NOVEL WEB Chapter 28: Who You Let In
The sanctuary was too quiet.
Not calm. Not peaceful. Just… too quiet.
The kind of quiet that forgets how to breathe.
Rei stood by the back door, watching the moss-hares in the garden. They usually chased each other in clumsy spirals. Today, they sat still—ears perked, unmoving. Even the breeze seemed reluctant to pass through the gate.
The message hadn't left his mind:
"One of yours is not entirely yours."
He hadn't shared it. He hadn't questioned anyone. But he'd started noticing the little things.
Ellyn had locked her cabinet three times in one morning.
Auron kept rewriting the same ward line over and over, each time less focused.
Kreg burned a loaf and didn't curse once.
And Fluff—
Fluff hadn't slept beside him in two nights.
It wasn't betrayal he felt. Not suspicion. But distance.
Someone here wasn't entirely here anymore.
And if he didn't act soon, the sanctuary might start fracturing in ways that couldn't be undone.
That night, he waited until everyone had gone to bed.
He didn't search rooms. Didn't dig through belongings.
He simply walked the sanctuary—barefoot, silent, patient—and listened.
Not for sound.
But for imbalance.
Halfway through the east wing, he found it.
A ward line beneath the floor had frayed—not broken, not removed, but deliberately stretched just slightly out of tune.
A loop no longer closed.
A net no longer caught.
And it hummed in a frequency just a little too still.
Rei didn't speak.
He simply touched it.
And in doing so, saw the memory woven through it.
Auron's hands.
But not sabotage.
Just… hesitation.
The kind of hesitant mistake that someone else could use.
Rei stood there a long while, letting the memory fade. He didn't blame the boy. He didn't even feel anger. Just confirmation.
Someone had reached into the sanctuary.
And they'd done it through the weakest link.
He found Auron the next morning by the well, tracing sigils into dirt with a stick.
Rei sat beside him and said nothing.
Auron didn't look up.
"They said they just wanted to talk," he whispered. "Said they were from the old school. That they just wanted to observe. Said I had potential. And I— I didn't say yes. I didn't. But I didn't say no fast enough."
Rei waited.
"I didn't tell them anything real," Auron added quickly. "Just… how the sanctuary breathes. How you move through it. I didn't think it was— I didn't mean—"
"I know," Rei said.
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
They sat in silence.
"I'll leave," Auron said, voice shaking. "If I stay, they'll come again."
Rei shook his head.
"No."
"But I—"
"You're not the one who entered uninvited."
Auron blinked.
"I'll fix the wards," he said.
"You'll remake them," Rei corrected gently. "Better. More aware. No more following diagrams. From now on, they come from you."
That night, Rei opened the old drawer beneath the tea shelf.
He pulled out the black coin.
The one with the burning door etched in silence.
And placed it on the threshold.
Not as a message.
As a warning.
It didn't glow.
It didn't vanish.
It simply was.
And that was enough.
The next morning, the wind changed.
And something tried to cross the boundary.
It didn't knock.
It didn't roar.
It just stepped.
But the coin pulsed once.
The wards pulsed back.
And the space where it would have stood… unraveled.
Not broken.
Not wounded.
Just gently erased.
And in its place, silence returned.
Rei stood at the gate long after it ended.
Not in victory.
But in quiet grief.
Because the world had come again.
And this time, it hadn't sent assassins, or beasts, or curses.
It had sent curiosity.
And curiosity had tried to slip in through someone he trusted.
Later that day, Ellyn found Rei trimming the cloudvine.
"You knew."
"I suspected."
"Are we safe?"
"For now."
"And after?"
Rei didn't answer.
Instead, he glanced toward the center of the sanctuary,Where Auron was rebuilding the ward lines, not from memory—but from heart.