Three investigators sat around a low circular table, the lamplight painting their faces in amber and shadow.
Arven Thane, senior in both age and rank, spoke first. His voice was calm, but carried the weight of command.
"So. The transcriber—Calder. What do we make of him?"
Morwen Hale exhaled through her nose, folding her hands. "A bit too confident for someone his age. Walks in claiming he can help us interpret Leslie's records as if he's done this for years."
Callen Dray looked up from the notes. "Maybe he's right. The linguistics department's been getting nowhere with her work. If he really studied under her methods—"
"He didn't," Morwen interrupted. "I checked. He was assigned to archives, not active research. Barely interacted with her."
Arven turned slightly, his eyes narrowing. "Then why step forward now?"
Dray hesitated. "Guilt, maybe? Or curiosity."
At that, Arven gave a faint, humorless smile. "Curiosity." He let the word linger. "It's the first step on every fool's climb."
Morwen frowned. "He said he wanted to help. Maybe we should take him at his word. He doesn't seem malicious."
"No," said Arven. "Not malicious. Just… unguarded. And that's worse, when it comes to the Reach. He is working without the Arcanum's permission under his own, he might end up in trouble if he's found out"
He stood, walking to the window. The reflection split his face across the glass — half in light, half in the dim shimmer of the storm outside.
"Leslie reached too far," he said quietly. "And now her mind has turned on itself. The Reach punishes those who look without restraint."
The room fell silent again.
Finally, Dray broke it. "So what do we do with Calder?"
Arven's gaze didn't leave the glass. "Let him work," he said. "But keep him close. If the Reach's shadow lingers on Leslie's work, he'll either see something we don't… or he'll fall just like she did."
The room had grown colder since Ryneth last looked up.
The lamp burned low, casting pale light over the paper-littered desk. Heran sat at the far corner, rubbing his eyes, clearly exhausted.
Ryneth flipped through the last few pages of the journal again, his mind turning over fragments like stones. The words trembled faintly on the page — not from the lamp's flicker, but from the tremor in his fingers.
A sound broke through the silence — muffled voices in the corridor, firm and official.
> "We're from the Directorate. Here to secure Master Leslie's materials for evidence."
Ryneth froze. Heran looked up, startled.
The voices grew clearer, boots scraping against the marble outside.
He could already hear the metallic click of the locks being tested.
"Evidence," Heran whispered. "They'll take everything."
Ryneth's gaze swept the room once — the scattered diagrams, half-burnt notes, that faint smell of oil and ozone still clinging to the air.
He didn't think. He simply moved.
In the few seconds they had, he gathered what his instincts screamed were important — a handful of papers filled with Vesric script, one of the smaller bound ledgers, and the journal itself. He folded them quickly, sliding them into his satchel beneath a layer of blank parchment.
"Come on," he hissed.
Heran hesitated, wide-eyed, but followed.
The door's latch clicked just as they slipped into the adjacent hallway, keeping to the shadow of the stone archway.
They moved quietly down the corridor, their footsteps almost soundless against the polished floor. From the next hall came the sharp edge of an argument.
> "You can't just walk in and seize them!"
The voice belonged to Master Leon, one of the Arcanum's senior curators — a tall, broad-shouldered man with streaks of gray through his blond hair. His tone was controlled, but his anger hummed just beneath the surface.
Opposite him stood two Directorate officers, their silver insignias gleaming in the torchlight.
> "By Crown order," one of them said, "all materials related to the subject fall under state jurisdiction. This office and its contents are now evidence in an ongoing investigation."
Leon's eyes narrowed. "The texts Leslie worked with belonged to the Arcanum — not the Crown. Some of those records predate the founding of your Directorate. They are not to be handled without clearance."
> "We'll take precautions," the officer replied curtly. "The Reach has already claimed one scholar. We're not waiting for a second."
Leon took a step closer, his voice low. "You think precautions mean anything if you don't understand what you're touching? Half those scripts aren't meant to be read anymore. Their patterns shift with perception — read them wrong, and you risk catching more than meaning."
