Ezra's pulse hammered against his ribs.
The restricted archives were silent, yet the weight of unseen eyes pressed against him. Shadows stretched unnaturally across the walls, twisting in ways that defied the soft flicker of the desk lamp.
Hugo Bellamy was dead. And just like the corpse in the morgue, his eyes were gone.
Ezra forced himself to move, snatching the open book from the desk. Crowne's handwriting covered the pages in tight, urgent script, but the ink scrawled across the margins wasn't his.
"They are looking at me."
Over and over, the words scratched into the paper, growing messier, more frantic, as if the librarian had been writing them while something watched.
Ezra exhaled sharply, shoving the book into his coat. Whatever Crowne had discovered, whatever Bellamy had tried to read—it was getting people killed.
And he was next.
He turned sharply and strode toward the exit, his senses on high alert. The shadows seemed to shift at the edge of his vision, but when he focused on them, they remained still.
They were playing with him. Toying with his perception.
He gritted his teeth and pushed through the heavy door.
Whitmore Street – Later That Night
Ezra didn't go home. Not yet. His apartment felt like a trap waiting to be sprung.
Instead, he found himself at a small tavern on the edge of the Market District. Dimly lit, half-empty, the kind of place where conversations were kept quiet and questions weren't welcome.
He took a seat in the back, ordered a whiskey, and pulled out Crowne's book.
The journal was filled with dense, meticulous notes—Crowne's research on The Veil and the "Hidden Laws" governing reality. Diagrams, equations, symbols Ezra didn't recognize.
But then—
A passage near the end caught his attention.
"There is a place in Eldenwald that should not be."
"An address that does not exist in any city record. It appears only to those who know how to look."
"114 Ashmere Lane."
Ezra frowned. He knew Ashmere Lane. It was an old street in the Merchant's Quarter, lined with aging townhouses and forgotten businesses.
But 114? He had never seen it.
Something twisted in his gut.
He exhaled slowly, took a final sip of whiskey, and stood.
He was going to Ashmere Lane.
And if the house truly didn't exist?
He would find out why.
Ashmere Lane – Midnight
The fog was thick, curling between the gas lamps in ghostly tendrils. The street was silent, save for the distant hum of the city beyond.
Ezra walked carefully, his footsteps muffled by the damp cobblestone. He counted the addresses as he passed.
Then—
116.
Ezra stopped.
He turned back, frowning. There was no 114.
The buildings jumped from 112 to 116 as if nothing had been removed—as if 114 had never existed at all.
His breath curled in the cold air.
"An address that does not exist in any city record."
Ezra took a slow step forward, his instincts screaming at him to turn back.
Then—
Something shifted.
For the briefest moment, the space between 112 and 116 seemed to bend, like a curtain being pulled aside.
And there, where nothing had been before—
A doorway.
A single wooden door. No number. No sign.
It had not been there a second ago.
Ezra's throat tightened.
The book in his coat felt heavier.
He inhaled sharply. He had come this far.
There was no turning back now.
He stepped forward—
And knocked.
The door swung open.