Cassia didn't sleep that night.
She tried. She lay in bed with the book on her chest, the covers pulled up to her chin, the rain tapping soft rhythms against the window. But her eyes stayed open, wide and dry, staring at the ceiling like it might blink back.
The book hadn't glowed again.
It just sat there now, heavy and silent, like it was pretending to be normal.
She didn't believe it.
At 3:17 a.m., she sat up and whispered, "I know you're not done."
The book didn't answer. But the shadows in the corner of her room shifted slightly, like they were listening.
—
By morning, the world felt wrong.
Not broken. Just… tilted.
The light through the window was too pale. The birds outside sounded like they were mimicking birds, not being them. Her reflection in the mirror blinked a second too late.
Cassia brushed her teeth with one hand and held the book in the other. She didn't want to let it out of her sight. She didn't trust it not to vanish again.
Downstairs, her phone buzzed.
Keira: u alive or nah
Keira: dream demons got u huh
Keira: i'm outside. bring snacks or i riot.
Cassia smiled for the first time in hours.
—
Keira was sitting on the porch railing, hoodie up, earbuds in, one leg swinging like a metronome. She looked up as Cassia opened the door and grinned.
"You look like you haven't slept in a week," she said cheerfully. "Which is wild, because I had the weirdest dream last night and I'm thriving."
Cassia blinked. "Wait. You had a dream?"
Keira hopped down. "Yeah. Super weird. There was this… place. Like a library but sideways? And a girl with wings made of glass. She said something about a page. And then I woke up with this."
She reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
Cassia's heart stopped.
The paper was the same texture. Same shimmer. Same impossible ink.
Keira handed it over. "I figured you'd know what to do with it. You're the dream nerd."
Cassia opened the page.
It was blank.
Then, slowly, words began to appear.
Two pages. One path. One must burn.
Cassia looked up. "Did you see this before?"
Keira shook her head. "Nope. It was blank when I found it. Cool trick, though. Is this one of your weird art projects?"
Cassia didn't answer.
Because the ink was still moving.
Below the message, a line was forming. A map. A crooked path through trees. A river. A symbol she didn't recognize. And at the bottom, a single word:
Magland.
—
They sat in the kitchen, the book and the page between them, steam rising from two mugs of tea.
Keira tapped the map with a spoon. "So. We're doing this, right?"
Cassia hesitated. "Doing what?"
"Following it. Finding out what the hell Magland is. Finding Lucy."
Cassia looked up sharply. "I never said Lucy's name."
Keira blinked. "You didn't?"
"No."
Keira frowned. "Weird. I just… knew."
The silence stretched.
Cassia reached for the book. It opened without resistance.
The map was there now, burned into the first page.
Keira leaned closer. "Okay, that's creepy. But also kind of awesome."
Cassia traced the river with her finger. "What if it's a trap?"
Keira shrugged. "Then we spring it together."
—
That night, the attic door opened on its own.
The book pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
And the wind outside whispered a name neither of them had spoken aloud in years.
Lucy.