The piano arrived on a Tuesday, carried up the steps of the library by four men in heavy coats who moved with the careful precision of people handling something fragile. It was an old upright, its mahogany finish scuffed and worn, its keys yellowed with age. But when Lyra sat down on the bench and pressed her fingers to the ivory, the sound that emerged was clear and true—a single, resonant note that hung in the air like a promise.
Caleb watched from the library's entrance, his shoulder resting against the doorframe. The building was small, its shelves crammed with more books than the space could reasonably hold, its windows letting in the pale winter light. The town's librarian, a woman named Edith who had run the place for forty years, stood beside him, her eyes bright with tears. She h
