I slip through the veins of Stonefold, the stolen contracts pressed against my ribs like a second, desperate heartbeat.
The city is waking—carts groaning, shutters banging open, voices rising like steam from the stones. But I move unseen, stitched into the edges of the morning.
When I reach the hidden courtyard, Lira is already waiting.
Perched on a toppled statue, her silhouette cuts against the dawn like a knife against silk.
I drop the contracts at her feet.
A shiver runs through me, but I stand tall.
She picks them up, rifling through the parchments with quick, practiced fingers.
Not a word. Not a smile.
Just the smallest tilt of her head.
Behind her, the others appear—figures wrapped in shadow and thread. Watching. Judging.
One of them, a wiry man with ink-stained hands, steps forward.
"You think you burned a lie," he says, voice rough as rope.
"But lies don't live in stone or parchment. They live in people."
He taps a finger against the top contract—the name scrawled there in cruel, curling ink.
"That man built a house of chains," he says. "You didn't tear it down. You stole the nails from its walls."
I glance at the name. The address. The memory of the safe humming under my fingers.
It wasn't about destroying him.
It was about *unraveling* him.
Piece by piece.
Thread by thread.
Lira stands, the contracts bundled under her arm.
"You made your first cut tonight," she says.
Her voice is soft, but it carries through the cold morning like a blade through silk.
"And now the city will bleed."
A pause. A breath.
Then, she pulls something from her cloak and tosses it to me.
I catch it without thinking—a weight smooth and cold against my palm.
The mask.
I remember the plain mask Lira once gave me, tucked away and forgotten. I never needed it. Never earned it.
But this one... this one feels different. Heavier, sharper, like it's not just something I wear — it's something I become.
Black. Seamless. Featureless except for a faint pattern across the surface—like woven threads stitched in invisible ink.
I stare at it, heart hammering.
A choice.
Another one.
Lira's eyes catch mine, sharp and unblinking.
"You can wear it now," she says. "Or not at all."
Behind her, the Threadless wait—silent, breathless.
The weight of the night, the city, my stolen heartbeat pressing down on me.
Not yet, something inside me whispers.
Not here.
Not like this.
I slip the mask into my coat, close to my skin.
Lira's mouth quirks—a twitch of approval, or maybe amusement.
Hard to tell.
"Good," she says. "Masks aren't for hiding."
She turns, the Threadless melting into the fog like ink in water.
"They're for becoming."
And I follow them, the mask against my heart, the city's bleeding truth behind me, and a new thread pulling me deeper into the dark.