They didn't return to class that afternoon. Skipping lessons wasn't unusual, not for them — and certainly not after a day like this. The cold of the morning had lingered on their skin and in their lungs, making them feel wholly opposed to the idea of staying in freezing lecture halls until sunset.
The second letter arrived by hand too, carried by a courier boy with dirt-streaked sleeves and an apologetic face. They had already seen this particular courier hang out near the university a couple of times, doing odd jobs for wealthy students.
"To Mister Rupert. Mister Adrian. Miss Erika. Mister Helge." The boy counted them off, then vanished down the courtyard without asking for coin. The students, still confused by the contents of the other missive they had received that same day, decided against reading the contents in public.
The four of them sat beneath the iron and glass dome of the law department wing's empty study hall, the already scarce daylight dimmed by passing clouds. It had just started to rain. No one else was around. The room smelled faintly of chalk and tobacco.
Adrian broke the unadorned wax seal. Erika leaned over his shoulder to read, eager, breath tickling Adrian's ear. Rupert took place on the other side of the long table, and Helge stood, tense, arms crossed, watching one of the doors like he was expecting someone to suddenly come bursting through. The leader of the small group read aloud.
To my most esteemed and beloved fellow students,
You're no doubt wondering why my last letter was both elegantly vague and unhelpfully late. Apparently, postal routes through northern Eisenerz are about as reliable as Erika's relationship advice, which is to say one shouldn't rely on them unless their life is in immediate danger. If my calculations are correct, the missive arrived three days after it should have, and if they aren't then you could plausibly receive this letter first. In that case, I apologize for the confusing incipit.
So. Let me be clearer this time. This letter was written yesterday, on the 14th of December. If it arrives on time, on the 16th of December, that would be a true miracle. I'll be docking in Weyer two more days from that date, on the 18th, aboard a steam boat called Vivid Dream. You'll know it by the red stripe on the left side of the keel.
Hopefully I'll be alone, but there are people after me. I thought I managed to shake them off, but they could theoretically get on the ship again when we stop in Drava, tomorrow. I sincerely hope they don't think this vessel is worth examining again. If they find me before I get to Meyer, I may die.
Yes, really. Though I still manage to retain some of my brilliant humor, the predicament I'm in is no joke, I assure you.
I may have found a volume of a certain arcane value. I know you may wonder about how such an item came into my possession, but that is not the matter at hand. What's important is this: the book's original owners disagree with my interpretation of the word "found", or the phrase "came into my possession" and I'm starting to believe that, quite possibly, we might have different definitions for the verb "to steal". Regardless, I don't plan on returning the volume anytime soon.
As for the good news: the grimoire worked. Or, more accurately — something is working. I've begun to… perceive things differently. I won't put it in writing, not yet, I'd rather show you.
Meet me at the lower docks. Two hours before sunset, if I am on time, one hour even if I'm not. And, if Helge is not with you when you're reading this, tell him he was right — the water in Amlach is cursed. I'm fairly sure I will lose my left leg.
- Irvin
For a long moment, no one said anything.
Then Erika exhaled. "He stole a grimoire?"
Rupert blinked, utterly confused. "What's wrong with his leg?"
Adrian folded the letter slowly. He spoke forcing himself to keep an apperence of calm. "Settle down everyone. He's coming back. That's all that matters."
"No," Helge said. "It's not."
His voice was so low, something in it made Adrian look up sharply.
"We don't know what he touched. Returning here is not what matters at all right now. I had warned him against exploring the Amlach swamp, that place is such an obvious power spot that I doubt there's a way of entering or exiting the region without being detected."
He stepped away from the table, toward the tall arched window looking out over the campus great square. Rain streaked the glass. The river Isel was visible in the distance — a winding line of cloudy mercury among the crumbling houses of the common folk.
Rupert frowned. "Helge…? Are you all right?"
"I want to see it," Helge murmured, eyes already drifting far beyond the horizon.
"See what?"
"The boat."
There was a long silence.
Helge placed one hand against the windowpane. His breath came faster now, but more controlled, almost in sync with the falling raindrops hitting the glass. His shoulders lowered.
At first, nothing happened.
Then Adrian felt it.
It was like something opened in the air — not a sound, but a certain pressure. The kind of weight you felt on your head when thunderclouds gathered, or when a room went very still before an earthquake.
Helge's eyes rolled half-shut, lips parting just slightly enough for him to let out a tense breath.
A bead of condensation on the glass stretched, shifted, and fell in a pattern that defied gravity. Outside, a distant seagull veered mid-flight, as though something had brushed its wings.
Rupert stepped back. Erika's hand unconsciously reached for a little white-covered book she had hidden under her coat until now.
"I see the Vivid Dream," Helge said. His voice was strange now. Hollow, distant, watery. "It's true, it just departed from Drava. It's moving slow. Midstream, cutting fog," Then a pause. His pupils twitched, then dilated. "There's something wrong with the river."
The word wrong sank like a pebble into the ocean.
Helge gasped, his hand dropped from the window. The tenous light in the room seemed to tilt sideways for a moment — a warping, a distortion — and then it was gone.
Helge staggered. Rupert caught him before he hit the floor.
"Are you—?"
"Fine," his friend said, coughing. "I'm fine."
He wasn't. Neither was the window, which now bore a faint, salt-like crust on the inside of the glass.
Erika stared at it. "Gods omnipotent… he wasn't lying."
"No," Adrian said.
For the first time in weeks, he felt the familiar weight return to his chest — that terrible, thrilling certainty that the world was about to change.
He looked at the letter again.
"Two days."
Adrian had never felt so good.