Custodes Liminis

BABETTE

“I’m sorry, but you’ve missed office hours,” the professor muttered, the words dulled by habit, “and while normally I’d be more than obliging, it’s exam season. I said in class, I don’t do last minute meetings with no warning when it’s the week before our final.”

Professor Zieliński, who allowed her students the mercy of calling her Dr. Z rather than attempting her name, had been certain she heard someone enter. When no one answered, she blamed age, stress, the building’s tendency to creak like her arthritic spine.

She bent over her desk, rifling through a drawer.

Then she heard breathing.

It came from behind her. Slow. Wet. Patient.

Her fingers froze around a stack of papers. Cold crept up her arms, bloomed behind her eyes.

“You’ve finally come for me, then?” Babette said, straightening too quickly, spinning her chair to face the room.

Something stood there.

She told herself it was a person. The mind always tries mercy first. But it was too tall, its proportions wrong, as if it had been stretched and never quite settled back into its original shape. A hooded cloak swallowed whatever face might have been beneath, the fabric hanging unnaturally still, untouched by the office’s faint draft.

A sound crawled out from under the hood. Not speech. Not quite. A warbled snarl, as though the thing were remembering how mouths worked.

“We will cease you prattling guardians.” the voice did not travel through the air so much as through her, vibrating in her ribs, her teeth, her marrow. “The veil is thinning…and we will rise.”

Babette forced herself to breathe. “You’ll never find all of us. Your followers don’t even know who they serve.” Her voice trembled despite her effort. “And whose body is that, that you’ve mutated and deformed to walk among us?”

The hood tilted, just slightly.

“We already have.”

Her mouth went dry. “What…?”

“We already have,” it repeated, savoring the words, “praefectus liminis. Atrium liminis mortuum est. You are the last.”

OTTILIE

Ottilie Moore started her morning the way she always did. She rolled onto her side, fumbled for her phone, and squinted at the screen before the day had properly decided to exist. Professor Zieliński had a habit of emailing in the small hours. Decades of routine had honed her into someone who worked best when the world was quiet. The messages were usually dense, precise, and relentless. Notes on Ottilie’s research. Corrections. Questions that demanded answers.

This email was different.

From: Babette Zieliński

Subject: URGENT - Read Immediately

If you are reading this, I have been found. The court is in danger, and I need to know that my secrets are protected. Meet me in my office at St. Scholastica University. Hildegard Hall, room 339. Come alone.

TYR HIT,

Babette Zieliński

Ottilie sat up, her blanket sliding to the floor.

The sentences were too short. Too clean. They read like a field report, not an academic message. Like something written by someone who expected the worst and had planned for it.

Dr. Zieliński had spent her life studying the past, but not the kind that stayed politely in museums. She taught Ottilie that history survived because people lied about it, buried it, or stood watch over it long enough for the danger to pass.

Ottilie didn’t question the word court. She didn’t question the instruction to come alone. She only noticed that Babette had signed the email formally, the way she did when she didn’t expect to explain herself later.

Ottilie swung her legs out of bed. She skipped the shower, pulled on clothes that would pass unnoticed, and paused only long enough to slip the small medal from her nightstand into her pocket. She didn’t look at it. She didn’t need to.

The drive to campus passed in a blur of red lights and half-finished prayers. Dawn clung low to the buildings, and the city lay quiet in a way that felt less like peace than something being held back.

Hildegard Hall greeted her with a handwritten sign taped across the elevator doors.

OUT OF ORDER

Ottilie exhaled sharply. “Naturally.”

She took the stairs two at a time, irritation holding her together until she reached the third floor. As she rounded the corner into the hallway, she stopped short and folded her arms across her chest.

Someone was already there.

A man leaned against the wall outside Professor Zieliński’s office, posture casual in a way that felt rehearsed. He was tall, at least six feet, broad-shouldered, his age hard to place but somewhere in his late thirties seemed like a good guess. He didn’t look like faculty. He didn’t look like a student either.

He looked like he belonged somewhere else.

“Are you looking for Dr. Zieliński?” Ottilie asked. Her hand slid into her coat pocket, her keys settling naturally between her fingers.

The man straightened. “Yeah. I knocked. Tried the door.” He glanced at the office plaque. “She was always here early. Thought I’d catch her.”

“You know her?”

“I was a student of hers. Years ago. Before she taught here.” He held out a hand. “Urban Di Gesu.”

Ottilie didn’t take it.

She thought the name sounded familiar, but Babette never spoke about her former students. She liked to keep her private life exactly that, private.

“Sorry, she’s never been very open about her life outside academics.”

Urban withdrew his offered hand, “and you are?”

“Ottilie Moore. Dr. Z’s graduate research assistant.”

Urban’s gaze flicked from Ottilie back to the office door, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Research assistant? You don’t happen to have a key, do you?”

“I do actually - had to make sure you weren’t stalking her first.” She reached into her pocket and drew out her keys, letting them jingle once before separating one from the rest. he office key caught the fluorescent light as she pinched it between her fingers and waved it lazily in the air.

The stairwell door banged open at the far end of the hall. A man in clerical black emerged, his roman collar unmistakable and his sleeves pushed up

“Are you here for Professor Zieliński as well?” He called, already closing the distance.

“We are. Just about to go inside, in fact.” Urban replied.

“Key?” Asked the priest, and Ottilie held up the key again.

“Good. Shall we then?”

“And why should we trust you?” Urban said. Ottilie smacked him for being so rude and was startled by how comfortable she felt scolding a stranger.

“I’m Father Alexander Herman,” he said, “I received an email from Professor Zieliński and was instructed to come immediately.”

Urban tilted his head, “Instructed by who?”

Father Herman met his gaze without hesitation. “By Zieliński.”

That seemed to satisfy Urban, but Ottilie never saw his eyes leave the priest.

As Ottilie slid the key into the lock, unease curled in her stomach. “It’s strange she’s not here,” she said. “She never misses early office hours. Even during finals. Especially during finals.”

The key turned.

The door’s hinges, covered in white paint, creaked open and Ottilie’s keys hit the floor.