The transition from the sweltering heat of Master Bram's forge to the sterile, chilled air of the Royal Archive always felt like crossing between two different dimensions. For Leona, this duality was becoming her natural state.
It had been six months since the Mithril Weave bonded to her skin. The "tattoo" on her wrist was a constant, slight weight—a cold reminder of the lethality she carried. During her shifts at the library, she wore long-sleeved tunics of heavy linen, the cuffs buttoned tight to hide the shimmering frost-patterns.
"Leona, the 4th Floor elevator is acting up again," Magister Torvin called out, his voice echoing through the marble rotunda. "The mana-pressure is spiking. Since you've got 'young eyes,' go check the pressure valves before the whole lift shears off the rails."
Leona nodded, setting aside a stack of genealogy records. "On it, Magister."
She made her way to the back of the Archive, where the "modern" side of Orestes showed its clanking, temperamental teeth. The elevator was a cage of ornate brass and reinforced glass, powered by a massive blue mana-crystal housed in the basement. As she ascended, she looked out over the city. From this height, she could see the "Smoke-Line"—the literal divide between the wealthy upper districts, where magic was clean and silent, and the lower industrial wards, where coal and raw mana-exhaust choked the sky.
She reached the 4th Floor—the Restricted History section—and stepped out. The air here was heavy with the smell of ozone and old leather.
She found the pressure valve behind a velvet curtain. It was vibrating violently, the brass casing turning a dangerous shade of cherry-red. To a normal technician, this was a mechanical failure. To Leona, who could sense the flow of energy like a pulse, it was something else.
Someone had tampered with the mana-feed. They weren't trying to break the elevator; they were trying to create a surge that would wipe out the Archive's localized security wards for a few minutes.
Leona narrowed her eyes. She didn't call for help. Instead, she reached out her hand. She didn't touch the burning metal. Instead, she let a microscopic thread of mithril extend from her index finger.
The thread was thinner than a human hair, nearly invisible to the naked eye. She threaded it into the tiny gaps of the valve's machinery. As the thread touched the mana-stream, Leona felt a jolt of pure power. She didn't fight it. She used her ice magic to "flash-freeze" the energy, turning the turbulent, hot mana into a stable, frozen flow.
The vibration stopped instantly. The brass cooled.
Who would want the security wards down in Restricted History? she wondered.
She didn't have to wait long for an answer. From around the corner of the "Ages of the Great Unification" stacks, she heard the soft scuff of boots. Not the heavy, rhythmic tread of the Archive guards, but the light, hurried steps of someone trained to move quickly.
Leona retracted her thread and vanished into the shadows of a nearby bookshelf. Her father's voice echoed in her mind: A librarian is a shadow that keeps records. An assassin is a shadow that ends them. Be both.
Two men appeared. They wore the livery of the City Watch, but their movements were wrong. They were too lean, their eyes too sharp. They stopped in front of a vault labeled High Court Proceedings: 940–950 A.G.
"The surge didn't happen," one whispered, glancing at the elevator. "The wards are still humming."
"Forget the wards. We have the skeleton-key," the other replied, pulling out a glowing, runic rod. "The Duke wants the original 'Argen Ledger' destroyed. If the girl or the mother find out what Silas left behind, the whole Southern Expansion project is compromised."
Leona's heart skipped a beat. The Argen Ledger. They were talking about her father. They were talking about her family name—a name her mother had told her to keep hidden at all costs.
The men pressed the runic rod against the vault door. The ancient gears groaned.
Leona had a choice. She could run and tell Magister Torvin, but the Duke's reach was long; the Magister would likely be dead by morning for knowing too much. Or, she could use the "Masterpiece."
She felt the Mithril Weave pulse against her wrist. It felt hungry.
As the vault door clicked open, Leona stepped out of the shadows. She didn't look like a killer. She looked like a ten-year-old girl with a messy braid and ink-stained fingers.
"You're not supposed to be in this section," she said, her voice intentionally high and trembling. "This is a restricted area."
The two men spun around, their hands instantly dropping to the hilts of their daggers. When they saw only a child, the tension in their shoulders didn't leave—it transformed into a cruel sort of relief.
"A little mouse," the taller one sneered. "Bad luck for you, kid. You should have stayed in the basement."
He drew a long, curved blade. In the dim light of the mana-lamps, the steel shimmered. He took a step toward her.
Leona didn't move. She didn't scream.
"My father told me that people who hunt mice often forget to look for the snake," she said. Her voice had dropped an octave. The trembling was gone. It was replaced by a chill that seemed to sap the very light from the room.
The man laughed, lunging forward.
Leona flicked her wrist.
Five threads of mithril exploded from her hand, fanning out like a web. They were laced with her frost magic, turning the silver filaments into serrated wires of absolute zero.
The man didn't even see them. He felt a sudden, sharp sting across his throat, his wrists, and his knees. He took one more step, then his legs simply gave way. He didn't fall; he fell apart. The threads had sliced through muscle and bone with the effortless grace of a hot wire through wax.
There was no blood—not yet. The wounds were instantly frozen shut by the ice magic bonded to the threads.
The second man froze. He looked at his partner, who was now a heap of frozen limbs on the floor, then at the girl.
"What... what are you?" he gasped, his voice cracking.
Leona stepped forward, the threads retracting and coiling around her fingers like silver vipers. "I'm the librarian," she whispered. "And you're overdue for a return."
She didn't kill the second man. Not yet. She needed information.
With a practiced movement, she sent a single thread looping around his neck, tightening just enough to draw a bead of frozen blood.
"The Argen Ledger," she said, pointing to the vault. "Tell me why the Duke wants it, and I might let you live long enough to reach the magistrate."
The man began to shake. "It's... it's not just a ledger. It's a list. Silas wasn't just a hunter. He was the King of Assassins because he kept the 'Gray Book.' Every noble who paid for a hit, every bribe, every secret that built this 'modern' kingdom... it's all in there. The Duke wants it to burn. He wants the past to stay dead."
Leona looked at the vault. Her father hadn't just been a killer; he had been a blackmailer. He had held the throat of the nobility in his hands.
"Thank you," Leona said.
"You'll let me go?" the man pleaded.
Leona looked at the body of the first man, then back at the survivor. "My father also taught me that a witness is just a loose thread."
She flicked her finger. The silver line tightened.
Ten minutes later, Leona Argen was back at her desk in the basement. Her sleeves were buttoned. Her hair was neat. She was calmly filing a report about a "minor mana-leak" in the elevator system.
But tucked into her tunic, hidden against her heart, was a small, leather-bound book she had pulled from the vault before the guards arrived.
She had started the day as a girl hiding from a conspiracy. By the time the moon rose over Orestes, she had become the one holding the leash.