The Maestro's Castle

The iron gate of Castello Verran is taller than two men standing on each other's shoulders, and it is weeping rust down its bars like old tears. You press your palm flat against the cold metal and feel the lock shudder — not because you pushed it, but because it felt you. Somewhere behind the gate, a bell strikes one. Then silence, the kind that has weight. The road back to Verranmoor is still visible behind you, winding down through the pines to the town where another face has gone missing from a window. Three months of waking up with a name that isn't yours and a power that shouldn't exist, and this is where the trail ends: a gate that knows you're here. …