The first gate that refused me was aquatic. I knew it before we reached the seacoast, before the smell of swab crept into the air and the road smoothed into that long, straight stretch that always felt like an argument between land and ocean. The mark on my wrist did n't warm or pull. It went quiet in a way I had noway felt before, not dormant, not resting, but designedly closed, as if commodity on the other side had chosen not to admit me at all. The iron casket felt

The first name arrived written in ash. It appeared on my wrist one morning just after daylight, not burned into the skin but resting on it, argentine and fragile, as if a careless breath might scatter it. I set, hysterical that moving would abolish it before I understood what it meant. The mark beneath — the familiar branching lines had gone hugely still, holding the ash-

The iron casket began to conjure before it spoke. That was the only way I could explain the change. The house had settled into a brittle quiet after the listeners left, the kind of stillness that follows concession, when too important verity has been said audibly and the walls themselves feel to lean near to hear what comes next. Farhan slept in uneasy fractions, breath hitching now and also as if his body had n’t decided whether rest was safe. I stayed awake, seated on the bottom with my reverse against the wall, my wrist resting win- up on my knee like an immolation. The mark was dormant again, its lines faint and matte, but the