The study's quiet pressed down like velvet, thick and suffocating. Lea's breath still rattled in her throat, shallow and uneven. She sat hunched in the armchair, arms wrapped tight around her book, as though the leather binding could shield her from memories cwing back to life

  Dawn lowered herself beside her, the metallic clink of her buckles soft against the stillness. Her eyes, keen and calcuting in court and workshop, now held only patience.

  "Lea.", she murmured, careful, steady, "You're safe. Whatever you felt just now, it isn't happening again. Not here."

  Lea shook her head, hair clinging damp to her temples, "It felt… like the Tome again..."

  She whispered hoarsely, "Like it was… whispering."

  Dawn rested a light hand against her wrist, not pulling, just grounding, "Then tell me what you heard, sometimes it dulls the teeth."

  Lea's lips trembled, her voice spilling in broken shards.

  "Sea…", she breathed, distant. Her gaze drifted to the dark window, as though waves might crash through at any moment.

  Then, sharper, almost frantic, "North!! Always north, always north!!"

  Her hands tightened around the book until her nails dug deep. Her voice cracked again, stumbling.

  "Will… the will of—no, not will—something else—"

  She gasped, shaking her head violently.

  Her words tangled, babbled, impossible to pin down.

  "Hands in the dark—faces with no mouths—""A crown—split—blue, gold—""The sea again, deeper this time, swallowing everything—""Something about a Nathan—"

  Each phrase dropped like a stone into the silence, rippling outward with no clear thread to bind them.

  Auger's expression hardened, his cane pressing against the floorboards. He watched with unusual stillness, though his eyes narrowed faintly at certain words, north, crown, sea.

  Dawn stayed closer, never letting go of Lea's wrist. Her voice cut gently through the chaos. "It doesn't need to make sense. Don't force them together, just let them pass, one by one."

  Lea's breathing hitched, then softened, the frantic edge dulling. The words grew weaker, trailing off into quiet fragments.

  "…nterns under water…"

  "…something watching from the cracks…"

  "…no end…"

  And then nothing. Just the sound of her uneven breaths, her face pressed into Dawn's shoulder.

  Dawn exhaled, rubbing slow circles across Lea's back. "That's enough. You don't need to fight the echoes tonight."

  Lea's trembling eased, exhaustion pulling at her eyelids.

  Across the room, Auger leaned back, the faintest shadow crossing his expression. He murmured, almost to himself, "Fragments… threads without a loom. And yet each has weight."

  But he said no more.

  And in the study's dim glow, with Dawn steady at her side, Lea finally let herself close her eyes. Though the whispers still lingered, heavy and unresolved.

  Dawn and Auger exchanged a gnce; unspoken, but aligned. Together, they guided her out of the study, Dawn steady at her side while Auger carried a mp ahead.

  The manor's halls were quiet, the flicker of gaslight glinting off brass pipes and polished rails.

  Lea stumbled once, muttering faintly, before Dawn tightened her arm around her waist and whispered, "Almost there."

  Her chamber was warm, quilt drawn tight, and bed already turned down by unseen hands. Dawn lowered herself carefully onto the mattress, brushing damp strands of hair from her brow. Lea murmured something incoherent, clutching at the sheets, then slipped into an exhausted sleep.

  For a moment, Dawn lingered by the bedside, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest. Then she turned sharply, gesturing for Auger to follow her back into the hall.

  Once the door shut, her composure returned sharp, analytical.

  She began, "They weren't random, not entirely."

  Auger leaned on his cane, his smirk absent, repced by careful neutrality, "You heard and understood what she said, where it sounded like nonsense to me."

  Dawn nodded, pacing slowly down the hall, her voice steady, methodical.

  "'Sea', that one is obvious. Seastones, they're everywhere. Perhaps her mind seized the most recognizable anchor."

  She ticked another point off with a gloved finger.

  "'Crown'... that, I admit, is murky. No clear link yet."

  She paused, her eyes narrowing as memory stirred.

  "'Cracks' though… that I know. Lady Keter has been named the Eyes of the Void, the One hidden in the Cracks of Time. If Lea heard 'cracks', it may have echoed from there."

