Herlan lingered behind him for some time — long enough for the silence to thicken and breathe between them. Ryneth didn't turn. He could sense the unease in the young copyist's steps, the quiet friction of hesitation.
At last, he spoke — softly, but with a calm that carried too much weight.
"Leslie knew too much, Herlan. That's what led to her demise."
Herlan froze where he stood, a nervous laugh slipping out before he could stop it. "Her demise?" he repeated uncertainly. "What do you mean? Lady Rhyne's been—she's been in confinement for weeks."
Ryneth turned then, slowly, and the look he gave silenced the rest of Herlan's words. It wasn't cruel, nor particularly cold — just measured. A quiet look that seemed to press questions back into the throat.
"You should not get involved in this," Ryneth said, voice lowering almost to a murmur. "Whatever you think you know, keep it to yourself. Because if you speak of it — if anyone learns of what I took from her study — you'll be drawn into the same pit as I am."
Herlan blinked rapidly, his confusion giving way to fear. "Ryneth, I didn't— I mean, I never told anyone. I wouldn't."
Ryneth smiled faintly, though the expression never reached his eyes. "Good. Then you'll live longer than most who try to help."
A brief silence followed, filled only by the distant murmur of the Arcanum's lower halls. Then, for a fleeting second, Ryneth's vision blurred — not from exhaustion, but from that familiar flicker at the edge of sight. The world dimmed and then righted itself, leaving only a faint ringing in his ears.
He steadied himself before Herlan could notice, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve with deliberate calm. "You should go," he said at last. "And forget we ever spoke."
Herlan hesitated, clutching the scrolls to his chest. "R-right… of course." He turned and walked quickly toward the stairwell, his steps uneven, his mind already struggling to dismiss what he'd heard.
Ryneth watched him go. The light along the corridor felt colder now, the air heavier.
He had spoken of Leslie's death too easily — too naturally — as if the truth had already settled within him long before Arven's words.
A quiet thought surfaced in his mind: Perhaps I knew even before he told me.
Herlan's footsteps faded down the corridor, swallowed by the low hum of the Arcanum's halls.
For a while, Ryneth simply sat there — silent, unmoving — his hands resting lightly on the edge of the desk. The faint tremor in his fingers had almost gone, though his mind refused to still.
When he finally rose, the chair's legs scraped softly against the stone floor. The sound echoed longer than it should have.
He straightened his coat, brushed a thin layer of dust from his sleeves, and glanced around the room one last time. The air here carried that familiar scent — ink, wax, and parchment aged under candle smoke. Everything orderly, everything in its place. Just as it should be. And yet, it felt foreign now. Detached.
As he stepped into the hall, the faint vibrations of footsteps and turning pages rippled from distant rooms. Every sound felt sharper, as though the world had tilted slightly off balance.
He started toward the upper levels — where the administrative offices were kept — but each turn of the corridor seemed to blur faintly at the edges. Once or twice, the corners of his vision flickered with movement that wasn't there: a brief shimmer of someone turning away just as he looked, a sound of footsteps that didn't belong to anyone visible.
He exhaled slowly. Not again.
It wasn't quite a vision — not the full, unbearable kind. Just the echo of one. A sensation of having walked this path before, of knowing where each whisper, each murmur, would fall. His foresight didn't speak in words or symbols — it breathed through familiarity, through the subtle alignment of things that shouldn't yet be known.
A pair of apprentices passed him, nodding hurriedly. Ryneth returned the gesture with a faint smile, though his mind was elsewhere.
They'll talk about this later, he thought absently. One of them will mention the tired look in my eyes. The other will say I seemed calm. Neither will be wrong.
The thought wasn't arrogance — merely observation. Detached and precise.
He reached the upper hall just as the corridor lanterns flared slightly brighter — as they always did when the sun dipped behind the towers outside. He had known it would happen. Not because he'd looked, but because some quiet pattern in his thoughts had already seen it.
He began the ascent through the marble corridor, its long stretch lined with narrow windows and shelves of forgotten ledgers. Each step up the shallow stairway echoed softly, carrying into the still air. The Arcanum was quiet at this hour — too quiet — and the faint scrape of his boots against stone felt almost intrusive.
When he reached the door of the registrar's office, he paused. The plaque's engraving caught the light:
Administrative Division — Personnel Affairs.
His reflection wavered faintly in the polished metal.
Resignation. The word felt both heavy and meaningless.
He knocked once, twice. The sound reverberated sharply in the stillness.
Inside, he could hear faint movement — the rustle of parchment, the clinking of a penholder against glass.
He closed his eyes for half a breath before the door opened.
The clerk inside — a thin, bespectacled man he'd met countless times — blinked at him with polite surprise. "Ah, Translator Calder. Something urgent?"
Ryneth's reply came calm, deliberate. "Yes. I need to submit my resignation."
The man blinked again, unsure if he'd misheard. "Resignation?"
Ryneth nodded, a faint smile curving his lips. "I believe my time here has… concluded."
He placed the written note he'd prepared on the table — the words neat, unshaken. As the clerk began to stammer through the formalities, Ryneth's gaze drifted toward the window. The faintest tremor of motion caught his eye — a raven darting past, too close to the glass.
For a fleeting instant, everything froze. The air seemed to hold its breath.
He knew this moment. The angle of light, the shape of the shadow across the wall — it all felt familiar. As though he had already stood here, already seen this bird's wings cutting across the same patch of sky.
Then it passed.
He exhaled softly, letting the moment fade.
"I'll clear my workspace by tonight," he said, voice level again.
The clerk nodded awkwardly, still processing what had just happened. "Of course, Translator Calder. I'll process this immediately."
Ryneth turned to leave, the echo of his steps merging with the low murmur of the halls below. The air outside felt thinner somehow — lighter, but colder.
He wasn't sure if it was freedom he felt… or just another cage, better disguised.
The light shifted. The hum of memory broke apart.
Ryneth's eyes opened to the dim interior of his old apartment — walls unevenly lit by the faint, flickering glow of a candle. The sheets beneath him were rough and cold, carrying the faint smell of dust and ink. For a moment, the boundaries between memory and now blurred — the meeting, the corridors, Herlan's face, Arven's words — all lingering like smoke that refused to clear.
He exhaled slowly, eyes unfocused on the cracked ceiling.
It had all happened earlier that day — the meeting with the investigators, the tense conversations, the quiet warnings. Since then, he had only returned home to this room, a small pocket of solitude to collect his thoughts, feeling the weight of every word and every choice pressing on him.
Outside, the wind pressed faintly against the windowpane — a sound he somehow sensed a fraction of a moment before it came.