Sylvaria Moonwhisper's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Sylvaria did not make it back to the chalet. A folded scrap of paper waited under her door, pinned by a sliver of bark. The note named a lodge by the trees and an hour past dusk. The handwriting was steady. Whoever wrote it had not been watching the scholar swing. They had been watching her watch. She found the wooden platform in the trees first, before the meeting. A worn rail. Fresh boot prints in the frost. From here, the square sat open like a plate. Every face she had counted, someone else had counted her counting. Her stomach turned cold. She had been louder than she thought, again. She went to the lodge at the named hour. Glass walls held the firelight in. A figure sat at the far end of a long table, hood up, hands flat. On the wood between them lay a leather-bound book, runes pressed deep into its cover. Sylvaria knew the marks. They matched fragments her mentor had once copied by hand. "I have three more like it," the stranger said. "You have something I want. A trade." Sylvaria sat. She did not touch the book. She asked what they wanted, and listened. The price was her ally — a name, a location, a window of time. She thought of three moves ahead and found a fourth. She agreed. She gave the name. The stranger slid the book across the table. She walked out with the grimoire under her coat and a new debt strapped to her back. Her ally was already sold. The watcher knew her face, her hour, her hunger. The square had taught her to be quiet. The lodge had taught her she was already seen.