The statue changed again that night.
What was once white marble turned charcoal grey under the moonlight, and the hourglass glowed faintly. As if inviting us.
Alaira brought a lantern. I brought a dagger.
We circled the base of the statue, fingers brushing along the carved stone until I felt it—a seam. Thin. Deliberate.
A hidden panel.
With a gentle push, the slab gave way, revealing narrow steps winding into the earth.
"The founders never mentioned any crypts beneath the palace gardens," Alaira whispered.
"Because this wasn't built by them," I said. "It was buried by someone else."
We descended slowly. The further down we went, the colder the air became—not like a cellar, but like… time itself thinned.
The chamber at the bottom was lit with soft blue orbs floating midair. At the center stood a pedestal. Resting on it: a book.
I stepped forward, breath catching.
It was bound in black leather, etched with silver veins like lightning—and the symbol of the eye surrounded by broken lines.
I flipped it open.
My name was on the first page.
Not Evelyne's.
My real name.
And a line beneath it:
"THE VILLAINESS WHO DEFIED HER ENDING."
The book wasn't a prophecy. It was a record—of every change I had made.
Alaira stepped beside me, staring. "You're not the only one with a page," she whispered, pointing to the next.
Her name followed.
This place… it wasn't a tomb.
It was a timeline archive.
And someone had been watching.