We were prisoners. There were no bars, no chains. There was only the mocking bow of a monster and the silent threat hanging over Margot. We could run, sure. But it would take her. And that awareness was a cage more solid than any stone wall.
"Victor, look at them," Margot whispered beside me, her voice barely a breath of air. "They're not blinking. They're not even breathing."
She was right. Nicolas kept whittling, his movements fluid but mechanical. Sophie and Jean-Pierre sat motionless, their chests rising and falling in a rhythm too slow, too regular. And then, in a corner, I saw Guillaume. The giant stood in front of a cold forge, hammer in hand, miming the gesture of striking an invisible anvil—a silent echo of his craft. They were in a trance and seemed... empty. Shells animated by a will that wasn't their own.
The cello music, that obsessive, soulless melody, continued. It was the soundtrack to our private nightmare. Attacking was useless—we'd already learned that. But standing there, watching, was torture.
"What do we do?" Margot asked.
"We observe," I replied, remembering Remy's lessons. "We look for a crack."
The show continued. His piece finished, Nicolas sat down with the same unnatural rigidity. Then it was Sophie's turn.
She stood. And began to sing.
Her voice was technically perfect. Every note was pure, crystalline. But it was cold. It had the beauty of an ice flower—flawless but lifeless. It was the music I'd heard echoing through the forest, but now, up close, it was even more terrifying.
I closed my eyes. I ignored the frozen perfection. I searched for the echo. The echo of joy I'd felt in the clearing with Anje. The spark of life buried beneath that black smoke. I concentrated, using the medallion not as a flame but as a hand reaching into the darkness. *Sophie, I'm here. I can feel you.*
And for a fraction of a second, it happened.
Sophie's voice broke. The perfect note transformed into a sob, a fragment of pure, heartbreaking human pain. Her face, until a moment before an empty mask, contorted into an expression of anguish.
The Homme-Corbeau's reaction was instantaneous. The cello music ceased abruptly. The creature emitted a furious hiss, a sound like tearing silk, and its shadow form wavered, writhing like smoke in a draft. It almost seemed to dissolve.
It was the opening we'd been waiting for.
"Now!" I shouted to Margot.
We hadn't planned anything—we were counting only on instinct. We lunged toward the side door we'd entered through. The Homme-Corbeau was distracted, its smoke figure contorting and struggling to reestablish control over Sophie, whose voice had returned to a silent lament.
We didn't look back. We fled the ruins, throwing ourselves back into the darkness of the "sick" forest. I knew it was pursuing us. I couldn't see it, but I felt its cold rage at our backs, a silent echo of Sophie's broken song.
We ran breathless, stumbling over twisted roots that seemed like claws reaching out to grab us. It wasn't a simple run. It was a hunt. And we were prey again.
"This way!" Margot gasped, pulling me toward a barely visible goat path.
Behind us, I heard no footsteps. It was worse. I heard its silence, an unnatural void moving through the trees with the speed of thought. I sensed it through the medallion: a point of intense cold stalking us, gaining ground. The woods themselves seemed to have turned against us—branches lashed our faces, thorns grabbed our ankles.
"Faster, Victor!" Margot shouted.
But exhaustion was a dead weight. My power had left me drained, and every step was agony. I fell, face in the wet mud.
"Leave me here," I gasped, trying to catch my breath. "You go."
"Don't be stupid!" she hissed, hauling me up bodily. In her eyes, I saw a spark of the same fury she'd shown against the bear. "Nobody gets left behind. Not again."
Her determination gave me strength for one last sprint. We dove into a freezing stream, the water cutting off our breath, and let the current carry us, clinging to slippery rocks. Maybe the water would confuse our tracks. Maybe not.
When we emerged on the other bank farther downstream, shivering and soaked, I concentrated again. The point of cold... had vanished. It was gone. The Homme-Corbeau had given up. Or maybe it had simply let us go, like a cat allowing the mouse an illusion of freedom before the final strike.
