On the fourth night Lira left the southern vault alone. Sera had argued against it and then, when argument failed, had simply handed her a darker cloak and a second satchel containing water, bread, and a small knife that would be useless against black-glass blades. The lens rode against Lira’s ribs in its usual place. The spiral scars gave off no light, yet she felt exposed beneath every canal lamp she passed.
She did not go to the Archive spires. She went to her own workshop in the eastern canal district. The street door had been forced days earlier; the inner rooms had been searched with professional thoroughness. Her tools lay scattered. The annealing oven stood open and cold. The locked drawer beneath the workbench had been pried out entirely and left empty on the floor. Nothing remai
