LYRA
The last perfect line is always the hardest.
My breath misted in the cold, still air of the workshop, held captive in my lungs. My hand, steady as a surgeon's, hovered inches above the vellum. On the desk before me lay my latest work: a perfect forgery of a medieval astrolabe, its brass gears and intricate silver engravings replicated down to the last microscopic scratch. Beside it, the genuine article sat under a soft lamp, a relic borrowed—without permission, of course—from the city museum's private collection.
One last line of filigree, a barely-there swirl near the base, and my replication would be complete. The magic was already thrumming in my fingertips, a cool, familiar energy. Artifice. In the Corbeau family, it was blood and breath, a gift passed down through a hundred generations of ghosts and forgers. We didn't enchant like the brutes from the Chromatic Court; we copied. We created perfect illusions, temporary masterpieces that could fool the most discerning eye, both mortal and magical.
I dipped the fine-tipped stylus into the pot of enchanted ink, the liquid silver clinging to the nib. I lowered my hand. The tip touched the metal. A single, smooth motion.
Done.
I leaned back in my stool, the tension draining from my shoulders. A cool, blue light pulsed from the replicated astrolabe, a soft thrum of borrowed magic that mimicked the genuine article perfectly. It was flawless.
"Adequate."
My grandmother's voice cut through the silence, sharp and critical as always. I hadn't heard her enter, but then, no one ever heard Eloise Corbeau. She moved like a shadow in her severe black dress, her gray hair pulled into a knot so tight it seemed to pull the skin taut around her eyes. She stood behind me, her gaze sweeping over my work, missing nothing.
"Adequate is not the Scriptorium standard, Lyra," she said, her voice a low reprimand. "Flawless is the standard. Is it flawless?"
"Yes, Grandmother," I said, my own voice a quiet echo of hers.
She picked up the real astrolabe, then mine. Her eyes, the same shade of stormy gray as my own, flickered back and forth between the two. Minutes stretched into an eternity under her silent scrutiny. This was our ritual, our lifelong training session. Me, the apprentice; her, the unyielding master. She never praised. Praise was an indulgence, a weakness that led to complacency. The Scriptorium dealt in perfection, and perfection was its own reward.
"The replication will hold for six hours under direct magical scrutiny," I explained, my tone clipped and professional. "Twelve under mundane light. The forged temporal signature is dated circa 1485."
She set my copy down. "Six hours is not enough. Your next one will hold for eight."
It wasn't a suggestion; it was an order. I simply nodded. "Of course."
"Good." She turned from the desk, her gaze landing on the small, framed canvas in the corner of the room. It was my only piece of personal art, a charcoal sketch of a raven, its wings half-unfurled. It was a practice piece, a moment of whimsy. It wasn't a copy of anything. It was mine.
"A waste of good charcoal," she murmured, her voice laced with disapproval. "Emotion is a distraction. Originality is a liability. A ghost has no signature of its own."
The words were a familiar mantra, one that had been drilled into me since I could first hold a stylus. We were the Corbeaus, the ghosts of the art world. Our greatest strength was our anonymity, our ability to become anyone, to leave no trace. To feel, to create from the self—that was the domain of our rivals, the brash and powerful Vance family of the Chromatic Court. They imbued their art with their loud, brutish emotions, creating permanent, gaudy works of power. We, on the other hand, wove illusions from skill and intellect. They were force; we were finesse.
My gaze drifted down to my wrist, to the faded black raven tattoo I had inked on myself three years ago in an act of silent rebellion. No one, not even my grandmother, knew it existed. I had replicated the style of a famous Veridia ink artist, making it appear as a simple, mundane tattoo. But beneath the surface, woven into the very ink, was my own artifice—a fragile, secret masterpiece that was wholly mine. I had imbued it not with a crude power, but with a whisper of my own essence. A secret signature. My own ghost in the machine.
"You have a new commission," my grandmother said, her back still to me. The softness in my heart from the thought of my secret art instantly solidified into disciplined focus.
"The Chromatic Gala is in three days," she stated. "The Vance family will be displaying their entire private collection, including their most prized possession: The Crimson Ledger."
My breath hitched. The Crimson Ledger was the stuff of Scriptorium legend. It was the Vance family's grimoire, the source of their most powerful enchantments, a book said to be bound in dragon hide and inked in blood.
"It is protected by their strongest wards," she continued. "No forger from our family has ever been able to get close enough to replicate even a single page. They say the artifice on it is so pure, so potent, that it repels our magic like a physical wall."
She turned to face me then, her gray eyes sharp as shards of glass. "You will be the first."
This was it. The mission I had been training for my entire life. To succeed where generations of Corbeaus had failed. It was the ultimate test of skill, the ultimate challenge.
"Your infiltration is already arranged," she said, her voice leaving no room for questions or doubt. "You will go as a catering assistant. The uniform and replicated invitation will be delivered tomorrow. You will have a ten-minute window during the grand exhibition to access Kenan Vance's private study, where the ledger is kept. You will not replicate the entire book; you don't have time. You will replicate one page. The one detailing their ancestral wards. That is our primary target."
I simply nodded. "I understand."
"See that you do," she said. "The Vances are arrogant and drunk on their own power. But do not underestimate the son, Cassian. He is not like his father. His artifice is… different. More controlled. Colder. He will be there. Avoid him at all costs."
The name Cassian Vance left a bitter taste in my mouth. I had never seen him in person, but his reputation preceded him. The volatile, dangerous heir to the Chromatic Court. A boy who treated his own powerful magic like a curse, a prodigy of imbuement who was said to be as cold and hard as the marble he enchanted. He was the embodiment of everything we disdained: raw, uncontrolled power without discipline.
"He won't be a problem," I said, my voice confident and steady.
A rare, almost imperceptible softening appeared in my grandmother's eyes. It wasn't a smile, but it was the closest she ever came to one. "For the Scriptorium," she said, the words a blessing and a command.
"For the Scriptorium," I echoed.
She swept out of the workshop, leaving me alone in the silence with my two astrolabes—one real, one a perfect lie. My heart was pounding, but not with fear. It was with a cold, sharp thrill. The gala, the ledger, the Vances… they were just obstacles. Pieces on a board. And I was the player who saw every move before it was made.
I looked down at my wrist, at the hidden raven beneath the sleeve of my shirt. It was my one weakness, my one indulgence in a life of disciplined control. A liability. My grandmother was right.
But as I began to clean my styluses, a strange, quiet thought slipped into my mind, unwelcome and persistent.
What if originality wasn't a liability? What if it was the only thing that was truly real?