the mouse squeaks (4)

The figure steps into the faint light of a guttering candle. It is tall, impossibly so, and wrapped in a cloak that seems to ripple like oil on water. Its face is hidden beneath a hood, but where eyes should be, there is only a void, a blackness so deep it feels like falling.

In its hand, long and bony, it holds a staff topped with a fragment of crystal that catches the candlelight and refracts it into jagged rainbows. The mouse does not flee.

It feels fear, a primal terror clawing at its instincts, but something in the book’s presence anchors it. The figure tilts its head, as though considering the small creature before it.