Whispers of the Scribe Lords were a ghost in Felix's machine, a low-grade hum of suspicion that colored every interaction with the Codex. He was reading its pages with forensic intensity he'd never employed before, searching not only for historical truth, but for signs of its construction. A maker's mark? A line of code hidden in plain sight? Every flash of light, every pulse of heat, now had a potential message from some distant, unseen hand.
This hyper-vigilance led him to a small, forgotten tragedy outside the capital. A neighborhood known as the Weeping District, where there were tanners, dyers, and other occupations that used poisonous chemicals. For centuries, a strange, wasting sickness had beset its people—a creeping paralysis that began in the limbs, a plague that ruined window b
