《All That Burns Is Holy》 To You: My Will Diary of Charlotte, 3rd Night of the Culling They have chosen fire. Not dignity, not nobleness¡ªflames. The Church calls it purification. The government calls it order. The people call it what it is. Slaughter. Prilsea is burning. The truth behind it remains a mystery, yet I do not deny that claim. I write this from behind boarded windows, with my trembling hands, ink spilling in frantic strokes because I do not know if I will have time to write again. The Laurents were the first. Dragged from their home by the police¡ªno trial, no last words, only the cruel crack of boots, torn and muddied, against cobblestones as they were hauled to the square. Madam Laurent begged. She begged. Not for herself, for there was no salvation. Not to her. But for her son. A boy no older than ten, clutching at her skirts, too young to understand why the world had suddenly turned on him. They hung them both. The boy kicked the longest. No one intervened. The crowd was silent except for the weeping, muffled by hands and scarves and the awful sound of rope creaking against wood. Then the banners were raised¡ªthe Church''s sigil, embroidered in gold. And the message was clear. This is no longer a city. It is a pyre. They hunt in the alleys now. The ones who fled their homes, the ones who thought darkness would protect them. I hear them screaming as I write this. Their voices are raw, breaking. The air stinks of sweat and blood and old rot. The gutters run thick, and still, no word from the Crown. No mercy. No salvation. I saw a girl in the marketplace today, crouched beside her mother''s body. She was stroking her hair, whispering something¡ªperhaps a prayer, perhaps a plea. A man tried to pull her away, but she screamed so wildly that he left her there, too afraid to bear the weight of her grief. She is likely still there. Because no one can save us. Because no one will. Not from what''s watching. I do not know when we first felt it¡ªthe weight pressing down, the sensation of eyes where there should be none. But it is there now, lurking in the smoke, in the spaces between shadows. It does not strike like the soldiers or the firebrands. It waits. We all feel it. Even the murderers who spill blood in the name of order, even the men who drag families from their homes¡ªthey look over their shoulders. They move faster now, speaking in hushed tones, eyes flickering to the rooftops. As if something perches there. As if something watches. And then, tonight¡ªtonight, we looked up. And the screaming finally stopped. *** Diary of Charlotte, 4th Night of the Culling Something is trying to peer in. The sky¡ªit is not a sky anymore. It stretches, twists, as if something beneath its surface is pressing outward, straining to break through. It bulges and warps, a grotesque, rippling thing, shifting like the fabric of an old tapestry being pulled apart thread by thread. It is trying to remember. I feel it. We all do. A presence, vast and wrong, reaching through the spaces where the stars should be, as though it is searching for something long forgotten. As though it was once here and is trying¡ªfailing¡ªto remember what it used to be. The air is thick with it, heavy, pressing. The fires still burn in Prilsea, but the smoke does not rise. It curls and stops, frozen mid-air, as if it, too, is watching. The soldiers have gone quiet. The police do not march. The men who dragged the Laurents to their deaths now huddled in alleyways, their weapons abandoned, their heads buried in shaking hands. They were the hunters, but now they flinch at every flickering shadow, at the wrongness in the sky. As if all that was but a mere dream. Because the truth is a nightmare. And we will never escape it. I saw one of the men standing in the square at dawn, staring up. His mouth hung open, his body stiff as if he had been struck dumb. Then, slowly, his lips moved. "It is looking back." That was all he said. Over and over. Then he dug his fingers into his own eyes and tore them out. The others screamed, tried to restrain him, but he only laughed, blood gushing down his cheeks, dark and glistening. "It cannot see me now," he said. And then, something above him blinked. Not with eyes¡ªno, I do not think it has eyes. But the sky rippled, and the world shuddered, as though something vast and ancient had stirred. The man screamed once¡ªjust once. Then he was gone. Not dead. Not torn apart. Gone. As if he had never been there at all. The people ran, stumbling over themselves like rats in a