The workshop was silent.
Only the faint ticking of broken clocks filled the air. Little brass hearts that no longer kept time, their gears frozen in old dust.
Ashra sat by the fire, sharpening her knife. The soft rasp of steel on whetstone marked the slow passing of minutes.
Liran crouched near the door, back to the wall, blade laid flat across his knees. His gaze never left the shuttered window.
I sat at the bench, my father's journal open beneath a flickering lamp. My hand traced the faded pages, chasing words I half-remembered from childhood.
The Vault stirs. The Gate weakens.
Beyond the thin walls of the shop, the city whispered. Footsteps in distant alleys. Water dripping from eaves. A dog barking once, then silence.
"They're close," Liran muttered. "I feel it."
Ashra didn't look up.
"They won't strike yet. They're waiting. Watching. Like crows on the wall."
I turned a page. The ink was thin here, smudged with age.
A key of living gold. A circuit unbroken. The Chain complete.
No map. No formula. Only riddles.
"What did he see, father?" I murmured aloud. "What did the First Alchemist leave behind that you feared so much?"
Ashra's blade paused.
"Enough to make the Guild burn their own towers. Enough to make the Carrion Order tear out the roots of alchemy itself."
Liran spat onto the hearth.
"They didn't finish the purge. You're proof of that, Corwin."
I smiled faintly.
"So are you."
A shadow flickered against the far wall. We stilled.
The lamp guttered.
I felt it then—soft and cold against my mind. Like a whisper from far underground.
Corwin... Corwin Endren... the Circuit calls...
I gripped the edge of the bench. My breath froze in my chest.
Ashra stood fast, blade drawn. Liran raised his dagger, eyes scanning the dark.
The voice was gone. But something remained.
A faint mark burned into the journal's page—fresh, smoldering.
A single glyph.
The Carrion Seal.
Ashra swore softly.
"They know we read this. They feel it. The book's marked."
I snapped the cover shut.
"Then they've already touched the workshop. Every lock, every circle, every ward I laid—compromised."
Liran crossed to the bench, laying out black iron nails, silver thread, bone charms.
"Double the wards," he said. "Salt the doors. Quiet the hearth. No one sleeps tonight."
Ashra pulled down the shutters tight.
"We move at dawn. To the Chapel. Before they tighten the net fully."
I glanced once more at the journal, then slid it beneath the floorboards.
But the whisper still lingered.
Thin. Faint. Smiling.
The Vault stirs.
I knew then—when we stepped outside tomorrow, the last veil would lift.
And the old dark would come walking.