When Kuba wakes to find a tooth gone and a cryptic note on his pillow, Majka and Natalia follow a hidden trail into Filtronia's underground passages.
Filtronia always looked harmless after dark. The lamplight softened its streets, the shop windows glowed, and every passing face seemed to carry the same easy smile. But Majka knew better than to trust a city that polished its grin so carefully.
She was the first to answer Kuba's call that evening. He had just finished brushing when he froze in front of the bathroom mirror, one hand pressed to his mouth. A gap had opened where a tooth should have been. Not loose. Not cracked. Gone. On the sink lay a small, shiny capsule, and under it a scrap of paper folded so neatly it felt deliberate.
"The tooth has been taken by the Hooded Stone. Only those who know the secrets of brushing can get it back."
Natalia arrived minutes later, her sonic toothbrush clipped to her bag like a piece of stolen hardware. She read the note once, then again, her expression sharpening. In Kuba's lab, where bottles of mouthwash simmered under glass tubes and trays of dental tools gleamed under harsh light, the three of them bent over the capsule like it might bite.
Under the microscope, Majka found the mark first: a tiny symbol pressed into the casing, no bigger than a grain of salt. Natalia adjusted the focus, and the symbol resolved into a map - a twisted line of corridors, a sealed hatch, and one handwritten label: Candy Passage, beneath the Old Dental Clinic.
By the time they reached the clinic, the air below ground had turned damp and sweet, thick with the stale perfume of toothpaste and rusted pipes. The passage ahead was black except for a thin seam of light leaking through the first hatch. Kuba reached for the handle.
Something moved on the other side, slow and careful, as if it had been waiting for them all along.