Dennis had always thought exhaustion would feel dramatic.

  It did not.

  It felt like forgetting where he had put his keys. Like staring at a red traffic light and realizing he had no memory of the last three streets. Like rubbing the heel of his hand against his eyes at 11:47 p.m. in the service corridor of an almost-empty building and thinking, with a kind of dull surprise, that he was still standing only because there were people depending on him to stand.

  The corridor smelled faintly of detergent and warm dust. One of the overhead lights buzzed with a tired electrical hum. His right shoulder ached from lifting cartons earlier in the day, and his phone showed two unread messages from home.

  His oldest daughter had sent a photo of half-finished homework and a crying emoji.

  His youngest had sent only a voice note.

  He had not listened yet.

  That made the guilt worse.

  Dennis leaned back against the painted wall and closed his eyes for a moment. “Just get home,” he muttered to himself. “That’s all. Get home first.”

  His hand slipped into his pocket, touching the worn wood of the little cross on his keychain. It had been a cheap thing from a church table years ago. One arm was chipped. The varnish had long ago worn away where his thumb always found it.

  He bowed his head.

  “Lord,” he whispered, so quietly even he barely heard it, “keep my family safe. And help me get home.”

  Nothing happened.

  Which, honestly, was what he expected.

  Then the corridor door at the far end clicked open.

  Dennis frowned.

  That door was not supposed to be there.

  He knew this hallway. He had walked it enough times to do it half asleep. Supply closet to the left. Fire exit straight ahead. Utility room on the right. No extra doors. No old wooden door with black iron straps and a brass ring handle that looked like it belonged in a monastery or a museum or the set of a historical drama.

  He pushed off the wall.

  For a few seconds he only stared.

  The light above the door flickered once, then steadied. The wood was dark and old, scarred with shallow lines like claw marks. The brass ring reflected the corridor light in a muted, honey-colored gleam.

  Dennis glanced behind him, half expecting to see someone filming a prank.

  No one.

  Just the empty corridor. The hum of fluorescent lights. The far-off rumble of city traffic muffled by concrete and glass.

  He took one slow step closer.

  “Okay,” he said to the empty hallway, “I’m too tired for this.”

  He should have walked away.

  He knew that later. He would know it very clearly later.

  But there was something about the door that pulled at him—not with magic, not with a voice in his head, but with the simple unreasonable certainty that if he left it alone, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

  Dennis reached for the brass ring.

  The metal was ice-cold.

  A sharp shiver ran up his arm.

  The door opened inward without a sound.

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  Not into a room.

  Into night.

  He froze.

  Cold air touched his face. Real air. Damp and clean and carrying the scent of pine, wet earth, and distant smoke. Beyond the threshold stretched a narrow road silvered by moonlight, bordered by towering black trees. Stars burned overhead—too many stars, sharp and strange and scattered in patterns he did not know.

  For one impossible second, Dennis’s mind refused to process what his eyes were seeing.

  Then his stomach dropped.

  He spun around.

  Behind him was still the corridor. White walls. Linoleum floor. Harsh office light.

  In front of him, a road through a forest under a foreign sky.

  “No,” he said immediately.

  He did not say it loudly. He did not scream. He just said it with the flat firmness of a man who had too many responsibilities to permit nonsense into his life.

  “No.”

  He began to shut the door.

  The corridor lights flickered.

  Somewhere far down the road, a horn sounded.

  Not a car horn. Something older. Hollow and low.

  Dennis’s grip tightened.

  Then came barking.

  Dogs. Large ones, by the sound of them.

  And voices.

  Shouting.

  Not in German. Not in English. The words were harsh and rapid, carrying through the trees with an edge that made his skin crawl.

  The barking grew louder.

  Instinct overrode disbelief.

  Dennis stepped through the doorway and grabbed for the edge to pull it shut behind him.

  The wood crumbled like mist under his fingers.

  There was no door.

  There had never been a door.

  He stumbled backward onto the road, breath catching in his throat. Cold mud soaked through the side of one shoe. He stared at the empty air where the corridor should have been.

