Genevieve St. Valentine's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Genevieve St. Valentine read the note twice, then held it over the candle until it curled into ash. Her printer had been taken in the night. Hours, maybe less, before the rest of her small network felt the same hand close around them. She pressed her palms flat against the desk and breathed once, slow. The pamphlets would still be printed. She had already decided that, long ago, in a room where men once chose which books her father could open. She rose, pulled her cloak from its hook, and stepped into the gray morning to save what could still be saved. She walked past the safer streets and into the woods, where an old stone workshop sat half-swallowed by ivy. Its red tiles sagged. Its blue window glowed faintly with dust. No one had used it in years. No one would think to look. Inside, she uncovered the great wooden wheel and its stone basin. The paddles were dry but whole. She turned the gear once with both hands. It groaned, then moved. She set the type herself, fingers black within the hour, and fed the first sheet through. By nightfall she held the proof: a yellowed trifold, rough at the edges, the Duke's stern profile staring out above the words that named his theft. She stacked one hundred copies on the workbench. Her network was gone. The press was hers alone now, and the pamphlets were real.