  Her pacing slowed. Her tone softened.

  "Which brings us to 'North'..."

  For a fleeting instant, her face changed, eyes widening, her breath catching. A cold shiver rippled through her body.

  It was like stepping into a room where something had just been erased.

  Her words faltered.

  "The North…", she shuddered, then stopped altogether, pressing a hand against her temple, "Wait. What was I just…?"

  She blinked, confused. Her brows furrowed, frustration breaking through her usual poise, "I was connecting something... about the North. Something missing... it's gone."

  Auger tilted his head, voice low, "You lost your thought?"

  "No.", Dawn's eyes darted, searching the empty air as if the memory might still be there, "It was taken."

  Auger studied her carefully, his tone almost casual, though the tension in his grip betrayed otherwise, "And you don't remember what it was?"

  Dawn shook her head slowly, lips pressing thin.

  "Only… unease. My intuition screams I missed something vital, something is wrong with that pce. But there are no records of it... not in histories, not in maps."

  She looked at Auger, frustration sharp in her voice, "Tell me, what was I talking about? You heard me."

  Auger tapped his cane once against the floorboards. His gaze was calm, but colder than before, "You spoke of the North. And I have no idea what you mean..."

  The words rang heavier than they should have. Dawn's breath caught again, her unease spreading like frost under her skin.

  The sensation lingered... wrong, unnatural... yet the details slipped further away the harder she tried to hold them.

  Finally, she exhaled sharply, steadying herself, "Something doesn't want me to remember. That alone is proof enough there's more beneath this."

  Auger's smirk returned, faint but sharp-edged, "Then we're walking in deeper waters than even Keter warned us about."

  The two stood in the mplit corridor, silence thick between them. Behind the door, Lea slept fitfully, still clutching at her sheets, while outside, the night pressed heavily against the manor walls.

  And somewhere, far beyond their sight, the North stirred unseen.

  =0=0=

  The monochrome library was hushed as always, its endless shelves painted in shades of grey, the world outside its windows forever muted. Yet the silence was not stagnant. It vibrated faintly, like the pause before ughter.

  Lady Keter sat in her high-backed chair, skirts spilling across the marble like a pool of light. A book rested open in her hands, the pages dulled to shades of silver and ash. She traced one sentence with a gloved fingertip, her smile slow and satisfied.

  "The Por Express.", she read the title aloud, her voice lilting with mirth, "Children's tales do have a knack for burying truths in pin sight, don't they?"

  She closed the book with a gentle snap and let it rest on her p. The grin that spread across her lips was wide, gleaming, filled with both delight and inevitability.

  "Ah, Bathory. Clever little Erudite, clever enough to glimpse it… even if the world itself tried to erase it from her mind. That indeed deserves my gaze."

  From the corner of the library, where shadows pooled too deep for even monochrome light to touch, a presence stirred. It watched without moving.

  Keter tilted her head toward it, eyes gleaming, "Did you hear that, Mashhith? The North. Our dear princess brushed her hand against the veil and recoiled before it swallowed her whole."

  The shadow did not reply, but the air warped faintly, as if in acknowledgment.

  Keter's smile widened further. She leaned back in her chair, bancing the book across her knees, her gaze turning upward as though she could see the fabric of the world itself trembling.

  "At st, the compass is pointing. The answer to all mysteries of the past, present, and future... gathers at that pole.", she chuckled softly, shaking her head in mock disbelief, "And it thought it did erase all of its traces, forgotten. A bnk space on maps, nothing more."

  Her fingers tapped against the book's cover, thump, thump, thump, like the ticking of a clock.

  "But no bnk remains forever. Not when curiosity burns so bright."

  Keter's smile softened into something wistful, though her eyes gleamed with cold triumph.

  "All the questions of the world, all the mysteries and secrets, converge there. At the North. The Por Express is boarding, and soon…"

  Her words trailed, the grin twisting sharply again.

  "…soon, all passengers will arrive at the final station."

  The library seemed to shudder faintly at her decration, and "Miss Mashhith"'s shadowy form leaned closer, as if eager for the journey to begin.

  Rhaps