The journal was behind the third panel.
Vistra hadn't been looking for it — she'd been looking for the Warden's survey maps, the ones Morthan had used to track the Ironwyrm's movement patterns along the lake's thermal vents. She needed the maps because the Ironwyrm's schedule had shifted. For thirty-one years under Morthan's watch, the creature had surfaced at the eastern thermal vent at dawn and the western vent at dusk, a rhythm as reliable as tide. In the four months since Vistra had taken the mantle, the schedule had drifted. Dawn was the same. Dusk had moved — not much, maybe forty minutes later — but the shift was consistent, and consistency in anomaly was the thing that kept Vistra awake at night.
