I stopped right at the exit and turned to him.

  "Wait," I said. "How are they going to come?"

  Jo-Jo. Leah.

  I gestured vaguely at the space around us, though it was already fading from view. "How are you going to explain this to them? This house. All of this... the impossible."

  Alexander looked at me as if he had been expecting the question.

  "I won't," he said calmly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "They won't see it," he replied. "Not this space. Not the expansion."

  He paused. "They'll see Phil's old house. The kitchen. The living room. His couch. His table. Everything exactly as they remember it."

  I frowned.

  He looked at me more gently now.

  "Jo-Jo and Leah love Phil. And Phil loves them. They don't need to know more."

  His voice lowered. "And we need to be careful."

  "Because..." I began.

  "Because right now any unnecessary truth could cause harm," he finished. "Not to them. To him."

  He glanced inward, toward where Phil was. "And to the one who hasn't been born yet. The little Lactimol."

  He opened the door.

  Behind it was my world. My cold air. My snow. My street.

  We stepped outside.

  The air was ordinary—winter-cold, carrying that familiar scent of snow and chimney smoke. Nothing supernatural. No shimmer. No whisper. Not a single hint that I had just walked through a place that should not exist.

  Alexander spoke quietly as we walked, as though he didn't want the words drifting too far from us.

  "Part of the street, along with the houses, is covered by a reinforced security dome," he said. "Invisible. Permanent. Multi-layered."

  I looked around—at the fences, the streetlamps, the snowbanks I knew so well.

  "Sometimes," he continued, "at sunset, you can see faint bluish spheres. Very faint. People think it's optics. Reflection. Eye strain."

  He gave a small smile. "That works in our favor."

  "It protects against the Gruns?" I asked.

  "Yes," Alexander answered briefly. "This territory specifically. They sense the Lactimol. And they are drawn here—like to a wound."

  A chill ran through me.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "And my house?" I asked after a moment.

  He turned to me.

  "Reinforced as well," he said.

  We reached my house.

  It looked... exactly as it always had. No sign of recent chaos. Windows intact. Door unbroken. The porch lightly dusted with snow.

  "Good evening."

  We turned at the same time.

  Amanda Fox stood at the edge of the road. Her husband beside her. A small dog on a leash. The dog wasn't tugging forward, wasn't sniffing the snow—it simply sat and watched.

  Her voice was sweet. Too sweet.

  She smiled. But her eyes remained cold and sharp, like someone who isn't greeting you—she's assessing you.

  "Coming back?" she asked, looking from me to Alexander. "We decided to take a walk. Get some air. Make sure everything's calm."

  Her gaze slid slowly over Alexander, over me, over the house. The windows. The porch.

  Her husband nodded silently. The dog gave a short bark, as if confirming the statement.

  "Everything is fine," Alexander said evenly.

  "I'm very glad to hear that," Amanda replied with a tight smile.

  This time it felt like she was making a mental note.

  "These are strange times," she added. "One has to be attentive. People... hide a great deal."

  Something inside me tightened.

  "Have a good evening," I said.

  "You as well," Amanda answered.

  We walked to the door. I didn't turn around, but I felt their gazes on my back—sticky, measuring, lingering too long.

  "Unpleasant people," Alexander said once the door closed behind us. "Always snooping."

  "By the way," I remembered suddenly. "Amanda once told me that the first time you met her, you were looking for Phil's house—and you called him by a different name. A different surname. I keep forgetting to ask—why?"

  "It's no secret," Alexander said. "Phil, as we later discovered, moved here as an infant. He was adopted by a good family. Kind people."

  He paused, then added more quietly:

  "He's originally from Ukraine. His name was Pylyp Kravets. Before. I saw the document."

  He gave a faint smile.

  "In the Nesting. In his wallet. For some reason, he still carries it with him... even now."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "I think so he doesn't forget," Alexander replied simply. "And then it turned out his name is different now."

  The house greeted us with familiar silence. The Christmas tree stood where it had before. Ornaments. Lights. The scent of pine. Everything tidy, beautiful, domestic. No trace of chaos—as if the world had been carefully erased with an eraser.

  I stopped.

  On the floor, near the couch, there was a tiny dark stain. You could miss it—if you didn't know where to look.

  I knew.

  "Here..." I said quietly.

  Alexander looked and immediately understood.

  "Ida cleaned poorly," he noted without irritation. "In a hurry."

  Embarrassment stung, almost painfully.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I... back then... I really thought..."

  "It's nothing," he interrupted calmly. "You were defending yourself."

  A pause.

  "And it's good Pi-Pu was there. He applied the fliruses quickly. That helped a lot."

  I looked up at him.

  "So... you have blood. Like I do?"

  He hesitated. Just slightly. But I noticed.

  "Yes," he said at last. "My father was a serus. My mother was human."

  "So... that's possible?" I asked.

  "It is," he nodded. "Sometimes a serus is destined for a human."

  The word destined hung between us.

  "What does that mean—" I began.

  And at that moment Alexander suddenly pressed three fingers to his forehead and closed his eyes, as if pierced by a sudden pain.

  "Alexander?"

  He didn't answer.

  A crash echoed.

  Deep. Loud. The kind that makes the floor tremble and something inside your chest answer back.

  From the fireplace.

  "Stay here," Alexander said sharply.

  He touched my hand briefly, firmly—as if anchoring me—and then moved quickly toward the fireplace without looking back.

  "Alexander—" I started, but he wasn't listening.

  He bent down and looked inside.

  Another crash.

  Ragged. As if something inside the chimney was breaking outward. The light flickered. The air grew heavy, smelling of soot and metal.

  And then—black.

  From the fireplace, crawling on all fours, slowly, awkwardly—as if relearning how to use a body—a man emerged.

  Black from head to toe. Soot. Ash. Cinders. Hair matted. Face barely visible. He breathed heavily, palms pressed to the floor, as if he had just been turned inside out.

  I stepped back, unable to look away.

  And then—a voice.

  From inside the chimney.

  "Schei?e!" someone shouted in German. "Ich stecke fest!"

  The voice was angry, strained, familiar.

  "Frau Schwarzenegger?!" I blurted out.

  "Are you kidding me?!" Alexander snapped toward the fireplace. "Both of you?!"

  He was speaking fast, furious. "Couldn't you at least decide who delivers the message?!"

  I stood there, hands pressed to my chest, one thought hammering in my head:

  How did they even fit in there?

  How could two grown adults fit in a chimney?

  "I'm stuck!" Frau Schwarzenegger screamed from inside, nearly shrieking. "The Nesting isn't safe! The Gruns have breached the defenses! The vendor-guards at the entrance are dead! No one can stay there! No one! What do we do?!"

  Alexander swore under his breath.

  He placed his palms on the edges of the fireplace—and I saw something that made my vision swim.

  Space... stretched. Like thick fabric pulled apart. The fireplace grew deeper, wider, darker. The air hummed like a taut string.

  Another crash.

  And Frau Schwarzenegger—completely black, as if dragged from a coal mine—tumbled out of the chimney and landed on the floor on all fours, coughing, gasping.

  The first man had already pushed himself up onto his knees.

  He wiped his face with the inside of his sweater.

  And in that moment I recognized him.

  My breath caught in my throat.

  "No..." I whispered.

  It was him.

  The plumber.

  The one who had fixed my pipes.

  The one who had stood calmly in my kitchen, writing down the name of the missing part we needed to buy.

  And that scrap of paper, as it turned out, had led us straight to the Nesting.

  To Alexander.

  To all of them.