"Someone has to be productive." But the corner of her mouth twitched, and the tension in her shoulders eased a fraction. She glanced toward the corridor that led deeper into the stronghold—toward passages I hadn't yet earned the right to walk. "They also gave me a tour of the archive, Amaria. You should see it. Three whole chambers behind the Twins' alcove—floor to ceiling, scrolls so old the leather's turned to powder at the edges."
"I thought the Seer Twins guarded it."
"They do. Who do you think let me in?" Her eyes lit with a fire I rarely saw outside of battle—a fierce, almost feverish intensity. "But with the glyph-keys you're winning, we'll have access to more texts. Pre-fracture scrolls. Primeval texts. They have contacts with seers I couldn't reach alone, not out there." Her voice dropped, reverent. "It's everything I need to decode the Mirrored verses and the prophecy."
Her Memory-Weaving didn't just preserve information. She wove pieces together—saw patterns in the gaps that no one else even knew were there.
Those verses had haunted her since before I'd met her, since before either of us understood what my marks meant or what the Veil's bleeding would cost. She'd given up everything to chase those words—her temple, her safety, her mentor. And now she was closer than she'd ever been.
I watched her face, the way hope and hunger warred with her careful composure, and something complicated writhed in my chest.
"I'll get you through this," I said. The words came out rougher than I intended. "Whatever it takes. I'll keep you safe long enough for me to finish the missions and get the codex and for you to decode the prophecy."
Serenya's expression softened. "That's not—"
"It is." I cut her off before she could argue. "You're the only one who can crack the prophecy. Not just read it—you see the soul under the ink. Connections nobody else would find in a hundred years of staring at the same page. No scholar, no seer, nobody else does what you do with a text." I smiled. "I'm just the battering ram that got you to the library."
She didn't answer. Just reached out and squeezed my hand once—quick, fierce—then rose and gathered her things.
"Rest," she said. "You look like death."
"So I've been told."
She snorted and slipped out of the alcove, leaving me alone with the key's hum and the charm's faint pulse and the weight of promises I wasn't sure I could keep.
That night, Serenya dragged me to the central fire.
"You need to eat," she said, in that tone that meant arguing was pointless. "And you need to be seen. You can't hide in broom closets forever."
"Watch me."
But I went anyway. My legs burned with every step, and my hands—though the visible stutter had stopped—still echoed with a phantom vibration, like plucked strings that hadn't quite stilled.
The cavern's main chamber wrapped around us, thick with woodsmoke and the mineral tang of damp stone. Wavering light slid over the rough walls, while the fire at the center crackledwith a warmth that was probably supposed to feel welcoming. It didn't. Too many bodies. Too many eyes pretending not to watch.
Yet, Serenya perched on a flat rock near the flames, and I lowered myself beside her, my satchel pressed against my hip. The key stirred faintly through the leather. Still there, still mine.
A small knot of rebels had gathered around the fire—maybe a dozen, passing a wineskin and speaking in hushed voices. Ryla sat apart from the others, sharpening a blade with slow, methodical strokes. Torin leaned against her side, half-asleep. The Seer Twins were nowhere to be seen. Small mercies—those two looked at me like I was a specimen they hadn't finished cataloguing.
Brannick held court beside the flames, his broad frame folded onto a too-small stool, gesturing expansively as he spun some story I'd walked in on the middle of. He sagged with exhaustion, but that stubborn grin stayed fixed in place, like he'd forgotten how to take it off.
"—so there I am, knee-deep in sewage, holding a chicken—"
Maxx lounged on a bench nearby, draped across the wood like a cat who'd claimed the best sunbeam. His eyes, though—those stayed honed, tracking the room even as the rest of him performed indolence.
They found me. Of course they did.
"Well, well." He straightened just enough to raise his cup in mock salute. "The conquering hero emerges. I was starting to think you'd died in that corridor. Brannick wasveryworried. He carried you like a baby bird."
"I will end you," I said flatly.
"That's the spirit." He took a sip, unbothered, then tipped his cup toward Brannick. "No one believes the chicken, by the way. You've told this story four times. The chicken gets bigger every time."
"The chicken wasenormous."
"The chicken was a pigeon."
Brannick threw a pebble at him. Maxx caught it without looking.
