Morning – Maya's Room, Nagwa
The lamp was still lit when Devika arrived.
Maya sat cross-legged before a shallow brass basin, grinding betel leaf and camphor with a stone pestle. Her sari had changed — now ivory with rust-colored borders, the kind worn by widows in certain tantric orders. She didn't look up as Devika entered.
"I saw the fourth crescent," Devika said, without preamble. "It wasn't there before."
Maya's hands stopped. The pestle hovered in the air.
"You spoke the third syllable. That always calls the fourth."
"It wasn't just a mark. It cast a shadow."
Now Maya turned.
"Then he knows you've reached the threshold. And he's watching."
Devika felt the heat rise in her chest again — not fear, but that same sensation from the vault, from the ghat, from her dreams. The line between memory and now had thinned. She could feel presence behind her — not malevolent, not even human.
Just old. And close.
Midday – Vaidya's Office, Banaras Hindu University
The old professor was poring over a stack of photographs when she burst in.
"I need the family registry," she said. "The original one. From the 1935 census."
He blinked. "Why?"
Devika placed both palms on his desk. Her sleeves slipped slightly, revealing the faint outline of the fourth crescent on her inner forearm.
Vaidya's lips tightened.
"You saw him, didn't you?"
"No. But I heard him. And he knew my name before I spoke it."
Vaidya opened a drawer, pulled out a brittle envelope, and handed it to her.
"Your family lineage is part of the Raktapushpa trace — through your great-grandmother's line. It was buried after the 1944 temple act."
Devika took the envelope, opened it, and froze.
Inside: a black-and-white photograph.
A young woman — barely twenty — stood beside a much older man, possibly a priest. But it was the man behind them who drew Devika's breath away.
He stood half in shadow, hands folded behind his back, wearing a long white kurta. His face wasn't fully visible — but the silhouette was familiar. Too familiar.
The neck. The shoulders. The way the body leaned slightly, deliberately — as if listening without needing to hear.
"Who is that?" she asked.
Vaidya exhaled. "That photograph is from 1936. That man shouldn't be there."
"Why?"
"Because I saw that same man — in Deogarh. In 1998. He hadn't aged a day."
Devika's spine went cold.
"You think he's alive?"
"I think," Vaidya said, "he never stopped following the Grantha. And now he's waiting for you to finish what she"—he tapped the photo—"never dared to."
Evening – Ganga Mahal Library Annex
Devika sat with the photograph under a dusty desk lamp, her fingers tracing the inked signatures on the back.
One name stood out:
Vatsala Ananda Rao.
Her great-grandmother.
And next to it, faint and nearly rubbed away:
Witnessed by: R.
Devika stared.
She had seen that signature before — on the palm-leaf letter Vaidya had hidden. The same red ink. The same sweeping R, curved like a flame wrapping around itself.
So the man in the photo wasn't just a ghost from some ritual past.He had known her family. He had touched the Grantha before.
And now, he was writing his way back into her.
Elsewhere – Kalighat, Kolkata
A priestess walked barefoot through the dark corridor of the inner sanctum.
Behind the silver veil of the goddess, a man stood silently, pressing his palm against the cool black stone of the deity.
His mouth moved without sound.
In his pocket was a faded newspaper clipping — an obituary for a woman named Vatsala Ananda Rao. Died, 1993.
He opened the clipping, unfolded the edges.
Inside it, pressed flat as if sealed by time, was a single hibiscus petal. Still red. Still soft.
He placed it on the offering plate and whispered:
"The bloodline is awake.The fourth flame will not be given.I will take it."