The ink dried before he even finished the last word.
He set the quill down with mechanical care, then closed the book with a soft thump. All around him, shelves of hourglasses shimmered—each frozen mid-fall, time paused within their glass bellies.
Each belonged to a character. A life. A fate.
Only two still moved.
Evelyne.
Alaira.
"They weren't supposed to notice," he murmured. "She was supposed to die. Quietly. Like a punctuation mark, not a rebellion."
He stepped toward a massive mirror at the end of the hall. Unlike the others, it didn't show his reflection. Instead, it shimmered with scenes from the palace garden—Evelyne flipping through the black book, Alaira pointing to her own page, their faces lit with fearful resolve.
"You've wandered off-script," he whispered, amused. "But let's see how far you get before the ink runs out."
From the shadows, a second figure stepped forward. A woman cloaked in blue, her eyes stitched shut with silver thread.
"She remembers more than she should," she rasped. "You let her keep her memories."
"I had to. That's the cost of resurrection."
The man reached into his coat and pulled out another book—smaller, blank.
"Time to rewrite again," he said. "But this time, let's give the villainess a real reason to break."
He dipped his quill into a vial of ink that shimmered like stardust.
And began to write.