The square still rang with the echo of the first tap when the crack deepened.
At first, it was only a hairline fracture beneath Lio's boots, as though the cobbles were remembering how to break. But the memory spread. The ground sighed and bent, and from that wound, a second finger began to rise.
This one was thicker than the first, its surface darker, its patterns sharper. Where the first had tested, this one pressed forward with certainty.
The four Narrativeless bent lower. Their breaths tangled into a chord that was not sound. Loop. Hollow. Time. Wait. All exhaled at once, braiding themselves around the second finger as if crowning it.
Lio stood, chest heaving. His claws dripped ink that the cobbles absorbed instead of rejecting. His thin shadow lay at his feet, trembling but present, a proof he refused to surrender.
Shia's voice reached him, tight as bowstring. "Do not let it mark you again. The first wrote itself into you. A second might finish the page."
