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It was perfect.

Smooth, slow, the most natural and deniable swing any door had ever swung⁠—

—until the hinge started screaming like a kettle.

Nate flinched.

Leo froze.

How could he have known this door would have a voice like that?

“Crap!” he cursed before he could stop himself. “Shut up, you stupid door!”

Nate did not turn around.

But his shoulders were shaking, and when Leo drifted around to see his face, the medium was biting down on a grin so hard he had to turn his laugh into a cough.

“Sorry,” he told the camera, strangled. “Dust.”

And then, to Leo’s genuine admiration, he pulled himself together. He cleared his throat, wiped at his eyes, and went back to the wallpaper as if nothing had happened—as if Leo had not just swung the loudest door ever behind him. He scraped. He narrated. He got another strip off and kept the camera rolling for maybe two minutes.

“Alright,” he told the strangers, then. “We’ll take a break there.”

He reached over and stopped the recording.

And then he sat down on the stairs and laughed until he had to hold his ribs.

“It’s not funny,” Leo said.

“It’s so funny.”

“I practiced for two days.”

“I know.” Nate wiped his eyes. “You tried so hard and then that door… It just went squeeeeeak.” He did an impression of the hinge. It was unflattering and, worse, accurate. “Shut up, you stupid door. You sounded so offended!”

“Yes, very funny.” Leo glared and waited for the man to compose himself, which took an unreasonable amount of time.

“Okay.” Nate stood up, still grinning, and went to the camera. “Come here. Look at this.”

“Why?”

“Because you did your job. Come look.”

Leo drifted over. Nate turned the little screen around and scrubbed backward through the footage. There was the hallway, and there was Nate scraping, and then…

A door moved without anyone touching it. The shriek of the hinge came out of nowhere in the quiet hallway and even Leo, who had personally caused it, felt something cold walk down his spine.

“Watch my shoulders,” Nate said. “Right—there. See that jump? Can’t fake that.” He played it again. “My viewers are going to lose it if I upload this.”

Leo looked at the empty hallway on the little screen. At the space beside the door where he’d been standing, invisible to the camera. The hinge screamed even though no one was there. No one had ever been there.

“It’s really good,” Leo said.

“Yeah.” Nate snapped the screen shut. He was saying something about his upload schedule while Leo was still thinking about what he’d just watched.

He hadn’t shown up on camera. Of course he hadn’t. He’d known he wouldn’t.

It was still an odd feeling.