Lyra didn't sleep.
She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the koi pond whisper beneath her. The book sat on the shared table between her and Maris, pulsing faintly. It hadn't stopped since they returned from beneath the dorm.
Maris turned in her bed. "It's humming."
Lyra nodded. "It hasn't stopped."
They hadn't opened it again. Not yet. The first time had been enough — the erased names, the single surviving line: "The fifth tower remembers."
Morning in the Velvet Atrium
The cafeteria had reshaped itself into a spiral again, but this time the steps were uneven. Students stumbled. Trays floated erratically. The air smelled like burnt sugar and static.
Maris stirred her tea. It turned black.
Lyra whispered, "Something's different."
Maris didn't answer. She was staring at someone across the room.
Saphira Wynn.
Golden, radiant, and sharp. Her older sister. Her opposite.
Saphira approached, her heels clicking like punctuation.
"You've been somewhere you shouldn't," she said, eyes locked on Lyra.
Lyra didn't flinch. "You know about it."
Saphira smiled. "Everyone who matters does."
Class: Emotional Alchemy
Professor Umbra handed out vials labeled Curiosity. Lyra's glowed. Maris's flickered. Saphira's was already full.
"Today," Umbra said, "we bottle questions."
Lyra's vial pulsed violently. Her thoughts raced — the book, the tower, the whispers.
Maris leaned close. "It's reacting to the book."
Lyra nodded. "It wants to be read."
The Book
That night, they opened it again.
The pages had changed.
New ink had appeared — faint, silver, like moonlight on water.
> "The Root is not a place. It is a memory. It lives in those who remember."
Maris traced the words. "It's growing."
Lyra whispered, "Or waking."
The Confrontation
Saphira cornered them in the Whisper Theatre.
"You're playing with things you don't understand," she said.
Maris stepped forward. "Then teach us."
Saphira's eyes darkened. "I tried. Madame Calyx taught me once. Before she vanished."
Lyra froze. "You knew her?"
Saphira nodded. "She didn't disappear. She was buried."
Lyra and Maris ster at the book as it begins to write on its own.
> "She is not gone. She is waiting."