The cold breath of midnight clung to the boy's coat as he stepped from beneath the clocktower. His fingers tightened around the glowing orb. Behind him, whatever stirred in the shadows did not follow—but its presence curled like fog in his spine.
He crossed the square, his boots silent on the stones. The town was hushed, the way it always was at this hour. Only the ancient librarian's cottage held a pulse of life. From the window, warm light glimmered, flickering as if unsure whether to continue burning.
He knocked once. Then twice in a rhythm—tap, tap... pause... tap.
Inside, the light changed. He heard a shuffle, the click of a bolt, and then the heavy door creaked inward.
Ava Thorne stood with a candle in one hand and a carved wooden cane in the other. Her silver hair was pinned high and her eyes—sharp and storm-grey—narrowed at him.
"You're early," she rasped. "Or perhaps the clock is late again."
The boy stepped inside without a word. The cottage smelled of old paper, lavender, and the faintest trace of burned cinnamon. Books filled every surface, except for a circular table in the center where five symbols had been etched in chalk. Each pulsed faintly, the same green as his orb.
Ava peered at it. "You brought that?"
He nodded. "It started whispering again."
Her mouth tightened. "Then it's begun, just as the script foretold. The Sealing wasn't permanent. They never are."
He sat across from her. "What happens now?"
Ava turned and rummaged through a locked drawer beneath the hearth. She returned with a book so old its cover looked like petrified wood. The title shimmered only when viewed from an angle: The Archive of Acts Unwritten.
She laid it down before him, then carefully opened to a marked page. There was an illustration of the clocktower, the orb—his face—and something else: a hooded figure with no eyes, its hands stretched toward the sky like a conductor preparing a symphony of silence.
"You must find the other three," Ava said, tracing the page. "The Act wasn't cast alone. There were four of you, once."
The boy blinked. "But I've always been alone."
She smiled—a sad, knowing sort of smile. "Memory is the first thing the curse takes."
Just then, the candle flame bent sideways without wind. The symbols on the table blazed once—then vanished.
They know you've remembered.