Ezra's fingers tightened around the parchment.
The name written on it—it wasn't just ink on paper. It felt wrong.
Like it wasn't meant to be read.
His mind recoiled from it, his vision momentarily blurring as if something deep inside was trying to protect itself. His breath came unsteady, his pulse a steady drum against his ribs.
The man across from him—the keeper of this place, this wound in the world—watched him with patient interest, hands still resting on the desk, fingers tapping that same silent rhythm.
Ezra forced himself to speak. "What is this name?"
The man's lips twitched, something between amusement and pity. "That is not the question you should ask."
Ezra exhaled sharply. "Then what should I be asking?"
The man tapped the parchment once, precisely. "Why does it know you?"
A chill spread through Ezra's spine.
He looked back at the name, its letters dark against the paper.
It wasn't just the feeling of wrongness—it was recognition.
Like the name knew him just as much as he now knew it.
Ezra folded the parchment carefully, slipping it into his coat. His mind raced through everything—Crowne's research, the erased police records, the body found with its eyes missing—all of it was connected. But to what?
He met the man's gaze again. "If Crowne spoke this name… if he called it—"
The man nodded slowly. "Then it will answer."
Ezra's stomach twisted. "And if I don't?"
For the first time, the man's expression darkened.
"Then it will wait."
A long silence stretched between them.
Ezra exhaled, stepping back from the desk. "I need more than cryptic warnings."
The man's fingers tapped against the wood again. "Then you already know where to look."
Ezra frowned. Then his mind clicked.
The book.
The Hidden Laws.
It had already revealed one line to him. If it was truly what Crowne had been using, then there had to be more.
Ezra turned toward the door, his pulse steady now, his mind sharpening into focus.
The man didn't stop him, didn't move to follow.
But just as Ezra reached the threshold, his voice came one final time.
Soft. Almost a whisper.
"Be careful what you read, Lockwood."
"Some books read you back."
Ezra's Apartment – Hours Later
The candlelight flickered against the walls as Ezra sat at his desk, The Hidden Laws open before him. The pages were still blank—just as they had been before.
But he knew now.
This book was waiting.
Ezra exhaled slowly. His fingers traced the parchment in his coat pocket—the name. The one he wasn't supposed to know.
The name that now knew him.
He pressed his hand flat against the open pages.
And spoke it aloud.
The moment the name passed his lips, the air in the room changed.
A deep, hollow silence swallowed all sound. The candlelight froze, the flame unmoving, as if time itself had held its breath.
And then—
Ink bloomed across the pages.
Words, paragraphs, whole passages appearing all at once, filling the book with a script that had not been there before.
Ezra's breath caught.
He had unlocked it.
Slowly, carefully, he began to read.
And the book read him back.