The storm broke at dusk.
Rain lashed against the Loomspire's towers, streaming down the obsidian windows in streaks of silver light. The city below blurred beneath the downpour — a mosaic of firelit windows, dark alleyways, and the glimmer of newly woven wards. The air carried a hum of static, not from the storm, but from the Codex itself. It hadn't slept since the night of the echoes. Its pages fluttered restlessly, like a heartbeat that refused to slow.
Mary stood before it again, her reflection fractured in the mirrored surface of the glass binding that wrapped around the ancient tome. The runes along its spine pulsed faintly — crimson this time, not gold.
She traced one trembling fingertip along the surface, whispering, "You're changing."
Behind her, Loosie's voice broke through the silence. "So are you."
Mary turned. Loosie stood in the doorway, soaked from the rain, her coat dripping on the polished stone. She looked older somehow — not in her face, but in her eyes. The Forge of Becoming had left its mark, even if the scars didn't show.
"Any word from Els?" Mary asked.
Loosie shook her head. "She's still in council with the outer circles. The Weavers aren't happy."
"I know."
"They think you've cursed the Codex."
Mary's eyes flicked to the window. "Maybe they're right."
Loosie's brow furrowed. "You gave the dead a voice, Mary. That's not a curse — it's a consequence."
"Tell that to the ones who can't sleep anymore."
Loosie sighed. "You can't undo the weave. You can only finish it."
Mary nodded. "And what happens when finishing it means unmaking myself?"
Before Loosie could answer, a sound cracked through the air — not thunder, but a single, sharp note. The torches along the chamber walls flared blue, their flames bending inward, as though bowing to some unseen presence.
Mary froze. "Did you hear that?"
Loosie drew her hammer instinctively. "Oh, I heard it."
The Codex vibrated. Its pages turned without wind, opening to a blank spread that shimmered like a pool of mercury. Words began to form — not written, but carved by unseen force:
SHE COMES.
A ripple of power surged through the room, extinguishing the torches. For one heartbeat, all was darkness.
Then the door at the far end of the hall blew open.
Wind and rain swept in, carrying with it a tall figure draped in a cloak of deep scarlet. Beneath the hood, pale silver hair clung to an angular face. Her eyes burned like molten gold.
"Mary of the Loomspire," she said, her voice smooth as glass but edged with steel. "By decree of the Crimson Court, I come to deliver my Queen's regard."
Loosie stepped forward, hammer raised. "You can deliver it outside."
The woman smiled faintly. "If I meant harm, you would already be ash."
Mary held up a hand. "Lower your weapon, Loosie."
Loosie hesitated but obeyed, stepping aside, though she didn't release the hammer's haft.
The envoy moved closer, her cloak trailing steam as it dried in the heat of the room. When she reached the Codex, she bowed — not to Mary, but to the book itself.
"So it breathes again," she murmured. "The last time I saw it, it was chained in shadow beneath the Citadel."
Mary's heart skipped. "You've seen the Codex before?"
The envoy straightened, meeting her gaze. "Once. When it belonged to my Queen."
The room seemed to tilt. The Codex pulsed once — a low, warning heartbeat.
"That's impossible," Mary whispered. "The Codex predates even the Court."
"Does it?" the envoy asked with a faint smile. "Or has the Court simply outlived the truth?"
Loosie snarled, "Say what you came to say."
The envoy inclined her head slightly. "Very well. My Queen has felt your weave. She knows the dead have stirred. She knows the threads burn again."
"She wants the Codex," Mary said flatly.
The envoy's smile deepened, though her eyes held no humor. "She wants what was promised. The Codex once belonged to her kind — to the First Blood. You've woken something older than you understand, Weaver."
Mary stepped forward. "The Codex doesn't belong to anyone. It writes itself through us."
"Then it will write her name again," the envoy said softly. "Or it will burn yours from its pages."
The air thickened. A pulse of power passed between them — not a spell, but recognition. Mary saw flickers in the envoy's eyes — wars fought in endless twilight, cities drowned in crimson, the rise of the Queen of Ashes. A being who ruled not through dominion, but through remembrance — for every vampire under her court carried the story of their turning like scripture.
And in that memory, the Codex had once been the holy text.
Mary drew in a steadying breath. "Tell your Queen I'm not her scribe."
The envoy's eyes glinted. "And yet you bleed her ink."
Before Mary could respond, the Codex flared — bright enough to burn shadows into the walls. The envoy flinched back, but not in fear. She extended a hand, murmuring words in a forgotten tongue. The pages trembled.
Loosie moved to strike, but Mary caught her wrist. "Wait."
The envoy's hand hovered over the Codex, and a faint symbol appeared on its surface — a crescent of red light encircled by thorns.
"She'll come for it herself," the envoy said. "But she offers you a choice."
"What kind of choice?"
"The same one every author must make." The envoy's voice softened, almost tender. "To finish the story… or to let it devour you."
Mary met her eyes, unflinching. "And if I choose neither?"
The envoy smiled — and in that smile was a trace of sorrow. "Then the Codex will choose for you."
The lightning outside flashed white, and for a moment, the envoy's reflection appeared in every mirrored surface — a hundred versions of her, each watching from a different time. Then, as suddenly as she had come, she was gone. Only the scent of rain and iron remained.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Loosie exhaled. "So. That's bad."
Mary didn't answer. She was staring at the Codex, where the envoy's symbol still glowed faintly. Beneath it, new words had appeared — written in the same ink the Queen had once used to seal her covenants:
THE THREADS REMEMBER THEIR MAKER.
Els entered moments later, breathless from climbing the tower stairs. "Mary — I felt the surge. What happened?"
Mary turned, her eyes glowing faintly with the Codex's reflection. "The Queen knows."
Els froze. "The Queen of Ashes?"
Mary nodded. "And she's coming."
That night, sleep refused to touch her.
She sat by the window, the Codex open on her lap, its light dim and restless. Every so often, she thought she saw shapes in the rain — pale figures watching from the rooftops, their eyes glimmering like dying stars.
She thought of the envoy's words — to finish the story, or let it devour you.
Her reflection in the glass looked older, sharper. She touched the glass where her eyes met her own.
"Not yet," she whispered. "You don't get to write me out yet."
The Codex pulsed softly beneath her hand — a heartbeat. Or maybe a warning.
Far below, in the drowned streets of the city's edge, a single thread of crimson light snaked through the water, finding its way to the surface. It pulsed once, then vanished beneath the waves — like a message sent ahead of something vast.
The Queen's coming was no longer rumor.
It was prophecy.
And in the halls of the Loomspire, the first fractures of the Weavers' unity began to show.