The world snapped back together in jagged shards.
Lena gasped. Cold stone pressed against her spine, and the smell of damp soil and scorched paper clung to the air. She wasn't in the library anymore.
She was somewhere else.
Somewhere dark.
A suffocating, endless dark.
Until—
A tiny flame flared to life, hovering inches from her face. Behind it, Mira's eyes shimmered with firelight like a cat's.
"You're almost out of time," she whispered.
Her breath smelled like old books left too long in a locked attic.
---
THE FIRST WHISPER
Lena scrambled back, scraping her hands on rough stone. The flame jittered between them, casting shadows that moved too strangely at angles that didn't make sense.
Mira didn't blink. "The Witness is coming. It felt you fighting back."
Lena's grip tightened around the book in her hands. Its cover throbbed like a sluggish heartbeat. "You died," she said. "I saw your throat—"
Mira's fingers rose to her neck. For a heartbeat, the skin there split open—a jagged red grin beneath her hand—before sealing itself again.
"Death's more flexible here. The book changes what it wants."
The flame sputtered.
From somewhere deep in the dark, something scratched.
Not rats.
Fingernails on stone.
Mira's eyes widened. "It's here."
---
THE SECOND LIE
The flame died.
Blackness swallowed everything.
Lena's heartbeat thundered in her ears as the scratching grew louder. Closer.
Then—
A voice. Her voice.
"Lena..."
The Witness.
It didn't sound distant anymore. It sounded real.
"You don't have to be scared," it said gently, close enough for Lena to feel its breath on her skin. "I was scared too."
Something touched her arm.
Warm.
Alive.
Lena jerked away. "What are you?"
The dark shivered.
The flame sparked back—burning black this time—and lit up the thing standing in front of her.
Lena's breath caught.
It was her.
Same hair. Same scar above her left eyebrow. Same everything.
Except the mouth—
Unstitched.
Raw, red skin showing between ripped black thread.
It smiled. "I'm the first. I tried to destroy the book. So it destroyed me. Made me its keeper. Its voice."
Its fingers ran down the book's spine. "You see it as a monster, but it's not. It was just a girl once."
The first Keeper.
Trapped for ages.
Like Lena would be.
---
THE THIRD TRUTH
Mira grabbed Lena's wrist. "Don't trust it. It wants you to care."
The Not-Lena turned. "And you? What are you really, Mira? Just a fragment. Something the book spat out."
Mira winced.
Lena's chest tightened. "Is that true?"
Mira's grip hardened. "Doesn't matter. What matters is the name."
"What name?"
"The true name of the book," Mira said. "The one the first Keeper hid. Say it, and the book destroys itself."
The Not-Lena let out a wet, broken laugh. "You want to lose your voice? Your memories? Everything that makes you you?" It leaned close. "You won't survive it."
The scratching changed.
It wasn't scratching anymore.
Writing.
The book in Lena's hands flipped on its own, pages fluttering in a frenzy. Names flashed past—
Jenna. Dan. Varrick. Alistair.
Then—
Mira Sokolov.
But this one was different.
Not a death.
A confession.
"I lied. There is no name. Only the hunger."
Mira's breath shuddered.
The Not-Lena grinned. "Oops."
---
THE FINAL CHOICE
The floor trembled.
Cracks split the stone.
From beneath, ink burst upward—thick, living, black—twisting into reaching hands.
Mira yanked Lena back. "Run!"
They ran through the dark, ink slithering behind them like a living tide.
The Not-Lena's voice trailed after them, smooth as syrup: "You can't escape it, Lena. It's already part of you."
Lena's chest burned. Her vision blurred.
Then— light.
A doorway.
An escape?
Mira shoved her forward. "Go! Now!"
Lena stumbled toward it—
—and froze.
It wasn't a door.
It was a mouth.
A vast, toothless maw made of parchment and flesh, stitched in black thread.
The book's true form.
Waiting.
Hungry.
Mira's hands were at her back.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Then she pushed.
---