Well, it doesn’t even look like comb anymore.

Phosyne scowls at the puddle of muck. It looks like rot, but that is impossible. Honey in the comb doesn’t turn; the bees have made sure of that. Her gaze slides to Ornuo, who has twined around her ankles and gazes up at her with wide, ruby eyes.

“What have you done this time?” she groans, then hops on one foot to extricate herself.

He lets her, merciful beast, only to sit up on his hind legs and snap the jerky she tosses him from the air with powerful jaws. His brother joins him, and when a bit of hide lands between them, they tussle for it. Just beasts, she tells herself, watching them. They are only beasts, like cats or hounds, and that they came from nothing should not be so damning. Her ideas come from nothing, after all, and they have given her pure water.

The door to her tower moves in its frame.

The boys stop fighting, and instead flatten themselves to the ground, backing up to take refuge in their hiding spots. Normally, they would have thrown themselves under the table by now; Phosyne’s skin turns to gooseflesh as she edges closer to the door.

She should have rebuilt the barricade, or at least reset the locks.

“Ser Voyne?” she calls, hoping it is only that, but Ser Voyne would have thrown the door open, stalked inside, demanded answers. And Treila, though Phosyne barely knows her, would have simply entered as well—of that, she is unsettlingly sure.

The door does not move again.

She goes to her spyglass and peeks through to the hall. Nobody is visible in the limited scope. Just empty stone.

It makes no sense. But this is an opportunity: her workbench is long enough to span the doorway, and Phosyne can block it all up once more. For the first time since Ser Voyne was assigned as her minder, she can have real privacy again. There’s a threat outside, and she can truly take shelter, and give herself the time to think and remember.

But why would somebody knock, and then leave so quickly? Phosyne’s teeth chew at her lower lip, and then she opens the door a crack, just to get a better look. A wider vantage.

There’s nobody there.

Phosyne looks back into her room, sees the rot and filth, smells it anew. She shudders, feeling disgust for the first time. The ownerless knock hangs in the air around her, a temptation, a question. Search for the answer, or retreat back into her moldering hovel, trying to unravel why her invocations would be worth listening to?

She steps out onto the stairs. She closes the door tight behind her. She rests her head against the wood.

Soft footsteps pad down the stairs.

Phosyne follows.