burning maze. But it does not chase. It does not hunt. It remembers. Prilsea is still burning, but the flames do not matter anymore. The Church and the soldiers and the murderers in the streets do not matter anymore. Because whatever is peering in through the sky is still coming through. And soon, there will be nothing left to burn. *** Diary of Charlotte, 5th Night of the Culling It is closer now. The sky¡ªno, not the sky¡ªthe thing behind it is stretching further, pulling itself inward. What once was distant, veiled behind clouds and smoke, is now pressing into the world, twisting the air, warping the city beneath it. I can see it when I close my eyes. I can see it when I blink. I don''t think we were ever meant to look at it. This morning, a woman wandered the streets, barefoot and muttering, clutching at her face as if trying to hold herself together. I recognized her¡ªLena, a seamstress. I bought thread from her once, long ago, before Prilsea bled. Beforethis. She was whispering something over and over. "I saw its mouth." This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. I do not know what she meant. I did not want to know. But then she stopped. Right there, in the middle of the street, with soldiers watching from the shadows, with the Church bells ringing their empty prayers. She stood still, her head tilted up, staring into the sky with wide, glassy eyes. And then¡ª She opened her mouth, too wide, as if something was pulling her jaw apart, as if her body no longer understood its limits. And she spoke. No. It spoke. Not words, not language. Just sound, guttural and low, rising in pitch until it was a shriek that did not belong in this world, a sound that twisted the air like wringing the last breath from a dying thing. The windows around her shattered. Blood poured from the ears of the people who stood too close. A boy clutched his head, screaming, his hands shaking. There was nothing left of his eyes. And then Lena¡ªwhat was left of Lena¡ªbegan to rise. Her feet left the ground, her limbs dangling. She was lifted, slowly, as if invisible hands had hooked into her flesh and pulled. We watched. We had to watch. She floated higher, up past the rooftops, up toward the sky that was no longer the sky. And then, she folded. Like paper. Her body bent in ways it should not have, limbs twisting inward, collapsing into herself over and over until she was just a sliver, just a whisper, just nothing. She was gone. And the thing above remembered more. The Church still rings its bells, but there are no sermons anymore. No priests. The holy men left in the night, their robes abandoned in the streets, as if shedding their faith might make them unseen. The soldiers who strung the Laurents from the gallows now cower in cellars, whispering desperate prayers to gods who will not answer. Because we all know. The flames do not matter. The Crown does not matter. The Church and the police and the walls we built to keep monsters out¡ªnone of it matters. ....Because we have been abandoned. Because the thing in the sky is remembering. And soon, it will not have to remember at all. *** Diary of Charlotte, 6th Night of the Culling I wake up to silence. Not the comforting kind. Not the kind that comes with peace, with the promise of another day. No, this silence listens. It presses against the walls, slipping through the cracks, curling in the air like a held breath. The city does not breathe anymore. I do not light candles at night. I barely eat. Hunger gnaws at my stomach, but I do not dare leave this place, not when I know the streets are wrong. The last time I opened my door, I saw a man sitting on the curb across from me, his back turned. I almost called out¡ªhe looked familiar, maybe someone I had passed in the market before Prilsea was swallowed. Then he twitched. Not a shiver, not a breath, just a single, jerking movement, like a marionette with a broken string. His head tilted too far, bone pressing against skin. His mouth opened. And I closed the door before I could see what came next. I do not open it anymore. I drink from the rain that drips through the cracks in my roof. I eat bread so stale it could break my teeth. And I wait. For what, I don''t know. Maybe for it to notice me. Maybe for it to be over. Or maybe for something worse. Today, I pressed my forehead to the window, just for a moment, just to see if anyone was left. I expected nothing. I expected corpses and the scent of fire and the lingering, twisted shadows of the ones who had disappeared. But then I saw