Ezra didnt move.
The street behind him was emptyor at least, it should have been.
The whisper still lingered in the air, curling through his mind like ink dissolving in water. The words hadnt just been heard. They had been placed. Settled into the space between thoughts, waiting to be understood.
"You are looking too closely, Lockwood."
His fingers twitched toward The Hidden Laws, still tucked beneath his coat. The book had revealed one truth alreadythe First Law: Reality is Consensus.
But now?
Now the world had changed. The coin in his pocket burned with a quiet weight, and the signs above the shopsthey werent just unreadable anymore.
They were wrong.
Ezra turned away, his pace measured as he walked down the empty street. The buildings loomed overhead, their facades stretching at unnatural angles when he wasnt looking directly at them.
The city wasnt breaking.
It was adjusting.
To him.
He needed answers. And that meant the book.
Ezra ducked into an alley, pressing his back against the damp brick wall. The gaslight at the streets edge flickered unsteadily, casting erratic shadows across the cobblestone.
Carefully, deliberately, he pulled out The Hidden Laws and flipped it open.
The pages had been blank before. But now
Ink spread like veins across the parchment, unfolding as though the book had simply been waiting for him to ask the right question.
A single sentence appeared.
"The Second Law: Names Have Weight."
"To name a thing is to define it. To define it is to bind it. Names are more than wordsthey are anchors, shaping reality around the things they belong to."
"To know a true name is to hold power over it."
"To have your name known is to be vulnerable."
Ezras pulse remained steady, but a chill crawled up his spine.
He had felt this before.
The way the Ministry had spoken his name. The way Crowne had said it with careful precision. The way the whisper had curled it around him like a noose.
Ezra Lockwood.
It wasnt just recognition. It was something else.
Something more.
He exhaled slowly.
"To have your name known is to be vulnerable."
Who else knew his name?
And what had he already given away?
A soft sound cut through the stillness.
A whisper.
Not from the book.
From the alley itself.
Ezra lifted his gaze
And saw the name.
Scrawled across the brick wall in shaking ink.
His name.
Ezra Lockwood.
Written over and over again.
And beneath it
A new phrase.
One that hadnt been there before.
"He knows you now."
Ezras breath stilled.
And the whisper returned, closer this time.
"Do you know mine?"
The gaslight flickered
And the shadows moved.