The first Page-Walker stood ankle-deep in marsh water that had forgotten it was wet. Its skin wasn’t skin—thin white like scraped vellum stretched over bone. Where hair should have been, a crown of silver quills trembled, catching the beacon’s light as if waiting for a hand to dip them.
It didn’t speak. It wrote: letters unfurled in the air before its blank face, crisp as court script.
YOU ARE ALREADY MARGIN.
“Line,” Ysra rasped. “No one touches it.”
Unsung shifted, shields up, the marsh making every promise heavier. Tor slid elders behind a hummocked rise, Sal planted himself like an offended clerk, and Mireya set her staff in muck with a satisfied thunk. Kael stood to Lena’s left, shadow wound tight at his ribs, smile mean and thin.
Dominic moved to the fore, blade low, fire breathi