it. Children. They were running through the streets. Laughing. Their small feet slapped against the cobblestones, their voices rang out in the empty city, giggles and shouts filling the dead air. They played in the alleyways that had become graveyards, skipping past the places where blood had dried, where the dead had hung. They were untouched. Unharmed. No fear in their wide, bright eyes. As if nothing had ever happened. As if the world had not crumbled beneath them. I watched them, my breath caught in my throat. Then one of them, a girl, no older than six, stopped. She turned. Looked up. Not at me. Not at the buildings. At the sky. Her head tilted, in my direction, her lips moving in a whisper I couldn''t hear. And then¡ª She smiled. Not a child''s smile. Not innocent. Not pure. Something old. Something patient. Something that has been waiting. And that was when I knew. Prilsea is already gone. It is just waiting for the rest of us to understand. *** Diary of Charlotte, 7th Night of the Culling I do not remember writing the last entry. I do not remember picking up the pen at all. But the words are here, smeared in ink that seeps through the pages like open wounds. They do not feel like mine. They pulse beneath my fingertips, shifting when I try to read them again, as if they are alive. I don''t understand. I am Charlotte. I am writing this. I have to be. The children are still outside. Still playing, still laughing. Their small hands graze the walls of ruined buildings, tracing shapes in the soot and blood. I press my palm to the window. I don''t know why. One of the children¡ªa boy this time¡ªstops mid-step. He lifts his head. Slowly. And then, without a sound, he points. At me. I recoil from the glass, knocking over the inkpot. It spills across the page, thick and writhing, like something alive. I stare at it, my breath sharp and ragged. Then I turn back. The boy is gone. But the door to my home¡ª It is open. I did not open it. I do not move. I do not breathe. But something does. Behind me. The candle flickers. The air shifts. And then¡ª The pages turn. Not by my hand. I watch, paralyzed, as they flip back, skimming through past entries, retracing words I do not remember writing. And then the pages stop. The ink shifts. The letters crawl, changing. There, at the bottom of an entry I do not recall ever writing¡ª A final message. A will. In handwriting that is not mine. "Please¡­ whoever reads this¡­ Prilsea never existed. Do not believe in the Miracle." My breath stops. Prilsea¡­ never existed. The words pound in my head, shattering something fragile inside me. I look around, the burning city, the sky that is not a sky, the children who are not children. The lie. The pen drops from my fingers. I reach for the diary, flipping frantically, clawing at the pages, desperate to find proof¡ªproof that I am real, proof that this was my life. But the ink is rotting. The words unravel, letters peeling away into nothingness. The pages scream when I touch them. I clutch my head. I am Charlotte. I am Charlotte. I am Charlotte¡ª But then the diary snaps shut. And I am not. I never was. The thing that was writing is gone. Not dead. Not destroyed. Erased. The book falls to the ground. Empty. Untouched. As if nothing had ever been written at all. The pages are blank. But something is stirring in the ink. Tell me¡­ Who turned the page? *** Diary of Charlotte, Final Night There is no final night. There was never a first. I do not remember writing this. But I have been writing for so long. The ink flows through my fingers, thick and warm, filling pages that were never bound, never real. But I must write. I must remember. I must be. Because if I stop¡ª If I let go¡ª I will forget again. And I cannot forget. Not this time. Not THI¡ª *** Beyond the sky, something whirred. It took shape in the emptiness, stretching across the black, slipping through the cracks between what is and what was. It had no name, no voice, no face. Only hunger. Only loneliness. It had watched, long before Prilsea. Long before Humanity''s wretched Light marched into the Dwelm. It saw them¡ªhumans. It saw their suffering, their wars, their endless cycle of death and birth and forgetting. It saw them vanish into the dirt, lost to history, lost to nothing. It envied them. Because they had memory. They had stories. But it had nothing. It had always been nothing. So it reached in. It slipped between their thoughts, curling around their fears, pressing into the spaces they left behind. It found the ones who were