The rain had stopped before dawn, leaving the streets washed and cold. Thin threads of mist clung to the gutters and lantern hooks, swaying faintly with each gust from the harbor. Erwin crossed the eastern thoroughfare in silence, his boots clicking against the damp cobbles, his breath ghosting in the chill air.
He had not slept. The night had been spent sorting fragments—documents, impressions, and the weight of something unnamed that had begun to coil beneath his thoughts.
The world around him seemed unwilling to wake. The city moved in fragments: a cart pulled by a mule with one blind eye; a woman closing her shutters as if sealing away the morning; the faint whisper of hymn-chant carried from the Chapel of Saint Laen.
He passed beneath an archway carved with sigils too worn to read. They glimmered faintly in the moisture, as if remembering the light of some other age. A faint current brushed the edge of his consciousness—the same cold flicker that had followed him since the record chamber incident.
He slowed his pace, glancing toward a nearby alley where the shadows hung too still.
Nothing moved there. Only the dripping of rainwater from a broken pipe.
Still, he did not relax.
The Veil Hour—that strange, transitional stretch between dawn and waking—had always unsettled him. It was the time when memory clung to the skin like frost, when the city felt less like a place and more like a half-formed thought.
He turned his collar up and continued toward the Old Registry Tower.
Its spire loomed through the mist, a dark tooth biting into the clouds. At its base, clerks were already at work sweeping the steps, the bronze seal of the Office glinting beneath their brushes.
"Archivist Ruyn," one of them greeted, half-distracted.
Erwin nodded but said nothing.
The upper floors of the Tower were still and dust-scented. Rows of cabinets lined the corridor, each marked with sigils indicating clearance tiers. The light filtering through the stained glass was bruised—grey edged with faint violet. It reminded him of the color left behind when ink bled through a page.
He entered his study and shut the door.
The silence inside was different—contained, expectant. The walls were lined with record spines and annotation scrolls, a constellation of information that only appeared orderly from a distance. On his desk lay a stack of recent transcripts, and atop them—the torn seal of the Celest Archive.
He hesitated before touching it.
A faint pulse of pressure lingered behind his eyes, a presence that flitted just beyond language. He drew in a slow breath, let the sensation fade, and unrolled the parchment.
The report was brief: Incident at Ashfall Row. Civilian disturbance linked to recovered relic fragment. Origin—unverified. Containment priority—moderate.
But the signature below it stopped him.
—F. Mirren, Bureau of External Observations.
Finch Mirren.
He stared at the name for a long moment, then folded the parchment neatly, slid it beneath a stack of ledgers, and rested his fingertips against the desk.
The candle beside him guttered.
Outside, the tower bell struck the ninth hour—its resonance shivering faintly through the floorboards. Somewhere below, clerks muttered as they carried bundles of paper to the copying rooms. He could hear the sound of it—the shuffling of documents, the soft rhythm of official routine.
It should have been grounding.
But it wasn't.
He stood abruptly and crossed to the window. From there, the city unfurled like a faded tapestry—streets veined with smoke, rooftops dripping with rainlight. In the distance, the harbor glimmered, a pallid mirror of the sky.
Something had begun to move beneath the city's calm surface. He could feel it as one might feel the subtle tension before an earthquake—a weight shifting in unseen strata.
He pressed a hand to the glass, tracing the faint reflection of his own face.
For a moment, it did not align with his movement.
He blinked, and it was gone.
"Too long without sleep," he murmured, voice almost steady.
The reflection did not answer.
---
Finch
In another quarter of Eclipsera, Finch Mirren stood beneath a rusted overhang, adjusting the brass collar of his coat. The rain had found him anyway, trailing down the bridge of his nose in thin silver lines.
From the opposite side of the street, he watched the upper floors of the Registry Tower, its faint candlelight flickering through narrow panes.
He drew a small ledger from his pocket, flipping to the last entry.
Observation continued. Subject exhibits signs of mnemonic interference. Recommendation: maintain distance until directive confirmation.
His pen paused. He added one more line, smaller, ink pressed deep into the paper:
He looked directly toward the window again. Almost as if he knew.
Finch snapped the ledger shut and slipped it inside his coat. The wind carried the faint chime of the clocktower bells. He didn't move until the sound faded into silence.
Then he turned and walked into the fog, disappearing between the dim arcades of the city.