Ezras breath curled in the damp alley air, but he wasnt cold.
He barely felt the city around him anymorejust the weight of the ink-scrawled letters on the wall. His name. Written over and over.
And beneath it
"He knows you now."
The words itched at something deep in his mind, something he hadnt let himself consider.
Who wrote this?
Nowhat wrote this?
The whisper had come right after, soft as a breath against his ear.
"Do you know mine?"
Ezra didnt turn. He had learned by nowthings that speak from the dark want to be acknowledged.
And if The Hidden Laws were right, then names held power.
Knowing one could bind something to you.
Being known by one could let it in.
Ezra exhaled, keeping his movements slow, careful. He flipped The Hidden Laws open again, hoping for another revelation, another page of ink unfolding like before
But the book remained blank.
Whatever knowledge it had given him, that was all he was getting for now.
The whisper came again. This time, it wasnt asking.
"Let me show you."
The gaslight died.
And Ezra was somewhere else.
The alley was gone.
So was Eldenwald.
Ezra stood in a dimly lit study, the scent of aged paper and burnt wax pressing against his senses. The walls were lined with shelves of books, their spines cracked and faded. A single desk sat in the center, a journal open atop it.
He knew this room.
But not because he had been here before.
Because he remembered it.
Ezra took a slow step forward, his boots making no sound against the wooden floor. The journal on the desk was old, the pages yellowed with time. But the ink
The ink was fresh.
And the handwriting
His own.
Ezras breath turned sharp.
He didnt write this. He had never written this.
But the words on the page were his.
They described things he hadnt seen yet. Places he hadnt been. Thoughts he hadnt thought.
"He watches from the places between. He moves when the light flickers. He knows my name."
Ezra reached out
And the whisper curled through the air.
"Now you remember."
His vision fractured.
The study split apart.
And Ezra was falling backward, back into himself, back into the alley where his name was still written in ink.
He gasped.
The gaslight flared back to life.
The alley was silent again. The wall was still covered in writing. The city still pressed in from all sides.
But Ezra wasnt the same.
That memoryit wasnt his.
And yet, it belonged to him now.
His fingers curled into a fist.
Whatever was watching him, whatever had written his name, whatever had whispered
It had just given him something.
A name was a binding. A name was a thread.
And now?
He had one, too.
Even if he didnt understand it yet.
Ezra exhaled.
Then he stepped away from the wall.
He had work to do