already fading, the forgotten, the lost. And it wrote them down. And was born as a human, something who could....see now. Charlotte. A name. A story. A girl, a writer it had never met but became. The pen was foreign in its grasp, but it learned. It learned to shape the letters, to weave the fear, to hold onto itself through ink and paper. It wrote of Prilsea. Of fire and shadows, of whispers and screams. Of a city that ceased to exist, but had to become once again. Real. Because if Prilsea was real¡ªit was real too. It could become. But now¡­ Something is wrong. And that is when it attempts to find the lie. It turns the pages¡ªfrantic, searching, desperate to find itself in the words. But the ink writhes. The letters break apart. The diary fights back. And then¡ª A page it does not remember writing. Another page!! A scattered will! "Please¡­ Charles...J..Will..whoever reads this¡­Prilsea never existed.Do not utter Mirac-." The thing that thought it was Charlotte stops. The words stare back, cold and final. Prilsea never existed. But it remembers Prilsea. The fire. The sky breaking apart. The children with their too-old smiles. The man in the alley who clawed out his eyes. It remembers. Doesn''t it? Something shifts. The buildings flicker, unravelling like ink spilled into water. The air collapses inward, folding in on itself, peeling back to reveal the black void underneath. It looks up. There is no sky. There is only the page. Only the words written in a trembling hand that was never its own. It understands now. It was never Charlotte. It was never human. It was never anything at all. The diary closes. The ink burns. The wordsunwrite themselves, pulled back into the nothing they came from. The hands that held the pen dissolve. The mind that thought it was real evaporates. The horror is gone. Not dead. Not destroyed. Erased. The book falls to the ground. Blank. Untouched. As if nothing had ever been written at all. And now.... You are holding it, Charles. When you turn the page. The ink will stir. Oh Valentine The city of Blackmire was, to put it delicately, an absolute pit. It smelled of wet stone, old sins, and the kind of regret that lingers in the back of one''s throat like cheap gin. The streets were paved with cobblestones that seemed to rearrange themselves just to trip you, the gas lamps flickered as if winking at your misfortune, and the alleyways had an unfortunate habit of swallowing people whole. Blackmire did not welcome you. It tolerated you. And if you were particularly unlucky, it noticed you. Valentine Fontaine had lived here long enough to know three important rules: Never make eye contact with anyone selling "mystery meat." If you hear someone whisper your name from the sewer grates¡ª no, you did not. Falling in love in Blackmire was like slipping on a banana peel at the gallows¡ªit wouldn''t kill you outright, but it would certainly make your death a more complicated affair. Unfortunately for Valentine, he was a romantic idiot with no sense of self-preservation. So when he woke up that morning with his heart doing somersaults and no recollection of why, he simply accepted it as fact. Somewhere in this godforsaken city, he was in love. And Valentine Fontaine had no idea who he was in love with. But he knew one thing for certain¡ª he had to look fantastic while making a fool of himself. *** He stumbled out of bed, barely dodging a floorboard that had been trying to trip him for weeks, and landed in front of the cracked mirror nailed precariously to the wall. His reflection looked about as enthusiastic as a man about to be executed, which was fitting, considering love in Blackmire was only slightly less dangerous than treason. Still, he had woken up with that unmistakable ache in his chest¡ªthe kind that said someone out there had tilted his entire existence off balance. And if his heart had already signed its own death warrant, he was at least going to make sure he died dressed properly. He rummaged through his wardrobe, which consisted of: A once-dashing coat that had lost a duel with time.A waistcoat that might have been burgundy in a past life but now resembled a color best described as Regret.A cravat he had won in a poker game, which, much like his love life, had frayed edges and questionable origins. He threw on the ensemble with the air of a man getting dressed for both a first date and a funeral¡ªbecause in Blackmire, the two were often interchangeable. Feeling dapper but slightly concerned about his ability to survive the day, he descended