We reached the village, exhausted, terrified, and soaked to the bone, our hearts hammering in unison with the sound of our ragged footsteps. But the spectral silence we'd left behind had been replaced by a new sound. Screams. And the dancing glow of dozens of torches.
"What the hell..." Margot gasped.
We ran toward the main square, drawn by that chaotic epicenter of light and noise. An enraged crowd was gathered at the center, a circle of faces distorted by rage and terror.
We pushed our way through. And then we saw it.
In the center of the square, illuminated by the flickering torchlight, was a body. It was Mathis. The drunk from the inn. The man who'd tried to warn us.
He'd been killed brutally, almost ritually. An old stiletto, the kind used for smuggling, was planted up to the hilt in his chest.
I stood paralyzed, horror freezing my blood. The scene was brutal, but in a different way. The Homme-Corbeau kidnapped and emptied its victims, leaving behind a mystery and black feathers. This time it was all different. This was human. A stiletto in the chest—an act of rage or ruthless calculation.
While we stood there, lost in that terrible scene, the crowd parted. I recognized some faces: the innkeeper, his usual grim expression now mixed with reverential terror; Nicolas's sister, covering her mouth to stifle a sob; other men from the inn, their faces lit by a mixture of fear and morbid excitement. They all took a step back, bowing their heads with obsequious respect for the advancing figure.
It was a man in his fifties, dressed in the dark cassock of a priest. He wasn't as tall as Angelica, nor as massive as Guillaume, but he emanated an authority that surpassed them both. He moved with glacial calm, his measured steps seemingly unhurried by the surrounding chaos. He had a severe, sharp face, framed by short-cut gray hair, and his eyes... his eyes were cold and penetrating—those of a judge who'd already issued his sentence.
"Father Michel..." I heard someone in the crowd whisper.
Anje's warning came to mind: "There are those who prefer to extinguish others' lights rather than kindle their own." Maybe the mysterious person she'd spoken of was him—the curate.
Father Michel stopped beside Mathis's body. He didn't look at it with pity, but with the cold assessment of a general observing a casualty on the battlefield. Slowly, he raised his gaze and swept it over the hushed crowd, over every frightened face.
When his eyes met ours, there was no sign of recognition. To him, we were just two foreign faces among many. But for a fraction of a second, his gaze lingered—a spark of calculated curiosity in his cold eyes. He'd noticed the only two who seemed neither from the village nor consumed by fear.
Then he addressed the crowd. His voice was calm, controlled, but it cut through the air like ice.
"You see?" he said, spreading his arms in a gesture that encompassed the body, the village, the night itself. "Here is the fruit of chaos! This is what happens when we allow evil to take root. First our chickens, then our talents, and now our brothers, murdered in our own streets!"
He paused, letting the crowd's fear and rage build.
"I warned you!" he continued, his voice rising an octave, charged with righteous indignation. "I said dark forces were stirring, awakened by those who've forgotten the faith! This is not the work of a simple bandit. This is heresy! And heresy, my brothers, is a cancer. It must be cut out with iron and fire before it consumes everything!"
As he spoke, his eyes returned to fix on ours. He wasn't accusing us directly. It was worse. He was testing us. He was painting a target on our backs. And he was watching our reaction.
Panic seized my throat.
"We need to leave!" I hissed to Margot, tugging her sleeve. "Now!"
But it was too late.
A man in the crowd, one of those I'd seen at the inn, pointed at us. His face was a mask of fear and suspicion.
"Them!" he croaked. "They're not from the village! I saw them yesterday! Asking too many questions!"
Every head turned toward us. A hundred pairs of eyes, previously full of confused grief, had now focused on a single, simple target. On us.
I saw a subtle smile, almost imperceptible, curl Father Michel's lips. He hadn't needed to accuse us. The crowd's fear had done the work for him.
"Seize them!" the innkeeper's voice boomed.
The crowd, no longer a collection of individuals but a single, rabid beast, began moving toward us.