The quiet of Ashford had become a second skin, comfortable and worn, but three weeks of steady hands and harvest moonbeams had not managed to dull the edges of Elian’s instincts. He sat at a small, hand-carved desk in the corner of his new home, the low flicker of a tallow candle casting dancing shadows across the brittle, vellum pages of his mentors' old journals.
"You’re still reading them, aren't you?"
Elian didn't look up as the door creaked open. Silas leaned against the frame, his presence as consistent as the morning tide.
"Every night," Elian replied, his fingers tracing a diagram of planetary alignment sketched in the margin of a page. "I thought when the gate closed, the books would stop talking. I was wrong. They just talk about different things."
Silas walked over, peering
