Rain had not touched Ashreign's upper quarters in three days. The clouds hung overhead, swollen and inert, as if even they feared what might awaken should they dare disturb the air.
Cassiel stood on a bridge that arced across the city like a stone rib, his gaze fixed on the sprawl below. Mist clung to the rooftops, dragging secrets behind chimney smoke and cracked stained-glass. The others waited behind him, quiet.
"You're brooding again," Mirae said, adjusting the clasp of her high collar. "That's my job."
"I'm not brooding," he replied automatically. "I'm thinking."
"You always say that before something explodes," Bastion muttered.
Below, the city stirred. Markets opened and prayers were whispered in corners where statues wept lines of magic that glowed faint blue at night. Ever since they'd found that cursed piece of Ilyan's memory, two versions of him standing on either side of a shattered mirror, nothing had felt certain.
Ashwen and Rue stood further back, arguing in hushed tones.
"He is not your responsibility," Ashwen said, clipped.
Rue's eyes burned. "He is all of ours."
Cassiel inhaled through his nose and stepped away from the railing. "Let's move. We're wasting time."
They entered the lower quarter through a side alley swallowed by ivy. The address they'd received, anonymous, hand-scrawled, ink still wet when it arrived, led them to a church long abandoned.
The wooden doors were ajar.
Inside, the air stank of wax and forgotten parchment. The stained-glass saints were wrong, their faces cracked, eyes gouged, halos melted into crowns. One held a bleeding bell in place of a heart.
"Charming," Mirae whispered. "Just screams 'friendly witness.'"
A cloaked figure sat near the altar, scribbling with frantic hands. Ink dripped from their sleeves. Around them lay rows of parchment, all curling as if they were alive.
The man looked up.
"You should not be here yet," he said.
"And yet," Rue said, stepping forward, "here we are."
He stared at her. His eyes were entirely white, as if all the ink had been bled from them. "You seek truths. Dangerous. Especially when they still write themselves."
"You're the Bound Scribe, aren't you?" Bastion asked.
"No," the figure said. "I'm the first version. The Bound Scribe became me… later. After the betrayal."
Cassiel's fingers twitched near his belt. "What betrayal?"
The man stood slowly. "Ashreign was never ruled. It was rewritten. The Crownless King was the first to resist. And your Ilyan… he may become the second."
The bell on the stained-glass figure chimed. No one had touched it.
Ashwen stepped forward. "You said truths are dangerous. Tell us anyway."
The Scribe's face contorted. "He was not supposed to exist. And yet… he does. Twice."
Mirae whispered, "The mirrored memory."
"Both are Ilyan," the Scribe confirmed. "Both are incomplete. You chase someone being pulled in opposite directions. One remembers love. The other remembers death."
The church pulsed. Candles flared to life, all at once.
"Which Ilyan do we find?" Rue asked.
"Whichever survives," he replied, then smiled without mirth. "But beware, Ashreign's Crown listens. The Sleepless Heir is not its ruler. He is its voice."
A scream echoed far below. Not in the church, beneath it.
They turned. The sound came again.
"The tunnels," Cassiel said.
The Scribe returned to his writing. "Leave now, or become part of the story too soon."
As they stepped outside, rain finally fell.
Only it didn't land.
It rose.
And from every bell tower across Ashreign, the bells tolled, soft, warbled, like memories being rung.