Page 186

"It could just be dramatic."

"It could." She underlines resisting confinement. "Or it could be precise."

I return to my journal. Several minutes pass before I realize my ink has run dry. I stare at the empty bottle. I don't remember using that much. I reach toward my satchel. Another bottle sits beside my hand. Full. Unopened. I frown. "Nyra?"

She doesn't look up. "Hm?"

"Did you put this here?"

"What?" She looks up.

"The ink." I point.

She looks at it, then looks at me. "No."

Cassian appears from between two shelves carrying a stack of loose pages. "Put what where?" He asks.

"Nothing." I open the bottle and continue writing.

An hour later, coffee appears. Not tea. Coffee. Strong enough that I smell it before I see the cup. It sits near the top corner of my parchment, positioned carefully away from the ink. Still warm. I glance around. Cassian is halfway across the Archive arguing with Nyra about whether one report belongs under consciousness or manifestation interference. Caelen is inside the map aisle. Professor Neris stands near the gate. Rhyven has not moved from the architectural table. His head remains bent over a set of plans. I look back at the coffee. Drink it.

By noon, the ache in my wrist has become sharp. I flex my fingers beneath the table. Once. Then again. The movement helps for approximately three seconds. I switch hands and immediately smear half a sentence across the page. "Brilliant," I mutter. A quill slides into view. Lighter than mine. Narrower. Balanced differently. I look up. Rhyven stands on the opposite side of the table holding a rolled map beneath one arm. "This one's lighter."

I glance at the quill. Then at him. "Were you watching me write?"

"No."

"You noticed my wrist."

"Yes."

I tilt my head. "That requires looking."

"It requires eyes." I stare. He sets the quill beside my hand. "Use it." Then walks toward Nyra before I can answer. No explanation. Still, when I wrap my fingers around the new quill, the pressure along my wrist immediately eases. I look toward him. He is already discussing a sealed corridor beneath the western wing as though nothing happened.

We eat lunch over the records. Bread. Cheese. Apples. Nothing that risks staining the pages. Caelen enforces that rule with more authority than Professor Neris. Cassian reaches for a second apple while reading a testimony and nearly places it directly on a map. Caelen catches his wrist. "No."

Cassian looks down. Then up. "I wasn't—" He starts.

"You were." Caelen interrupts him.

"I had control." Cassian insists.

"You had fruit." Nyra quietly moves the map farther away.

Cassian looks betrayed. "No one trusts me."

"Correct," Rhyven says without lifting his eyes from his notes. I hide a smile behind my cup.

The work continues. Hours begin losing shape. I stop thinking in time and start thinking in documents. Three copied journals. Eight witness statements. Two maps. Four reports mentioning a ward's failure to recognize its keeper. One student account describing a classroom where everyone's manifestation stopped at once. Another describing the return. Not gradual. Violent. Every piece confirms what we already fear while refusing to explain it. The Hollowborn are present everywhere in the records. Not by name. By effect. Silence. Interruption. Absence. Disorientation. The same fingerprints across centuries.

Late in the afternoon, Nyra begins building a second index. Not by date. By symptom. Cassian brings her another report. She reads the first page and immediately moves it from ward disturbance to consciousness. "Why?" he asks.

"The ward failed after the keeper became disoriented."

"That could be coincidence."

"It could." She writes a small question mark beside the entry. "But the order matters."