Liora moved before her courage could catch up and talk her out of it.
She let her fingers slip into her satchel and found what she'd packed where she could reach it fast: a stub of chalk wrapped in cloth, ground from riverstone and bone-ash the way her village tutor had taught her. It was old-school in the unglamorous way, the kind of magic that didn't sparkle unless it had a reason to.
Mina's eyes widened just a fraction.
Liora drew one quick mark on the dark brick at her feet.
Not a sigil, not a circle. Just a simple line, but it carried an idea with it, pressed into the world like a thumbprint: This is a boundary.
The chalk line brightened, faintly. The lanternlight around it took on a sharper edge.
The paper figure stilled.
Its question-strip hovered between them, the words still wet-looking with ink.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?
Liora didn't answer. She didn't give it even the courtesy of silence.
Instead, she breathed out and spoke to the brick.
"In the old way," she murmured, voice low and steady, "a question is a hook."
Her chalk line warmed. A second line appeared beside the first, not drawn by her hand this time but by the magic itself, the boundary idea completing what it wanted to be.
Liora lifted her chin toward the parchment face and said, very clearly, "Hooks can catch hooks."
Mina made a sound like she was trying not to laugh and not to swear at the same time.
Liora pressed her palm to her chalk mark.
Old-school magic didn't demand power so much as it demanded truth. It wanted you to mean what you said, and it would test you for it. Liora felt the spell take hold of her wrist like a firm handshake.
"Ask," she said, and pushed.
The air in the lane tightened.
The paper figure's unfurled strip shivered, and the ink on it rippled like disturbed water. The question on its paper didn't vanish.
It reversed.
The letters rewrote themselves, turning around with a smooth, nauseating ease until the same strip of paper now faced the figure, not Liora.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?
For the first time, the figure seemed uncertain.
Its blank parchment face creased, faintly, as if the paper was trying to form an expression and couldn't decide which.
It lifted its arm again, pages fluttering, and produced another strip.
I DO NOT HAVE—
The sentence stopped halfway.
The ink blobbed. Then, as if offended by the hesitation, the chalk boundary flared and the unfinished strip also flipped, snapping back toward the figure's own face like a slapped ribbon.
I DO NOT HAVE—
The figure jerked, a sudden rustle of pages. The lane's lanterns flickered once, like eyelids.
Liora's heart hammered. She could feel the spell hungry for completion. Old-school magic hated half-truths.
"You do," Liora said softly, almost kindly, because she understood something now: this thing wasn't asking names for fun. It needed them. It collected them. Maybe it used them to walk the streets the way ink used paper.
Liora swallowed.
"Tell the street," she ordered, voice turning iron. "Not us."
The figure trembled.
Its chest—if it had a chest—swelled with a sound like a book being opened too fast. Then, very slowly, it reached into itself, between two layers of folded paper, and drew out a thin strip so pale it was almost translucent.
No ink at first.
Then the letters appeared, one by one, like someone reluctantly writing their own confession.
SABLE QUILL
The moment the name finished, the lane exhaled.
The dark bricks underfoot clicked, minutely, into a new arrangement. The lanterns steadied. The pressure at Liora's sternum eased.
Sable Quill bowed its paper head, a rigid, formal motion, and stepped sideways. It flattened itself against the wall like a page pressed into a binding, making room for them to pass.
Mina let out a long breath she'd clearly been saving. "Okay," she said, staring at Liora with something like awe and something like alarm. "That was… absolutely not tiny everyday magic."
Liora's knees wobbled, the delayed reaction of fear arriving late like a scolding aunt. She wiped her chalky palm on her skirt and tried to look like she hadn't nearly turned inside out.
"I didn't give it my name," she said, more to convince herself than Mina.
"No," Mina agreed, voice careful now. "You gave it its own."
Liora glanced back.
Sable Quill was still pressed to the wall, unnervingly still, but its presence felt different. Less predatory. Like a dog that had been reminded it belonged to someone else.
And then the street did something that made Liora's scalp prickle.
The chalk line she'd drawn didn't fade.
It sank into the brick as if being absorbed, leaving behind a faint seam of light that ran along the lane, threading forward into the city like a path only she could see.
Mina followed Liora's gaze. Her expression tightened.
"That," Mina said quietly, "means the shortcut noticed you."
Liora's mouth went dry. "Is that bad?"
Mina's parcels shifted again, seals glimmering. "It's not good or bad. It's… attention."
They walked on, faster now, and the lane seemed to cooperate—bricks rearranging just ahead of their steps, shaving corners off the world.
After a few turns that felt too quick to be real, the narrow lane spilled them out onto a wider street where the buildings were taller and cleaner, their windows set with pale glass that reflected the sky like still water.
High Row, Liora realized.
The air here smelled different: less sugar and smoke, more rosemary and old paper and something faintly metallic, like coins warmed in a pocket.
Mina slowed, then stopped near a fountain shaped like a stack of open books. Water flowed not down, but up, streaming from page to page in thin shining lines.
"There," Mina said, nodding toward a house across the street.
It was narrow, tall, and painted the color of cream. A crescent hung over its door, simple and gold. The windows were curtained in deep blue fabric embroidered with tiny stars.
Liora's letter seal matched it perfectly.
Her stomach flipped.
Mina shifted her parcels and looked at Liora with a sudden seriousness. "If someone inside asks you for your name, you can give it. But only if you want to belong to them."
Liora stared at the door.
Belong.
The word felt heavier than it should.
Before she could respond, the crescent above the door turned slightly, like a coin catching light. A soft chime sounded from inside the house, answering the city's laughter-bell.
The door opened on its own.
And in the doorway stood a man with ink-stained hands, a sleeveless apron over fine robes, and an expression like someone who had been expecting trouble and was pleased to see it arrive on schedule.
His eyes landed on Liora.
"Ah," he said, voice warm as tea. "My apprentice."
Then his gaze flicked to Mina, and his smile sharpened.
"And a courier. Interesting."
He leaned on the doorframe, casual as anything, and asked the question in the gentlest tone imaginable.
"What is your name, dear?"