Summer deepened into the particular heaviness that always settled over the capital before autumn's relief, and I found myself, despite months of accumulated understanding about the Threadweaver's mysterious purpose, increasingly drawn back toward something more immediate and personal—the question of what remained of Aria herself, beyond the fragmented memories and displaced grief that had launched this entire investigation.
"You've been visiting Elena's letter again," Darius observed one evening, finding me in our study with the worn parchment spread before me alongside notes I'd accumulated across months of investigation.
