Sable felt the first sound of her true name press against her tongue.
It was not a word she had learned. It was not a sound she could forget. It sat in her mouth as if it had always lived there, waiting for a moment when fear and choice met.
Across the thinning threshold, the copy's eyes widened.
The change in her face was quick, but it was real. Fear flashed there, then control returned like a mask being pulled on.
Sable understood at once.
The copy was not afraid of flame.
The copy was afraid of Sable speaking.
Maera Flint stood behind the copy with her wrists bound in silver cord. A bruise darkened her cheek. Her mouth was split at one corner. She held herself upright anyway, like a person refusing to give the world the satisfaction of watching her fold.
Registry officers formed a loose half circle around them. One held an oath measure. Another carried the iron capped binding staff. Two more kept their hands near their blades.
Vessa shifted beside Sable, tense and ready, eyes bright with anger.
Jory stood to the left, angled toward the back hatch, as if measuring the fastest route to run.
Mother Rook stayed calm behind the counter. Calm did not mean gentle. Her hands were still, but the air around her felt tight.
The copy looked at Sable's palm.
"Careful," the copy said softly. "You do not know what that sound will do."
Sable kept her mouth closed. The first sound pressed harder, like it wanted to escape on its own.
She clenched her jaw until it ached. Then she spoke without letting that sound out.
"You brought her to force me," Sable said.
The copy nodded as if Sable had finally said something sensible. "I brought her to keep you alive."
Maera's eyes cut toward the copy with open hate.
Sable focused on Maera instead. "Are you hurt."
Maera's voice came out rough. "I am not fragile."
The copy tightened the silver cord. Maera's breath caught, not from pain alone, but from the way the cord pulled against her skin as if it wanted to bite deeper.
Sable's nails dug into her own palm around the Seed.
Vessa leaned close enough that only Sable could hear. "If you speak that first sound, she loses her grip. I can feel it."
Mother Rook's voice was quiet. "If you speak it, you may sign a chain you cannot break."
Jory muttered, "If you do nothing, she takes the Seed and walks away smiling."
Sable looked at the copy. "Why does the cord matter. You could bind me without her."
The copy's gaze remained steady. "You are not fully bound yet. You are still making choices. Captain Flint is leverage. Leverage is cleaner than slaughter."
Sable's stomach turned.
The copy said, "Give me the Seed. I release her."
Sable did not move. "You want the Seed, but you do not want my true name spoken. That tells me you cannot use it."
The copy's smile returned, small and controlled. "I can use what I need."
"You can use the false name," Sable said. "You cannot use the true one."
A few of the officers exchanged quick glances. They had not expected a conversation. They had expected a capture.
The copy's voice stayed calm. "You are learning fast. That is good. It makes you more useful."
Sable's throat tightened. "Useful to whom."
The copy did not answer.
Instead, she lifted her hand and spoke toward the officers behind her, still using Sable's voice.
"Take the shop."
The patrol stepped forward.
Mother Rook lifted two fingers.
The doorway shivered.
One officer crossed the threshold and stopped as if he had walked into a wall. His eyes widened. He pushed again. The air held him back.
He shouted, "It is sealed."
Mother Rook spoke evenly. "This is my floor. You do not step on it without paying."
The copy's gaze flicked toward Mother Rook with irritation, then back to Sable.
"You are hiding behind a witch," the copy said.
Sable answered, "You are hiding behind my face."
Vessa's laugh was sharp. "And behind a squad."
The copy's eyes turned toward Vessa. "Cinderbreath."
Vessa's smile showed teeth. "Yes. Say it again. It makes you sound afraid."
The copy ignored her and looked at Sable. "Time is running. The bells are wrong. People are panicking. Streets will become rivers. Roofs will become doors. This city will not hold if the Seed stays unseated."
Sable wanted to reject it, but she had seen the city bend. She had seen the apples that looked ripe and bruised at once. She had heard the bells stop mid chime.
Sable said, "If you care about the city, why hunt me."
"Because you are the fault line," the copy said.
Mother Rook's voice cut through, clear. "She is not a fault line. She is a stolen record."
The copy's gaze sharpened. "You have always meddled, Rook."
Mother Rook did not blink. "I have always remembered."
Sable's palm burned again. The Seed pulsed slower for two beats, then fast again, like it was deciding what pace to obey.
Sable looked down at it. "What do you want."
The Seed did not speak. It did not need to.
The pressure in Sable's mouth rose again.
The first sound pushed at her lips.
The copy's pupils narrowed. Her voice remained calm, but her hands tightened on the silver cord.
"Do not," the copy said.
Vessa's hand slid toward her own throat, the place where her fire lived. "Let her."
Mother Rook's gaze stayed on Sable. "If you do this, you do it with intention. Not panic."
Jory took a breath. "If you do it, do it fast. She will react fast."
Sable lifted her eyes to Maera.
Maera's face was pale under the bruise, but her stare was fierce. She gave Sable a single tight nod.
Not permission.
Trust.
Sable made her decision.
She let the first sound slip out.
It was short. Barely a syllable.
The air snapped.
Every lantern in the tea shop flared bright for one blink. Outside, the patrol's torches bent toward Sable as if pulled.
The copy recoiled half a step.
Not from fear.
From force.
The thorn crown symbol on the copy's palm flared and then dimmed, like it had been struck.
Maera's silver cord loosened.
Maera sucked in a breath and drove her shoulder back into the nearest officer. Her bound wrists swung like a club. The officer staggered.
Vessa moved at the same time. She did not breathe a ribbon of flame. She spat a compact burst, clean and fast, aimed at the oath measure in the officer's hands.
