The museum started to feel less like a workplace and more like a high-security prison for my sanity. Three months had passed since I landed back in the warehouse. The quiet rhythm of my curator life was a thin, easily fractured veneer over the chaos of Aethelgard. I had managed to explain away the missing pocket watch as “damaged during transit”. Somehow, the lie went unchallenged. A relief that took some of the emotional weight I carried off my shoulders. The tattered velvet dress was hidden in the back of my closet. A physical ghost of a life I could no longer touch.
My official job description included researching European antiques. My actual job had become obsessively investigating elven folklore, celestial alignments, and the properties of the legendary “Veil Between Worlds.” I work
