Elias could only stare at his sister, Anna. Her smile—natural, chaotic, completely free of the cold, crystalline knowledge that had defined her for weeks—was the most beautiful, most terrifying thing he had ever seen.​The fading gold script on his hands, the residual light of the Librarian’s Oath, burned against the raw, visceral joy of seeing her whole. He had risked everything, achieved the impossible, and broken the perfect prison.​But the prison was a shell. The Oath was the sentence, and it was bound to him.​“Elias?” Anna repeated, closing the distance, her brow furrowing with genuine concern. “What is it? You’re trembling. And what are those scratches on your hands?”​Elias felt the Keeper's knowledge surge, providing the instantaneous, most efficient lie: a structural explanation for a personal crisis.​“I… I found the Prime Root,” Elias managed, forcing his mouth to form the words. “But the geometry was unstable. I was calculating the final variables when the main power gri