The cold night air bit at Ezra's skin as he pulled his coat tighter around himself. The gas lamps lining Whitmore Street cast flickering pools of yellow light onto the damp cobblestones, the mist rolling in thick from the river. It had rained earlier, leaving the streets slick and shining like polished black glass.
Dr. Alistair Crowne's residence was nestled in Blackwood Row, an aging district of Eldenwald where the buildings leaned just a little too much, where the air smelled of old paper and forgotten things. It wasn't a place people visited without purpose.
Ezra reached the scholar's townhouse—a three-story structure of dark brick and narrow windows. The curtains were drawn, the house lifeless. Had anyone been inside since Crowne disappeared?
The door was locked, as expected. Ezra glanced up and down the empty street before pulling a thin piece of metal from his pocket. Old habits. He hadn't always been a journalist. With practiced ease, he slid the pick into the lock, listening for the mechanism to give—
Click.
The door creaked open. Stale air drifted out, carrying the scent of dust, parchment, and something faintly metallic.
Ezra stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.
The house was silent.
Not the kind of silence found in empty places, but something deeper—a hush, like the walls themselves were holding their breath.
A thin layer of dust coated the floor, but there were footprints. Someone had been here recently.
Ezra's gaze swept the parlor: a tall grandfather clock, unmoving; a fireplace, cold and unused; rows of bookshelves lining the walls, their tomes stacked with precise order. He moved carefully, the wood beneath his boots groaning with every step.
Crowne's study was at the end of the hall. The door was slightly ajar.
Ezra pushed it open.
The room was in ruins.
Papers lay strewn across the floor, shelves overturned, books gutted with their pages ripped free. Someone had searched this place—and violently.
Ezra's pulse quickened. If someone had already been here, had they found what Crowne wanted him to take?
The Hidden Laws.
He scanned the room, mind racing. Beneath the floorboards. Ezra knelt, running his fingers along the wooden planks until he felt a seam—an unnatural edge in the floor. He wedged his pocketknife into the gap, prying upward. The board lifted with a groan, revealing a hollow space beneath.
And there it was.
A book wrapped in dark cloth.
Ezra pulled it free, unwrapping it carefully.
The cover was black leather, unmarked except for a single golden symbol pressed into its surface—the same sigil that had been on Crowne's letter.
The edges of the pages were worn, some dog-eared, others looking as though they had been torn out. A cold sensation crawled up Ezra's arms as he turned it over, feeling the weight of something he was never meant to hold.
The hairs on his neck stood on end.
Someone was watching.
A shadow passed across the doorway.
Ezra turned—
Too late.
A cold hand clamped around his throat, shoving him back against the desk.
A voice, low and rasping, whispered into his ear:
"You shouldn't have come here, Lockwood."