The two men stared each other down, tension thick enough to feel.
From behind the stone column, Ryneth exchanged a glance with Heran.
He could see the younger man's throat tighten, fear mixing with guilt.
Ryneth pressed a finger to his lips. Stay quiet.
The argument carried on a few steps down the hall — Leon's fury a low, steady fire; the Directorate's tone, cold and procedural.
When their voices finally faded, Ryneth exhaled slowly.
"Let's go," he murmured.
They slipped out through a side passage, the satchel heavy against his side.
Only when they reached the open courtyard did he stop, the night air cool against his face.
Heran finally spoke, his voice barely more than a whisper. "You shouldn't have taken those. If they find out—"
"They won't," Ryneth said, though his tone lacked conviction. He glanced at the satchel, its weight almost pulsing with unease.
Somewhere deep inside, he knew what he had done wasn't just reckless.
It was dangerous.
But the thought that silenced all others was simple —
he had to know.
The streets were almost empty.
Cold wind threaded through the narrow alleys, carrying the faint smell of burnt oil from the lanterns. The lamps swayed in their casings, light rippling weakly across the cobblestones.
Ryneth pulled his coat tighter, his satchel pressing against his side with the weight of stolen paper. "Can't believe I spent an entire day scrummaging through her texts," he muttered, his breath fogging in the chill. "And still found nothing."
Heran had already gone his own way, vanishing down the eastern steps after whispering a final warning.
> "Keep everything that happened to yourself."
The words still echoed faintly, but Ryneth had pushed them to the back of his mind.
He walked on, boots scraping against wet stone, eyes half-focused on the road ahead and half on the thoughts circling in his skull.
> "If I couldn't find anything in a room full of her writings," he murmured, "what can I possibly do with only a handful?"
The question hung in the air, swallowed by the wind.
But as he turned the corner, his fingers brushed the edge of the satchel — and he felt it again. That subtle hum beneath the leather, like static before a storm.
He drew a slow breath, steadying himself.
"Maybe," he said quietly, almost to the night itself, "if I look precisely… maybe I can find something."
A faint flicker of light pulsed inside one of the windows above — too brief to be sure if it was real or imagined.
Ryneth didn't look up. He just kept walking, the rhythm of his steps falling in time with the whisper of his thoughts.
The key rattled in the lock before turning with a dull click. The door gave way with its usual protest — a heavy thud that echoed through the narrow walls of his home.
"Damn this door," Ryneth muttered, slipping inside and shaking off the cold. "If only my pay was enough, I could afford a hinge that listens."
His voice sounded too loud in the small space — a single room lined with books, loose parchment, and the faint smell of ink and dust.
He lit the candle on the table. The flame flickered, casting a tired orange glow across the cluttered desk. Shadows lengthened along the walls, stretching like tired limbs.
With a sigh, he unfastened his coat, hung it by the crooked nail near the door, and sat down. The satchel landed beside him with a soft thump — heavier now with what it carried.
He loosened the strap and pulled out the texts he had "borrowed." The unknown Vesric texts stared back at him.
On the table lay a small loaf of bread, hard and uneven. He tore at it absently with one hand, chewing with effort as he read.
The dry crumbs stuck to his throat. "Fitting," he muttered, "for my class."
He wiped the crumbs from the pages, eyes scanning each line carefully this time. No more rushing, no more glancing for patterns — just focus.
But as he read, a quiet unease crept in. The texts were ordinary, at least on the surface — essays on perception, geometry of sound, old Vesric annotations on rhythm and awareness. Yet the more he stared, the more he felt something beneath the words, a rhythm not quite of language.
He leaned back, exhaling slowly. "These same pages," he murmured to himself, "might've broken her mind."
His pulse quickened. His fingers hovered above the ink, trembling slightly.
> "Can't be fun without risks," he said softly — half-smiling, half-lying to himself.
The candle flickered again.
Just once.
Then steadied.
He turned another page.