He would be rolling in his grave.
And yet.
I forced my attention back where it belonged. Then… something shifted. The next chapter opened to a page that felt different beneath my fingertips. Not visibly—no marks, no discoloration—but the texture was subtly wrong. Finer. Almost slick.
My pulse stirred.
I lifted the page to the light. Nothing.
And then a memory flickered to the forefront of my mind:Heat reveals what ink attempts to hide.
Slowly, I rose and crossed to the wall switch, plunging the room into darkness. I leaned over the page and exhaled, letting controlled warmth roll from my lungs.
Gold shimmered between the lines.
Runes. Draconic runes.
My heart jolted.
Carefully, reverently, I turned the page. More runes appeared, revealing genealogies of every noble house—names I knew intimately, histories I’d studied since hatchlinghood.
My father had insisted lineage was strength. That the past was fixed and what we knew was sufficient to move our clan forward. I’d tried to believe him because belief was easier than doubt. Now doubt burned brighter.
With each page I turned, the entries became more obscure. Until I reached a name I recognized too well. My oldest ancestor. The first of our line.
The text described him plainly: appointed a small stretch of land, granted modest wealth. Nothing surprising. Nothing extraordinary. He was, by historical record, unremarkable. And yet, his son’s entry gleamed with sudden prosperity. And his heir. And the next. Until?—
A jump. A nine-generation gap, then suddenly my great-grandfather. The same missing window I’d traced across the decline of our magic.
I stared at the space where pages should have been. Where truth should have lived.
Suddenly, an alarm chimed overhead.
I sucked in a sharp breath as cool air rushed back into the room, the temperature shift signaling over-warm conditions—my own fault.
Then a knock.
“Arthur? The alarm?—”
The door eased open, and there she was.
Artemis stood framed in the doorway, soft light behind her, her hair still slightly mussed, her expression gentle but puzzled.
She stole the rest of my composure with a single glance.
“It’s too warm in here,” she said. “Also… why are you in the dark?”
For a moment, all I could do was look at her. Curiosity shone in her eyes, and her presence steadied everythinginside me.
“I run hot,” I said, stepping closer. “Here.”
I held out my hand. She stared at it for a long beat, and I held perfectly still. When her small fingers finally slid into mine, warmth sparked up my arm so sharply I almost forgot how to breathe.
She let me guide her inside.
“The dark?” she asked quietly.
“I was starting to get a headache,” I lied. Before anything else could unravel inside me, I forced my focus back to the book. “Pages are missing.”
