Another night passed without sleep. Then another. A week slipped by, and rest never came easily.

  The words from the fragment clawed at her thoughts: and the glass shall bleed again. And the silver-eyed figure who had vanished into shadow… had he truly seen her, or had she completely imagined it?

  Another morning came when the Grand Archive’s doors yawned open; bronze hinges groaned like tired lungs. Inside, the familiar smell of parchment dust and tallow smoke was undercut by a faint sharpness, almost like the taste of glass.

  Before Lyra had time to settle her satchel, a familiar voice broke through her thoughts.

  “Colwyn.”

  She turned, her heart giving an involuntary jolt, and found Julen, the outspoken scholar from her first day, waiting near her desk. His dark hair was neatly combed, his satchel bulging with scrolls. Their assigned desks had placed them side by side all week, and he had been determined to make her acquaintance.

  She learned his father traded in spices and silks from the southern coasts. But Julen’s ambitions were quieter; copying records, indexing shipments, staining his fingers in ink much like her own father once had.

  “You’re late,” he said, though his smile softened the accusation. “Again.”

  “I’m not late,” Lyra replied, slipping behind her desk. “The bells only just rang.”

  “Mm. Tell that to Master Orell. He’s in one of his moods.” Julen leaned closer, lowering his voice. “They say the tremors reached the temple district. Split one of the Sanctum steps clean through.”

  Lyra’s quill hovered above her parchment. “Already? That doesn’t seem possible.”

  “Doesn’t it?” His brows lifted. “People are saying the glass could spill.”

  She swallowed. The fragment she'd been reading had said almost the same thing.

  Julen watched her too closely, as though testing how far he could unsettle her. Then his mouth twisted in a half-smile. “Careful, Colwyn. You look pale. Someone might think you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Before she could answer, a hush rippled through the chamber.

  Boots echoed; not the soft shuffle of scribes nor the sandals of traders, but the heavy weight of armour.

  Lyra stiffened. She had wondered when she might feel that feeling again.

  He stood in the doorway, precisely where she had seen him the week before. Although this time, he didn’t vanish.

  He filled the doorway without trying to. Broad-shouldered, built as though the world had tried to break him once and failed. There was something severe in the line of his mouth, in the stillness he held too well; a quiet, coiled restraint that felt dangerous.

  His pallor set him apart from the warm-toned scholars around him. Lyra did not find him frightening, but she did find it difficult to look away.

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  His silver eyes passed over Julen without pause.

  When they reached her desk, her chest lurched with a violent, winged flutter.

  So he had seen her. The sleepless nights had not been her imagination.

  “Guardian Caelith,” Master Orell said stiffly, stepping forward, robes whispering across stone. His shoulders were drawn back with restrained irritation. “You are far from your post.”

  “I have been sent by the Elders,” Caelith replied.

  His voice was low and smooth. The sound of it settled somewhere low in her chest and made her acutely aware of her own pulse.

  “The fragments require confirmation.”

  “Confirmation,” Orell repeated, the word sour. “From you?”

  Caelith did not react. He merely extended one gloved hand. Another junior scribe hurried forward with a sealed satchel.

  Lyra’s pulse spiked, again. It was her satchel. The brittle scripture she had been translating all week lay inside.

  “Wait,” she said, before she could stop herself. Her voice carried farther than she intended. “Those fragments, I have begun their translation.”

  The silence lengthened; long enough for her disobedience to become visible. Julen went rigid beside her. Orell’s lips thinned.

  Caelith turned fully toward her. The weight of his attention pressed against her spine, cold and deliberate.

  Her instincts screamed to lower her gaze, but she did not.

  Fine lines shimmered faintly beneath his skin; glass veins. So, more of the rumours were true.

  “Then you will bring them,” he said.

  Orell bristled. “Guardian, this is highly irregular. Apprentices do not—”

  “It is at the Elders' request,” Caelith repeated, without raising his voice.

  The words fell flat in the space between them. Orell held his gaze a moment longer, long enough for the tension to become visible, then looked away first. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

  No one spoke after that.

  The Umbralyn turned toward the side hall, cloak whispering across stone. The satchel hung easily in his grip. He did not glance back to see if she followed.

  Julen’s whisper was harsh against her ear. “Lyra. Don’t. You don’t speak to them. Not like that.”

  But she was already rising.

  Her hands trembled as she gathered her notes. Fear moved beneath her ribs, but so did something sharper. The thought of letting him walk away with those words, with the fragment that had burned beneath her fingers, was intolerable.

  So, she followed.

  The side hall was cooler, salt-tinged damp clinging to the stone. The murmur of the main chamber dulled behind them.

  Caelith stood at a long table beneath a narrow window, unsealing the satchel with unhurried precision. Each movement was restrained, almost economical.

  Lyra stopped a measured distance away.

  “Why would the Elders send you to study these?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

  His head lifted slightly. Up close, the silver in his eyes was not uniform; it shifted, like light caught beneath ice.

  “Because parchment remembers lies,” he said. “Shadow does not. What is hidden in ink bleeds clear in dark.”

  She frowned. “Do your kind always speak in riddles?”

  A faint pause. Something shifted in his expression. Interest or amusement, perhaps. It vanished almost as soon as it appeared, but she was certain she had seen it.

  “You’re a scribe,” he responded. “Understanding riddles is part of your job.”

  He turned back to the fragments as though she were no more consequential than the table beneath them. Irritation flared in her; bright, reckless, unwelcome. She stepped closer.

  “What are you looking for?” she pressed.

  He did not answer immediately. Then—

  The stone beneath her boots shuddered. Lantern flames guttered, dust sifted from the ceiling in a thin, whispering veil. Lyra gasped.

  Caelith’s head snapped upward. His hand moved toward the hilt of his blade, then stilled. So swiftly she might have imagined it.

  But the tremor passed as quickly as it had come.

  “What was that?” Lyra whispered.

  He did not look at her at first. He continued to hold his gaze at the ceiling, as though the stone itself murmured in a dialect meant only for him.

  Only then did he turn.

  His silver eyes cut toward her, sharper now as if planning to say something cutting.

  “We will continue tomorrow,” he said at last.

  He gathered the fragments and moved past her without further explanation. The air seemed to change in his wake, almost sending a rush of something through her as he moved. Lyra remained where she stood, pulse hammering.

  Yesterday, she had wondered if he had truly seen her. Today, she knew.

  And whatever had trembled beneath the Archive stones, it was no longer distant.