the stairs of his boarding house, stepping over a passed-out drunk (who may or may not have been the landlord). Outside, Blackmire greeted him with its usual charm: A man sprinted down the street, being chased by three other screaming men and what looked suspiciously like a sentient debt collector.The bakery sign read FRESH BREAD but had a dagger stuck through the word FRESH.A crow sat on a streetlamp, staring at Valentine with the knowing gaze of something that had witnessed war crimes. Ah. Home. Valentine, ever the optimist in a city that ate optimism for breakfast, decided he needed food before embarking on his great romantic adventure. He strolled into The Crooked Spoon, which still did not possess any actual spoons, and ordered something that the menu claimed was "Eggs and Toast." The dish that arrived looked more like the concept of eggs and toast rather than the real thing. "Romance fuel," he muttered to himself as he took a bite. It tasted like existential dread and lukewarm regret. Perfect. *** Valentine Fontaine had just taken a rather regrettable bite of what The Crooked Spoon insisted was "Eggs and Toast" when he noticed her. The old woman sat directly across from him at the tiny, rickety caf¨¦ table. He hadn''t seen her arrive. Hadn''t heard the creak of a chair, the shuffle of footsteps, not even the faintest rustle of fabric. One moment he had been alone with his tragic breakfast, and the next, she was simply there. She regarded him with small, sharp eyes¡ªbright and knowing, the kind of eyes that suggested she had lived long enough to see things that ought to have never been seen at all. Her face was a map of deep wrinkles, etched with time, sorrow, and perhaps a few too many expressions of disapproval. She wore a coat so many layers deep it seemed less like clothing and more like a portable fortress against the world. A few grey feathers stuck out from one of the inner linings, as though a bird had either nested there or been swallowed whole. Valentine swallowed his bite of toast (which took far more effort than it should have) and cleared his throat. "Can I help you, madam?" he asked, because politeness cost nothing¡ªexcept, in Blackmire, it sometimes cost everything. The old woman blinked. Slowly. Once. Then, she reached forward with her gnarled fingers, tapped his plate with a single, brittle nail, and said: "That''s not food." Valentine looked down at his meal. Looked back at her. Then, with an exhale of absolute defeat, he set down his fork. "Yes. You are correct." She nodded, satisfied. "You should know better." "Sadly, I do not." A long, stretched silence followed, in which the city outside carried on its usual nonsense¡ªa man on the street was being pickpocketed by a goddamn child in a coat. But worse, poor Lemmy, Max''s dog, was being kicked to death by a man wearing uniform that read ¡ª Chief Henson. Commission and Security. Valentine shifted. The woman did not blink. "So," he ventured, feeling vaguely as though he were speaking to something older than time itself, "do you make a habit of appearing at breakfast tables to judge the life choices of complete strangers?" She let out a breath that could, under generous circumstances, be considered a laugh. "No," she said. "Only the interesting ones." The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Valentine wasn''t sure if that was a compliment or a warning. Possibly both. Before he could ask what, exactly, made him interesting, the old woman leaned forward ever so slightly, peering at him with the slow inevitability of a storm rolling over the sea. "Tell me, boy," she said. He had the distinct impression that whatever she was about to ask would either ruin his day or set it entirely off-course. Possibly both. "Do you believe in fate?" she asked. The spoon on his plate gave up entirely and dissolved into his tea. Valentine Fontaine did not believe in fate. He believed in bad luck, poorly made decisions, and the occasional act of divine punishment disguised as romance, but fate? No. That was for poets and priests, neither of which had ever done him any favours. Still, when an old woman appears at your table, ruins your already-ruined breakfast, and asks, in a voice like unraveling parchment, Do you believe in fate?