Afternoon sunlight filtered through the blinds, casting dappled shadows across the wooden workbench of the London Ancient Book Restoration Studio. Elara Wright's hand, holding a pair of precision tweezers, was as steady as a rock as she carefully scraped a patch of mold from the edge of a medieval parchment. The air was thick with the scent of musty paper, sandalwood, and a faint hint of glue—an aroma she found both familiar and grounding. In this secluded sanctuary, she didn't have to navigate the noise and scrutiny of the outside world; she only needed to converse with the silence of the past.
"Elara, a new commission has arrived." Old George's voice drifted from the doorway, gently breaking the room's tranquility. He carried a heavy, black leather case. Its brass lock, oxidized and darkened by time, exuded a profound sense of age.
Elara set down her tweezers and wiped the dust from her fingertips before looking up. "Which museum is it from?" Her voice was soft, carrying a touch of detachment earned through years of solitude.
"It's not from a museum—it's a private commission," Old George said, placing the case on the workbench. The brass lock hit the wood with a dull thud. "The client remained anonymous. They only mentioned this is a family heirloom that requires basic restoration and handwriting identification. The advance payment is exceptionally generous, but there is one condition—it must be handled by you personally."
Elara frowned slightly. She rarely accepted private commissions; they often had murky origins and carried far higher risks than museum collections. But the trust in Old George's eyes made it impossible to refuse. He was one of the few people who didn't look down on her for being "unenhanced." In a London where supernatural forces subtly permeated every layer of society, a pure "ordinary" person like her struggled to thrive in a field that often relied on magical assistance.
She leaned in to examine the case. The brass lock was engraved with intricate patterns, resembling an ancient family crest. In the microscopic gaps of the etching, she noticed faint, dark-red traces—she couldn't tell if it was rust or something more visceral. As she reached out to touch the engraving, a sharp stinging sensation suddenly shot through her fingertip, as if she had been pricked by a needle.
"Strange," Elara muttered, pulling her hand back. She checked her skin, but there was no wound.
Old George handed her a set of keys. "The client left these. They said only this key can open it."
The key slid into the mechanism with eerie smoothness. With a light twist and a crisp click, the brass lock sprang open. Elara took a steadying breath and lifted the lid. Inside, resting upon a bed of midnight-blue velvet, lay an ancient book bound in dark brown leather. The edges were worn, but the center was dominated by an embossed circular pattern composed of countless tiny pictographs, swirling like a vortex of frozen moonlight.
The moment her fingertips brushed the cover, a cold shock surged through her body. Immediately, the pictographs began to pulse with a faint, silvery-white glow. Elara recoiled, her heart hammering against her ribs.
This was no ordinary book.
In her five years of restoration, she had handled countless rarities, but she had never seen ink that breathed with its own light. What felt even eerier to her was the sensation that the characters weren't just writing—they were radiating an emotion. It felt like a call. Or a long-awaited greeting.
"What's wrong?" Old George asked, noticing her sudden paleness.
"Nothing," Elara forced herself to stay calm. The chill remained on her skin, but she steadied her breathing. "It must be a trick of the light." She didn't want to worry him, nor was she ready to admit the unsettling connection she felt to the relic.
She reached out again, carefully lifting the volume and placing it on a soft cloth. The glow had faded, as if the vision had been an illusion. She turned to the first page. It was yellowed and brittle, covered in the same dense pictographs—they looked like a colony of sleeping elves.
Just as she leaned in to identify a character, a sudden gale slammed against the window, rattling the blinds shut and plunging the room into shadow. The characters on the page erupted in light, far brighter than before, casting a silvery-white beam that shot straight toward the ceiling.
Elara was trapped in the center of the glow, her limbs stiff and frozen. she could feel a strange, ancient power pouring into her through her fingertips, merging with the rhythm of her blood. Simultaneously, a deep, resonant voice echoed in her mind—it wasn't English, nor any tongue she recognized, yet she understood every syllable. It sounded like the recitation of a holy decree.
"In the name of moonlight, with blood as the guide, the contract is sealed..."
The moment the voice faded, the light imploded, retreating back into the parchment. Elara's legs gave way, and she slumped into her chair, gasping for air. The wind outside died down instantly, and sunlight once again filtered through the blinds as if the world had reset itself.
Only the lingering cold on her skin and the haunting words in her mind proved it was real. She looked down at her hand. On her fingertip, a faint circular mark had appeared—a perfect, glowing replica of the seal on the book's cover.
At that exact moment, across the city in the heart of Blackwood Castle, a man in a black tuxedo stood beneath the moon's gaze. His slender fingers instinctively brushed the obsidian ring on his left hand. The stone suddenly flared with a silvery-white light, mirroring the archivist's mark.
The man's deep crimson eyes narrowed, his gaze shifting toward the distant district where the restoration studio sat.
"Found you..." he whispered. His voice was as cold as a winter grave, yet it carried an imperceptible tremor of hunger. "My contractor."