Since the town continued dismantling its silence, Austmark had a completely different atmosphere.
Lucian stood at the fountain where he and Alice had been last night. Cold breeze stirred the water and below, the coins slept, completely unbothered.
But beneath that surface, something had changed. The town still smiled, still functioned, but cracks were forming.
He could feel it in the Grimoire's subtle hum. He could feel it in himself.
Lucian spent the morning visiting the archive again, under the pretense of researching local funerary customs. The clerk smiled as usual, polite and careful, but a note of wariness had entered their voice.
"Is there something you're looking for, Mortician?"
"Just curious," Lucian replied, flipping through town records. "How long ago did Austmark adopt the Harmony Pact?"
The clerk hesitated. "Seventy-one years. After the Riverfall Collapse."
Lucian paused. "That was a mining disaster, wasn't it?"
