The Shard of the Blueprint was a world of terrifying precision. Gone were the organic wood-grains of the Epilogue and the messy, liquid gradients of the Draft-Sea. Here, the ground was a vast sheet of gridded vellum, and the sky was a deep, artificial "Blue-Ink" zenith, crisscrossed by glowing white lines of latitude and longitude.
Everything was a measurement. The trees were perfect fractals with identical leaf-counts; the wind blew at a constant, unvarying velocity; even the light felt calculated, devoid of the warmth of a rising sun.
"This is the source of the 200 Variables," Mira whispered, her boots clicking loudly on the hard, mathematical surface. "This is where the 'Logic' was born. It’s the brain of the Authors, stripped of their heart."
In the center of the grid stood the Gran
