Kael's skin burned where the ink writhed beneath it.

  Sylva's warning—DON'T TRUST THE BOOKS—now pulsed along his forearm in jagged, self-carving letters. The girl stared at him with hollow eyes as her own bandages slithered back into place, soaked through with fresh ink.

  Darien's knife was out before Kael could speak. "Cut it out," he hissed. "Before it spreads."

  Veyra's gloved hand caught his wrist. "Try that, and I'll feed you to the tide." She nodded toward the window.

  The harbor waters had turned thick and black, lapping at the docks like spilled ink. Shapes moved beneath the surface—not fish, but letters, forming and dissolving like whispers given form.

  Kael's vision swam. The map on the table (skin, it was skin) trembled as its veins rearranged themselves into a single sentence:

  "Lysara remembers its readers."

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  Some Time Later

  The fishing boat reeked of rotting parchment.

  Kael gripped the rail as the vessel cut through ink-dark waves, the crew's eyes glazed as if sleepwalking. Only their captain seemed present—a gaunt woman with teeth filed into quill-nibs. She hummed as she steered, the tune resolving into words:

  "Mind the gap, mind the shelf,Fourteen waits inside yourself—"

  Darien kicked a crate. "Shut it, witch."

  Sylva crouched at the bow, her bandages trailing in the water. Where they touched, the ink recoiled.

  Veyra stood apart, her silver mask reflecting the fractured moon. "You feel it," she said, not turning as Kael approached. "The call."

  A headache split Kael's skull. The ink in his arm had begun pulling toward the horizon, where the ruins of Lysara rose from the sea like a broken jawbone.

  Darien spat overboard. "We'll die there."

  "No," murmured Sylva. The first word she'd spoken.

  Her bandages burst.

  Ink surged up her arms in a screaming tide, forming a new prophecy across her collarbones:

  "THE LIBRARY EATS THE LYING ONE FIRST"

  Darien went pale.

  The boat lurched. The black water boiled.

  And far ahead, beneath the shattered moon, a shadow darker than the sea began to rise.