, unhurried, a steady gait against the weight of shadow.
"Wait—" she called out, voice tight.
The figure stepped into the half-light of the closing glyph.
Elias.
Dust clung to his coat, a faint line of blood across his cheek—likely from an overzealous horse—and his expression was calm, almost too calm. As if he'd known exactly where they'd be.
"You took your time," Caelum muttered, sagging further into Lhady's shoulder.
Elias gave a slow shrug, eyeing the sigil they had pieced together. "You were never lost. Just waiting to be found."
The door rumbled louder. Elias reached out a hand—not to them, but to the glyph.
And it stopped.
The grinding ceased. A quiet settled again. The doorway held open.
Lhady blinked. "You can control it?"
"Not exactly." Elias tilted his head, eyes catching hers. "But someone left this door expecting me."
He stepped aside to let them pass.
Lhady hesitated. "Why did you follow us?"
"I was already here," he said. "The minute the fragment reacted, I felt it. And when the horse came back alone—"
"Tamsin?" Her voice lifted. "She—?"
"She found me at the edge of the woods." His mouth curved faintly. "She nearly knocked me over trying to show me where you'd gone. Earned me this," he added, gesturing to the smear of blood on his cheek. "Didn't know a horse could be so… forceful."
Caelum gave a tired huff of amusement.
Lhady let out a slow breath. "She's safe."
"Smarter than half the council," Elias said. "And far less patient."
A pause. Then Elias looked directly at her, something quieter surfacing beneath his usual ease.
"You're not surprised the tunnels led here."
Lhady shook her head. "I recognized the ink in the air. This place… it's old, but familiar."
"You used to come here, didn't you?" Elias said, not as a question.
Lhady helped Caelum forward, feet brushing the worn stone. Her hand rested briefly on the wall, fingertips skimming its surface like greeting an old companion.
"When I was seven," she said softly, "there was a storm."
She paused, eyes flicking to a dark corner of the tunnel. Her voice changed—quieter, distant.
"The old Amer House groaned like it might fall in on itself. I was alone. I don't know why. I don't remember anything before that night. I ran and hid—beneath the floorboards, into a small, forgotten cellar. No light. No voices. Just the sound of the wind and my own breathing."
Her throat tightened.
"I sat there for hours. Behind old boxes of dried herbs and winter potatoes. Crying, but quietly. Trying to be invisible."
Caelum's hand shifted in hers.
"And then…"
A soft exhale. The memory returned with warmth.
"A voice. A pair of arms. He didn't scold me. He didn't say, 'You scared me.' He just held me. His face was streaked with dirt and rain, and he pulled back the floorboard like he'd been digging to find me for days."
Her voice broke just a little. "He said, 'I was scared too. But I'll always find you, even in the dark.'"
"Thorne," Caelum murmured.
Lhady nodded. "He found me when no one else did. I didn't even know we were family. Not then. He just told the court he was taking custody. No explanation. No blood test. Just… certainty."
Elias knelt by his satchel, quieter than usual. "He never told you why?"
"No," she said. "Only that I was an Amer. And that it mattered."
"He wasn't guarding a child," Elias said. "He was guarding a secret. A legacy."
"A memory," Caelum rasped.
Lhady looked up. "He's gone now. Isn't he."
Elias's voice was steady. "Yes. He died before I returned. And he left no grave I could find. Just signs. Places only someone like me could read."
Her fingers curled around the sigil. It pulsed, as if stirred by her grief.
"He deserved better," she said softly.
"Maybe," Elias replied. "But he chose silence over legacy. And silence over safety."
A beat passed.
"I think he meant for you to come here eventually," Elias added. "Even if it had to be like this."
Lhady stood, suddenly resolute. "Then let's go home."
She helped Caelum to his feet. He leaned into her, steadier now.
The three of them moved together—Caelum supported between them, Elias ahead with the lamp—and stepped out into the clean light of the ridge.
The tunnel behind them groaned one last time.
Then sealed shut.
Stone met stone. Glyphs vanished. In a breath, it was gone—no doorway, no seam, not even dust disturbed. As if it had never existed.
A whisper of wind moved through the trees.
From the slope, a sound broke the stillness.
Tamsin.
The mare came running—fast, strong, her eyes wide with recognition. Lhady's breath caught again, but not from fear.
"Easy," she said with a laugh, half-laughing, half-crying as she opened her arms.
Tamsin reached her in three strides, nuzzling into her shoulder with a warm whuff. Lhady buried her face in the mare's neck.
Behind her, Elias flinched and nearly tripped over his own boots.
"She's a lot," he muttered, startled again.
Tamsin tossed her head as if satisfied, then turned gently to nudge a worn satchel tied to her side.
"As if she knew," Lhady murmured.
"As if she remembered," Caelum echoed.
They began the long walk home, the mountain air clinging to their clothes, the pulse of something ancient still moving faintly in their blood.
And the bookshop—quiet, waiting—was not so far away.