It rained the next morning.
Thin sheets of water slid down the tall windows of the university's eastern wing, veiling the courtyard in a blurred gray mist. Lucien stood in the reading hall, his hands tucked in the pockets of his coat, eyes fixed not on the rain but on its distortion. As if the world itself had momentarily forgotten to be clear.
Across the room, Elise entered quietly.
She no longer hesitated in his presence. Their connection had settled into something quiet but tangible. Not closeness—not yet—but a kind of shared silence neither could explain nor reject.
"They're moving faster," she said without preamble, unfolding a newspaper onto the nearby table.
Lucien glanced at it. Another disappearance. Another empty street. Another name erased.
"The early stages," he murmured.
"The curtain's about to rise," Elise said, looking out toward the rain.
Lucien tapped the edge of the table thoughtfully. "And all the actors are being placed."
A moment of quiet passed between them.
"You believe he's entered the game, don't you?" Elise asked.
Lucien nodded once. "Klein Moretti. I can feel the ripple. Subtle, but real."
Elise was silent. Lucien knew better than to explain further.
He didn't know how he sensed it. It wasn't logical, not rooted in evidence. But there was a tension in the city lately. A hum just beneath reality, like a string pulled too tight. Those sensitive to fate, or to the hidden rules of the world, could feel it vibrating.
And Lucien had always been sensitive to patterns.
The rain persisted through the afternoon.
Lucien and Elise wandered the upper archives, where the less disturbed records were kept—maps of old mystic routes, fragmentary translations of forgotten dialects, research notes scribbled by scholars who had vanished without explanation.
He noticed how Elise navigated these halls effortlessly. As if the stacks recognized her. As if she, too, had once belonged to this world and was merely returning.
She paused beside a worn journal with a cracked leather cover. "This one."
Lucien glanced at the label. It had no title, just a catalog number.
He opened it.
The first page was handwritten in a cipher that danced dangerously close to symbols he'd seen in the black book. Ancient. Patterned. Not quite human.
His expression didn't change, but his mind filed away every curve, every flourish. He didn't need to read it now. Just to know it existed.
"Another echo," Elise murmured.
Lucien nodded. "From beneath the surface."
Elise reached for the next volume, her fingers hesitating at the spine. "Do you think it's started for real now? That fate has begun to accelerate?"
Lucien glanced toward a stained-glass window as thunder rolled distantly. "Yes. And it won't stop for any of us. Not anymore."
Later that evening, as twilight fell over the city, Lucien returned to his flat alone. The lantern light flickered against the walls, casting long shadows that moved with the rhythm of the rain outside.
He placed the black book gently on his desk. It was closed, yet the air around it was heavy—like it breathed when no one looked.
He lit a single candle and sat down, the chair creaking slightly beneath his weight.
He did not write.
He listened.
There were no words in the silence. But there was presence. An awareness.
Not malevolent. Not benevolent either. Just... watching.
A whisper brushed against the edge of his mind. Not a sound, but a shift in thought. As if something turned its gaze toward him.
His fingers hovered over the page.
There was no corruption. No madness.
Yet.
But he felt the edge of something vast and hungry stirring beneath the layers of the world.
He traced the edge of a recent page. The ink had not faded.
But something had changed.
The world was tilting.
And he would not be alone for long.
He stood up, walked to the window, and looked down at the street below.
Rain swept the streets clean. Lamps flickered with dim light.
There was no one watching. Not yet.
But soon, the veil would thin. And eyes far more ancient than the gods of this age would begin to turn.
Lucien turned away from the window.
It was not time yet.
And he still had much to prepare.
To be continued...