The oath measure shrieked as its runes overheated. The officer yelped and dropped it. The metal hit the stone and went dark.
Jory shifted.
Not fully into a fox. Not fully human. His hands lengthened into clawed fingers and his eyes sharpened. He sprang through the doorway space that had been a barrier a moment ago.
Mother Rook's seal had weakened when Sable spoke. The floor rules had changed.
Jory slid between two officers, grabbed the binding staff, and twisted it hard. The iron cap cracked against the doorframe and the staff snapped in two.
"Sorry," Jory said, breathless. "That looked expensive."
Maera used the chaos to wrench her bound wrists upward and slam the silver cord against the corner of a stone step. The cord did not fray.
The copy recovered fast.
Her eyes locked on Sable's mouth.
"Do not speak again," the copy snapped.
Sable felt the first sound still present on her tongue. It wanted to become the second. It wanted to become the whole.
Sable swallowed it down with effort.
The copy's hand rose and she spoke Sable's false name with command in it.
"Sable Vane. Kneel."
Sable's knees dipped.
Pain flashed in her thighs.
But the command did not land cleanly this time. It skidded, like a blade striking wet stone.
Sable forced herself upright.
The copy's gaze sharpened with anger. She turned and yanked the silver cord hard.
Maera's breath hitched again, but Maera did not cry out. She stepped toward the copy instead, teeth bared.
"You are not her," Maera rasped.
The copy's face hardened. "You do not know what she is."
"I know what she does," Maera said. "She does not hide behind hostages."
Maera surged forward.
The copy shoved her back with a gesture. Maera stumbled, not because she lost balance, but because the air pushed her like a hand.
Witchwork, Sable thought.
Not Registry ink.
House craft.
Mother Rook lifted her own hand and twisted her fingers. The air pressure on Maera vanished, replaced by a sudden heaviness around the copy's ankles.
The copy's boots sank a finger width into the street stone as if it had softened.
The copy hissed, "Rook."
Mother Rook replied, "You do not threaten my table and expect me to be polite."
Vessa moved to Maera. She grabbed Maera's bound wrists.
"I can burn it," Vessa said.
Maera's eyes widened. "Do it."
Vessa leaned in and breathed a thin, careful flame along the silver cord. Not a blast. A steady heat. The cord glowed faintly and held.
Vessa swore. "It is not normal silver."
The copy smiled again, brief and cruel. "It is oath silver. It remembers what it is supposed to hold."
Sable's palm burned.
The Seed pulsed once, deep and heavy.
Sable felt something open in her chest, like a door she had not known was there.
A memory tried to rise.
Red clay walls. Smoke. A woman holding Sable's face and speaking a name.
The name.
Sable's throat tightened.
Mother Rook saw it and snapped, "Do not chase that now."
Sable forced her focus back to the street.
The copy's gaze slid past Sable, toward the tea shop, toward the city beyond.
"You think this is victory," the copy said. "It is not. Every time you speak that sound, the Seed wakes more. When the Seed is fully awake, it will demand court."
Jory blinked. "Court."
Mother Rook's face went grim. "Seed Court."
Vessa's voice went tight. "That is a story."
Mother Rook answered, "It is a place."
The copy looked at Sable. "You will be summoned. You will not be able to refuse. And when you stand there, you will have to choose which version of you gets to stay."
Sable's mouth went dry.
The copy's boots pulled free of the softened stone. She stepped back as her officers regrouped around her. She did not look like someone losing. She looked like someone adjusting.
She raised her voice for the street, for anyone listening.
"Witness," she said. "The Seed is in untrained hands. Chaos has begun. By law, I claim temporary guardianship of the signer."
Several bystanders turned their heads. Some looked confused. Some looked relieved to hear someone speak like authority.
Sable felt the cold of it.
The copy was not only hunting Sable. She was preparing the city to accept the hunt as protection.
Mother Rook's hand touched Sable's shoulder. "Inside. Now. Before the crowd becomes a weapon."
Sable took one step back toward the shop.
The copy's eyes locked on Sable's palm.
"Next time," the copy said quietly, "I will not borrow leverage. I will take it from your bones."
Then she turned and walked away with her patrol, slipping into the street flow like she belonged there.
Sable stood in the doorway, shaking.
Maera finally got a knife from Jory and sawed at the cord while Vessa kept it heated. The oath silver resisted, but at last it snapped. Maera exhaled hard and rolled her shoulders as if shaking off a weight.
She looked at Sable. "You spoke something."
Sable nodded once. "Only the first sound."
Maera's gaze held hers. "And it worked."
"It worked," Sable agreed, then swallowed. "It also woke something."
Mother Rook had already moved back into the shop. She swept the chalk powder away with her foot, breaking the circles on purpose. Her hands were steady, but her jaw was tight.
"The floor is changing," she said. "We cannot stay."
Jory frowned. "Where do we go."
Mother Rook pointed toward the back hatch. "Down. The drains lead to the old archive tunnels. If they still exist today."
Vessa gave a short laugh that held no humor. "If they still exist. That is our plan."
Sable looked down at her palm again.
The mark there had changed.
The first sound she spoke had left a new line beside the name, like a partial signature being written in living skin.
Sable's stomach dropped.
She had not meant to sign anything.
Mother Rook saw the new line and went pale.
"Sable," Mother Rook whispered. "You just signed the Seed's attention."
The season bells began to ring again, not fast this time.
Slow.
Measured.
Like a summons.
Then the Crown Seed pulsed once, and the room went silent, as if the world had inhaled and held its breath.
Sable blinked.
And found herself standing somewhere else.