The letter burned in Kael’s hands.

  Not with heat—with movement. The ink slithered like live things beneath his fingertips, the words rearranging themselves as he watched:

  "You already said yes. You just don’t remember yet."

  The silver-masked woman—Veyra, she called herself—stood framed in his attic’s crooked doorway, the shattered moon casting her shadow too long across the warped floorboards.

  Kael’s throat tightened. “This is some Archive trick.”

  “The Archive,” Veyra said softly, “would burn you alive before letting you near this.” She stepped forward, her gloved hand outstretched. “But I don’t want your obedience, Kael. I want your curiosity.”

  A drop of ink fell from the letter onto his wrist.

  It bit.

  Kael hissed as the blackness burrowed beneath his skin, forming a single word along his veins:

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  COME

  Veyra tilted her head. “Ah. It likes you.”

  The Drowned Quill tavern stank of salt and spoiled wine. Kael’s boots stuck to the floorboards as he followed Veyra to a back room where two figures waited:

  A gaunt man in a stained archivist’s coat, his fingers drumming a nervous rhythm on the table. Darien. Kael’s stomach turned. Of all the—

  And a girl, no older than sixteen, her arms wrapped in linen bandages that wept ink.

  “You’re late,” Darien sneered. His teeth were filed to points—a prisoner’s habit. “Still making everyone wait, Arcanis?”

  Kael ignored him, nodding to the girl. “Who’s—”

  Sylva, Veyra named her. The girl didn’t speak, only unwound a bandage to reveal skin carved with living script. The words moved, reforming as Kael watched:

  HE LIES

  Darien chuckled. “She only tells truths. Annoying, isn’t it?”

  Veyra spread a map across the table—not parchment, but skin. “The Athenaeum wakes. We leave within the hour.”

  As she spoke, the map’s veins darkened, forming a path to the ruins of Lysara. The drowned city. The one from—

  Your Death, Written in My Hand.

  Kael’s vision swam. The ink in his wrist pulsed, and for a heartbeat, he remembered:

  A black tower rising from the sea. A door that breathed. A promise carved in bone—

  The memory vanished as Sylva grabbed his arm. Her bandages unraveled, revealing fresh words:

  DON’T TRUST THE BOOKS

  Outside, the tide turned black.