The Rare Texts Room smelled like dust and moldy paper. The air was heavy, filled with forgotten words and something older beneath. Lena stepped inside. The knife—Ruiz's knife—was cold against her wrist.
The lights flickered.
Shadows stretched too far.
At the end of the room, beneath a painting of some dead scholar, someone sat in a wheelchair.
Alistair Voss.
Her grandfather.
His face was scarred and ruined. His mouth was sewn shut with thick, black thread. But his eyes—God, his eyes—were alive. They burned with recognition.
"Lena."
The voice didn't come from him.
It came from the books. A whisper made of hundreds of dry pages.
She didn't move. "You're supposed to be dead."
A wet, choking sound came from behind his stitched lips. His hand twitched toward a pen and a notepad on the desk. He wrote one word:
LIAR.
Then the lights went out.
---
THE FIRST TRUTH
When the lights blinked back to life, the wheelchair was empty.
The notepad was on the floor. A new message smeared across it, either in ink or blood:
HELP ME.
A hand landed on Lena's shoulder.
She spun around, knife up—
—and froze.
Alistair stood in front of her. His face was whole. No stitches. No scars. He looked just like the old photos—sharp eyes, silver hair, a slight smile.
"You're not real," Lena whispered.
His smile stretched wider. Too wide. "Of course I'm not."
His skin rippled like wet paper, peeling away. Beneath it was a gaunt face—the Last Witness, watching her with empty eyes.
"But he is."
It pointed behind her.
Lena turned.
The wheelchair had returned.
Alistair sat in it, screaming silently behind his stitches, his hands clawing at something in his lap—
The book.
Not hers.
His.
Smaller. Older. The cover looked like it was made of human skin. The pages stitched together with strands of hair.
The Witness leaned close, its breath cold on her neck.
"Every Keeper gets their own book. His just never stopped writing."
---
THE SECOND LIE
Alistair's pen moved on its own, scratching out a message on the notepad:
IT'S IN THE WALLS.
Lena stepped closer. "What is?"
The ceiling above them started to drip.
Black drops splattered on the page, soaking into words:
THE ORIGINAL.
Then the shelves shook.
Books crashed to the ground, covers snapping open like jaws. From the gaps between the stacks, something came crawling—
Figures.
Keepers.
Dozens of them.
Their mouths were sewn shut. Their eyes were empty. Bone quills grew from their fingers, each one dripping with ink.
They were all writing.
Desperately.
The Witness chuckled.
"They tried to burn their books. So the books burned them instead."
Alistair's wheelchair rolled forward on its own. His book dropped into Lena's lap.
The pages weren't paper.
They were skin.
On them, in shaking handwriting, one sentence repeated again and again:
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Lena."
Lena felt ice slide through her veins.
This wasn't a warning.
It was a confession.
---
THE THIRD CHOICE
The Keepers moved closer, their bone quills twitching.
The Witness pushed a needle into Lena's palm.
"You know how this ends. You've always known."
She did.
The monk had sewn his lips closed.
Mira had died with her throat cut.
Alistair had tried to burn his book—and failed.
Now it was Lena's turn.
The needle burned. The thread wriggled in her grip, like something alive.
The book in her lap flipped open to a blank page.
New words appeared:
"THE ONLY WAY TO KILL THE BOOK IS TO BECOME IT."
Alistair's hands clamped onto her wrists. His mouth burst open, stitches tearing loose. He screamed silently—
Then came words.
Spoken aloud.
But not in his voice.
Older.
Darker.
"Sign your name, Lena."
The Witness leaned in close, teeth flashing.
"Or I'll sign it for you."
---
THE FINAL PAGE
Lena's reflection in the nearby window wasn't hers.
It was his—the shadow god's—wearing Alistair's face and grinning.
The needle pierced her thumb.
Blood pooled.
Black.
Ink.
The Keepers moaned around her, their quills scratching faster and faster.
Alistair's book screamed, its pages flapping like wings.
And the Witness?
It smiled.
"Almost time, Keeper."
Lena pressed her bleeding thumb to the page—
And the world shattered.
---