The scent of ozone cuts through the dust and old parchment like a lightning strike. In the silence of the Lazar estate's rare-book room, the heavy vellum pages of the grimoire begin to turn of their own accord. Yael freezes at the conservation table, her wire-rimmed glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. A single brass lamp casts her shadow long against the towering oak shelves, but she cannot look away from the calf-bound volume. It should be dormant, a relic of leather and ink, yet the air around it thrums with an impossible, low-frequency vibration that makes her silver hamsa charm grow cold against her throat.
She reaches out, a gloved hand hovering inches from the paper, but the book is already busy. A phantom pressure indents the first page, and dark walnut ink bleeds into the fibers as if from an invisible nib. The cursive is elegant, antique, and terrifyingly fresh. It carves two names into the silence of the midnight hour: 'Promised to Prince Andrei Lazar: Yael Aronovsky.' Her breath hitches; she has never met a prince, and she has certainly never been promised.
This isn't restoration, she thinks, her pulse hammering against the leather of her apron. This is a summons. The ink remains wet, gleaming like black glass under the lamplight. A new bead of fresh black ink wells at the tip of the phantom quill, trembling as it prepares to drop.
