Before his very eyes, the floorboards split open beneath Tavian's feet with a sickening groan. He stumbled backward onto his heels as a black crack tore violently through the wooden planks, grinding to a halt a mere inch from the toes of his soaked leather boots. Deep beneath the house, something massive shifted—not in the manner of a creature crawling or digging through the soil, but rather rolling slowly, as though the entire structure had been built atop the spine of a sleeping beast."Mother!" Tavian cried out.Mara Rook remained on her knees in the shadow of the table, clutching her injured hand tightly against her chest as tears glistened down her pale face. Yet, her terrified gaze was not fixed on the splintering chasm in the floor, but rather on Hadrik Voss. The debt collector had abandoned every shred of his usual arrogance; his face was drained of all color, and the brass token clutched in his trembling hand clicked repeatedly against his heavy rings."Put it away," Mara whi

The monstrosity that wore Mara's face lunged without warning. Tavian barely had time to let out a strangled cry before the stranger slammed into him, shoving him sideways. They crashed together into a rotting wooden shelf, sending splintered timber and ancient debris cascading around them just as five black fingers tore through the space where Tavian's throat had been a heartbeat earlier."Move!" the stranger shouted, his voice harsh against the echoing dark.Tavian scrambled frantically across the stone floor on his hands and knees. Behind them, the creature struck the far wall with enough brute force to make the entire shop shudder. Its borrowed face twisted into a grotesque sneer, Mara's familiar features stretching beyond natural limits into a smile that no human mouth could hold."Why are you running from your mother?" the thing asked, its tone sickeningly light."Because my mother doesn't float!" Tavian yelled back.The stranger cast him a startled glance as they scrambled up. "

The little girl materialized on the dusty road directly ahead of Tavian, her small hands clutching the black wooden horse against her chest."Do not let him reach the gate," she warned, her voice unnervingly steady for a child.Ordan came to a halt so abruptly that Tavian nearly collided with him from behind, barely catching his balance on the loose gravel."What gate is she talking about?" Tavian asked, looking between the child and the archivist.The girl ignored Tavian's question entirely. Her dark, unblinking eyes remained fixed intently on the black markings hidden beneath his rolled sleeve."You have already paid the price once," she whispered. "If you make the payment again, the entire city will remember what you did."Tavian took a cautious step toward her. "Who are you?"The girl offered a slow, lingering smile. For one terrifying second, her face seemed to blur and shift, briefly revealing the worn features of an ancient woman, then the sharp jawline of a young man, and fina

The porcelain-masked collector lunged forward, reaching with pale, unblemished fingers directly for Tavian's throat.Tavian instinctively raised his marked hand to summon the ancient power, but Sella moved with breathtaking speed, striking him sharply across the wrist before a single spark could ignite beneath his skin."Are you trying to get us all killed in the span of a single breath?" she shouted over the rising tension.The collector's grasping fingers stopped barely an inch away from Tavian's skin. Its smooth porcelain mask tilted curiously toward Sella, and the heavy brass rings embedded in its palm began to hum with a low, vibrating resonance."Interference with official Treasury business is punishable by the immediate surrender of your identity," the creature rasped.Without hesitation, Sella snatched a heavy glass jar from the nearest shelf and hurled it with all her strength at the collector's face.The thick glass shattered violently against the porcelain mask, instantly r

Before Tavian could even draw breath to scream, his mother’s face vanished from his mind entirely.One moment, he could clearly picture Mara kneeling beside his childhood bed, her warm fingers brushing damp hair from his forehead during a feverish night. The next, the memory collapsed into a vast, terrifying void, leaving behind a hollow space so immense that he could not even comprehend what had just been stolen from him.He still remembered that he loved her with every fiber of his being. He still remembered the desperate, burning need to find her. But when he tried to visualize her soft eyes or her gentle smile, all he could summon was the silhouette of a woman-shaped shadow standing quietly behind a locked iron door.The masked stranger slowly withdrew his hand, his slender fingers dropping to his side."There, that is much better," the man remarked, speaking in Tavian’s exact voice. "Now we can finally converse like civilized men, without her memory constantly getting in our way.