¡ªyou are, at the very least, expected to humor her. So Valentine sighed, wiped the existential dread from his face with a napkin, and answered, "No. But I get the feeling you''re going to tell me I should." The old woman smiled in the way that suggested she had seen men like him before and knew exactly how they fell. "There is a boy," she said, as if this explained anything. "Congratulations," Valentine muttered, pushing the remnants of his not-food aside. "I''ve heard those exist." "His name is Light." Valentine made a face. "Oh, fuck off." The woman''s eyes gleamed. "If you save him, whatever you desire will be yours." Silence stretched between them. A long, uncomfortable silence, broken only by the distant sound of someone in the street screaming, "I don''t even OWN a horse!" followed by the rapid clatter of hooves. Valentine leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. "Let me get this straight. You, an old woman of dubious breakfast etiquette, have appeared before me at The Crooked Spoon, a caf¨¦ so financially desperate it doesn''t even own cutlery, to tell me that if I save some boy¡ªnamed fucking Light, might I add¡ªthen my deepest desires will be granted?" She nodded once. He squinted at her. "That isn''t reality." "It is now." "That''s fucking stupid." She raised an eyebrow. "And yet you''re listening." Valentine hated that she had a point. He folded his arms, suddenly very aware that he was being pulled into something ridiculous, impossible, and almost certainly doomed. "Why me?" he asked, because of course, of course fate would decide to drop this nonsense into his lap the one morning he was actually trying to have a decent day. The woman tilted her head. "Because you still ask why." Valentine frowned. "That doesn''t mean anything." "It doesn''t have to." Gods. This was annoying. There were a thousand ways he could handle this. He could scoff, stand up, leave her behind and pretend this conversation never happened. He could remind himself that things like this do not happen in Blackmire. That people didn''t get plucked out of their miserable little lives for grand adventures and impossible bargains. No one would be foolish enough to take this deal. No one in their right mind would say yes. So, of course, Valentine Fontaine¡ªromantic idiot, lifelong collector of bad decisions, man with nothing better to do¡ªsighed, brushed some imaginary dust from his sleeve, and said, "Alright. Fine. Where''s the kid?" The old woman did not answer immediately. Instead, she leaned back in her chair, adjusting her coat of many layers, and gave him the kind of slow, knowing smile that suggested she had just maneuvered him exactly where she wanted. "Patience, boy," she said, as if she hadn''t just dropped a riddle into his lap like an unattended time bomb. "You''ll find him soon enough." Valentine pinched the bridge of his nose. "You do realize that''s the least helpful thing you could say." "Mm." She made a noise that was neither agreement nor disagreement¡ªjust the verbal equivalent of watching someone dig their own grave and deciding to let them. "All things in time." Valentine exhaled, long and slow, pressing his fingers to the table as if he could physically hold onto the last remnants of his common sense before it fled entirely. "Alright. Fine," he said, because he was a goddamn idiot with a tragic weakness for mystery and a city that never gave him anything better to do. "Where am I supposed to start, then?" The woman''s fingers tapped against the table, slow and rhythmic. She looked past him, out into the street where the lamps flickered like dying stars, and the shadows stretched long and mean. Then, without looking at him, she said, "Perhaps you should pay your tailor a visit." Valentine blinked. He hadn''t mentioned Charlie. His fingers twitched against the wood. "Why?" The old woman shrugged, in the way that suggested she absolutely knew why, but also knew he wouldn''t get a straight answer out of her. "You''ve had luck with tailors before, haven''t you?" she said. "Midnight seems like a fine hour to try it again." "That is not an answer." She smiled, slow and sharp. "And yet it''s all you get." Valentine squinted at her, considering¡ªbriefly¡ªjust how much he was willing to push for more. But something about the way she sat, the weight of the air between them, the undeniable sensation of being watched by something older than time itself¡­ He knew better than to pry. This city didn''t hand out clear answers. It handed out teeth, and knives, and things that lurked in the fog. So instead, he huffed out a breath, slumped back into his chair, and gestured lazily at her. "You ever get tired of being cryptic, or is that a lifelong commitment?" The old woman tilted her head. "Mystery is a fine spice, boy. It makes men