  Nothing.

  Only the road and the forest and the sound of dogs drawing closer.

  His heart began to pound so hard it hurt.

  “Think,” he whispered.

  He turned in a quick circle. The road curved ahead between the trees. To one side the ground sloped downward into brush and shadows. To the other rose a line of moss-covered stones and tangled roots.

  The barking came again.

  Closer.

  Dennis threw himself off the road and crouched behind a fallen trunk slick with rain. Branches snagged his jacket. Wet leaves soaked his knees. He forced himself still and clamped one hand over his mouth.

  A moment later, riders burst onto the road.

  There were five of them.

  Their horses were broad-chested and dark with sweat, their tack heavy and plain. The men wore long coats of layered leather over mail that caught the moonlight in dull glints. No reflective strips. No plastic buckles. No modern anything. Spears bounced in harness loops at their saddles. One carried a lantern hooded in red glass.

  The dogs ranged ahead of them, huge grey shapes with lowered heads and slavering jaws.

  Dennis felt the blood drain from his face.

  This was not a movie set.

  This was not a prank.

  The lead rider raised a hand. The group slowed.

  One of the dogs stopped.

  Turned.

  Lifted its head toward the fallen trunk.

  Dennis did not breathe.

  The dog growled.

  A second one joined it.

  The rider with the red lantern swung the light toward the brush. For an instant it passed over wet leaves and roots and bark.

  Then it stopped.

  The red light fell directly across Dennis’s face.

  “There,” a voice snapped.

  Several things happened at once.

  The dogs lunged.

  Dennis surged to his feet and ran.

  Branches whipped his face. His shoes slipped in mud. He heard shouting behind him, the thunder of hooves forcing through brush, the savage crashing pursuit of animals bred to drag men down.

  He did not know where he was going. He only knew he could not let those jaws reach his legs. He vaulted a low tangle of roots, nearly fell, caught himself against a tree, and kept moving.

  A dog hit him from the side.

  Its weight slammed into his hip and drove him to one knee. Teeth snapped inches from his arm. Dennis shouted—not words, just raw sound—and jammed his forearm into the beast’s throat while grabbing wildly for anything he could use.

  His hand closed around a fallen branch thick as a baton.

  He swung.

  Wood cracked against skull. The dog yelped and recoiled.

  Another shape came at him from the dark.

  Then a rider’s voice barked, sharp as a whip.

  The dogs pulled back.

  Dennis looked up.

  Three horses surrounded him in the trees. One rider held a spear level with his chest. Another had already dismounted and was drawing a length of rope from his saddle.

  The leader pushed his hood back.

  He was hard-faced, middle-aged, with a trimmed beard and a pale scar running from one eyebrow into his hairline. His eyes flicked over Dennis’s clothes, shoes, bare hands, stunned face.

  The man’s expression changed.

  Not to pity.

  To alarm.

  He said something fast.

  Another rider crossed himself—or something like it, two fingers to forehead and breast.

  Dennis swallowed. “I don’t understand you.”

  That only made them stare harder.

  The leader dismounted slowly, keeping one hand on the hilt of his sword.

  He came close enough that Dennis could smell horse sweat, leather oil, and woodsmoke clinging to his coat.

  Then, in broken but understandable English, he said, “You. What name?”

  Dennis blinked.

  Relief came first. Then caution.

  “My name is Dennis.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “No house-name. No road-mark. No oath-band.” He looked Dennis over again like he was inspecting something found in a grave. “What are you?”

  Dennis opened his mouth.

  And realized he had no answer that would not sound insane.

  Behind the riders, the forest seemed to lean inward. The red lantern swayed. One of the dogs whined low in its throat, staring at him with the same unease as its master.

  The scarred leader took the rope from his man.

  His voice dropped.

  “Best you come quiet, stranger,” he said. “Before the Tithe-Men hear we found a Nameless on the west road.”

  Then he held out the rope.

  And Dennis understood, with a cold certainty that settled deeper than fear, that whatever world he had fallen into, it was not a world that welcomed lost men home.