The subterranean vault of the Fox Kingdom was a masterpiece of ancient, pristine white stone, untouched by the devastating decay that had ravaged the world's surface. It felt entirely removed from the Beastworld, suspended in a pocket of absolute, silent eternity.
And right in the exact center of this magnificent, cosmic sanctuary, resting on a polished pedestal of black glass, was a spiral notebook.
Roxy stood completely paralyzed, her breath catching in her throat.
It was a standard, seventy-page, college-ruled notebook with a slightly faded blue cardboard cover. The wire binding at the top was bent out of shape, exactly the way it would be if it had been shoved carelessly into a college backpack a hundred times. On the back cover, a terrestrial barcode sticker was half-peeled away. It was an object so unbelievably mundane, so intensely, violently human, that seeing it bathed in the ethereal moonlight of a magical tomb felt like a hallucination.