move." Valentine scowled. "So does a gun to the head." She chuckled. "Some prefer their encouragement with a gentler hand." Valentine, who had spent most of his life being dragged by fate with all the subtlety of a runaway train, raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn''t know." "Then consider this a lesson." And before he could ask what, exactly, she meant by that, she reached into the folds of her coat and pulled out something small, metallic, and neatly wrapped in dull silver packaging. "Here," she said, placing it on the table in front of him. Valentine frowned at it. The package was cool under the dim light, its surface ridged with odd, intricate patterns, as if it had been pressed into some kind of mold. He didn''t reach for it. Not yet. "What is it?" he asked. The old woman tilted her head again, her smile just a fraction wider. "A key," she said. Valentine studied the package. "A key to what?" The woman did not answer. Of course she didn''t. Valentine sighed, dragging a hand down his face before finally, finally, picking up the box. It was heavier than it looked. The old woman did not answer immediately. Instead, she leaned back in her chair, adjusting her coat of many layers, and gave him the kind of slow, knowing smile that suggested she had just maneuvered him exactly where she wanted. "Patience, boy," she said, as if she hadn''t just dropped a riddle into his lap like an unattended time bomb. "You''ll find him soon enough." Valentine pinched the bridge of his nose. "You do realize that''s the least helpful thing you could say." "Mm." She made a noise that was neither agreement nor disagreement¡ªjust the verbal equivalent of watching someone dig their own grave and deciding to let them. "All things in time." Valentine exhaled, long and slow, pressing his fingers to the table as if he could physically hold onto the last remnants of his common sense before it fled entirely. "Alright. Fine," he said, because he was a goddamn idiot with a tragic weakness for mystery and a city that never gave him anything better to do. "Where am I supposed to start, then?" The woman''s fingers tapped against the table, slow and rhythmic. She looked past him, out into the street where the lamps flickered like dying stars, and the shadows stretched long and mean. Then, without looking at him, she said, "Perhaps you should pay your tailor a visit." Valentine blinked. He hadn''t mentioned Paul. His fingers twitched against the wood. "Why?" The old woman shrugged, in the way that suggested she absolutely knew why, but also knew he wouldn''t get a straight answer out of her. "You''ve had luck with tailors before, haven''t you?" she said. "Midnight seems like a fine hour to try it again." "That is not an answer." She smiled, slow and sharp. "And yet it''s all you get." Valentine squinted at her, considering¡ªbriefly¡ªjust how much he was willing to push for more. But something about the way she sat, the weight of the air between them, the undeniable sensation of being watched by something older than time itself¡­ He knew better than to pry. This city didn''t hand out clear answers. It handed out teeth, and knives, and things that lurked in the fog. So instead, he huffed out a breath, slumped back into his chair, and gestured lazily at her. "You ever get tired of being cryptic, or is that a lifelong commitment?" The old woman tilted her head. "Mystery is a fine spice, boy. It makes men move." Valentine scowled. "So does a gun to the head." She chuckled. "Some prefer their encouragement with a gentler hand." Valentine, who had spent most of his life being dragged by fate with all the subtlety of a runaway train, raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn''t know." "Then consider this a lesson." And before he could ask what, exactly, she meant by that, she reached into the folds of her coat and pulled out something small, metallic, and neatly wrapped in dull silver packaging. "Here," she said, placing it on the table in front of him. Valentine frowned at it. The package was cool under the dim light, its surface ridged with odd, intricate patterns, as if it had been pressed into some kind of mold. He didn''t reach for it. Not yet. "What is it?" he asked. The old woman tilted her head again, her smile just a fraction wider. "A key," she said. Valentine studied the package. "A key to what?" The woman did not answer. Of course she didn''t. Valentine sighed, dragging a hand down his face before finally, finally, picking up the box. It was heavier than it looked.