“Before We Go Where Things Remember Us”**
I hate this hallway.
It smells like old dust, older decisions, and the kind of silence that gets offended if you breathe too loud. The gate at the bottom of the stairs hasn’t been opened in decades. Maybe longer. The sigil on the lock looks like it would prefer to bite someone rather than glow.
And my witch is about to walk into it.
No.
I correct myself immediately:
My witch and the idiot she loves are about to walk into it.
I pace the floor between their boots because staying still would be treason. My fur is up. My tail is enormous. I look like a puffball full of murder.
Good.
Nolan stands at Trixie’s left like he was carved there. One hand at her back. Watching every shadow like it owes him rent. I don’t like admitting competence in humans, but I’ll allow it here.
Trixie tries to look steady.
She fails.
She looks like someone carrying the weight of a door she didn’t build and a future she never asked for. That is far too big a burden for one witch and one detective and one excessively gorgeous cat.
I hop up to the bench beside her and press my head under her chin.
“You don’t have to be brave right now,” I tell her. “Just conscious.”
She laughs. It is a thin, scraped?raw sound.
“I’m not brave,” she whispers. “I’m terrified.”
“Well, yes,” I say. “But you’re terrified in a productive way.”
Nolan snorts. “Is that a thing?”
“It is now,” I say. “Productive terror is our entire brand.”
Trixie’s fingers curl into my fur. Her hand is shaking. I do not comment on this because I am not a monster. But Nolan notices. Of course he does.
“Hey,” he murmurs, tipping her chin up with two fingers. “We’re doing this together.”
A tether hums between them — a string tying two very breakable people into one rhythm that turns the Hollow King’s stomach.
Good.
They’ll need that.
The door at the bottom of the stairwell thrums — a pulse, a heartbeat, a reminder that something old is awake and irritated we kept it waiting.
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Harrow approaches the seal, staff raised, expression carved from stone that has Opinions.
“This door hasn’t opened since before I was born,” she says. Her voice is steady. Her eyes are not. “The foundation below is not stable. It reacts to intent. To lineage. To fear.”
I feel Trixie’s breath stutter.
I hiss at the door.
“This is your warning,” I inform the ancient architecture. “Do not touch my witch. Or Nolan. But mostly my witch.”
Nolan gives me a grateful look. “Thanks for the consideration.”
“I gave you slightly more credit than the door gets,” I say. “Don’t make me regret it.”
Trixie kneels and tightens the copper at her palm. “Dixie… if anything happens down there—”
“No,” I say immediately.
“Dix—”
“No.” I hop up onto her shoulder so we’re eye?to?eye. “If something happens, we fight. We bite. We run. We hide. We break the stairwell. We summon Harrow. We drag Nolan by his ears. We do not do the noble self?sacrifice thing. I forbid it.”
She laughs again, fragile but real.
I nuzzle her cheek.
“You are mine,” I whisper. “You do not give yourself away.”
A quiet moment follows. A tender one. I hate tenderness. It makes humans sentimental.
Then Nolan clears his throat, voice soft and scared in exactly the way I have zero patience for.
“Dixie?” he asks.
“Yes, human?”
He swallows. “If… if something tries to separate us down there—”
“No,” I say again. “I’m not a broken record. I’m just correct.”
He lets out a breath that almost sounds like relief.
Harrow finishes drawing the unlocking sigil on the doorframe. The copper rings flare. The old hinge groans like a thing waking up after a century-long sulk.
The air heats.
Then cools.
Then stills.
Something beneath the Academy waits.
Trixie’s breath trembles. Nolan shifts closer, hand brushing hers.
The tether glows faintly between them like a tiny, stubborn sun.
I stand between their necks and purr — loud, grounding, violent.
“Listen,” I say, sharp as claws. “You two walk behind Harrow. You put me between anything suspicious and your faces. You follow the rhythm. You do not slip. You do not look into the dark when it looks back.”
Trixie nods.
Nolan nods.
Good students. Terrible survival instincts. Beautiful idiots.
Harrow looks over her shoulder at us.
“It’s time,” she says.
A cold breath rises from below as the seal splits open.
The Hollow King’s voice curls up with it.
<
Trixie’s knees buckle.
The tether spasms.
Nolan catches her immediately.
I hiss into the dark with everything I have:
“She’s not coming to you. She’s coming with us. Learn the difference.”
And for one fractional second—
just one—
the whisper hesitates.
That’s all we need.
Harrow descends first.
Nolan follows.
Trixie clings to his sleeve.
I hop down the steps ahead of them, tail high, claws ready, heart full of violence, and I think:
If a god wants my witch, he’ll have to go through me. And I will NOT make it easy.