🌟THE ECHO WITHIN🌟

CHAPTER FOUR

🩷Talia🩷

Talia woke to the hollow kind of quiet that didn’t feel like peace. It felt… paused. As if the world were holding its breath around her.

Her apartment was bathed in soft gray light, the kind that slipped through thick clouds and made everything feel distant. She sat up slowly, the sheet tangled around her legs, her heart beating a little too fast for someone who'd just woken from sleep. Except, she wasn’t sure she had been sleeping. Not deeply. Not restfully.

A weight pressed behind her eyes, and her limbs carried that eerie tension that came after a nightmare she couldn’t remember—only the feeling remained. Something cold. Something wrong.

She rubbed her arms and swung her legs over the side of the bed, toes curling against the hardwood floor. The air was colder than it should’ve been. Not just from the morning chill. It felt unnatural.

Talia crossed the room, drawn to the window like a string was tugging her. She stopped abruptly. It was cracked open.

Her breath caught.

She never left the window open. Not in winter. Not in this neighborhood.

A flicker of unease whispered down her spine. She reached out slowly, fingertips brushing the window frame. Cold to the touch. Nothing else seemed disturbed—no broken latch, no signs of force. But that only made it worse. It looked… normal. Innocent. Easy to overlook.

She didn’t.

Her eyes moved to her bedside table, where her necklace sat—one she always wore, a small silver pendant on a chain. It lay twisted in a way that made her frown. The chain was curled in a perfect spiral. Too perfect.

Like someone had touched it.

Her breath hitched. She backed away from the window, grabbed her phone, and checked the time. 6:02 AM. A few notifications, nothing unusual. A message from Bria late last night: You good? Call me in the morning. Weird energy after that guy, just saying.

Talia didn't reply.

She wrapped her robe tighter around herself, then turned to look at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes looked like they didn’t belong to her—shadowed, distant, like she’d seen something her mind refused to hold onto.

---

🩷Talia🩷

She moved through the motions of her morning routine like someone playing a part. Teeth brushed, coffee made, a plain gray sweater pulled over her head. Her work slacks felt too stiff, her skin too sensitive—like she was made of glass today, and one wrong move would shatter her.

In the kitchen, the quiet was sharp.

She glanced at the hallway. At the shadows there. And then, quickly, back at her coffee.

Nothing was there.

Nothing had been there.

She grabbed her bag and keys, locking the door behind her with a tension she couldn’t shake. As she descended the stairs to the street, she felt watched. But when she looked around—just an empty sidewalk and the early rise of a gray Puya Ridge morning.

Her footsteps echoed as she made her way to the bus stop. The familiar route helped settle her nerves a little. The bakery on the corner still smelled like cinnamon and dough. An old man was setting out crates of oranges next door to the florist, grumbling under his breath like always.

But the comfort of routine cracked when she caught sight of something ahead. A man—tall, broad-shouldered, in a dark coat—crossing the street slowly.

Ronan?

She blinked.

No. Not him. Different gait. Different energy.

But it had made her pulse spike all the same.

She boarded the bus, took her usual seat, and stared out the window the whole ride—half-expecting him to appear again, to take up space in her day like he had her night.

---

The office smelled faintly of printer toner and burnt coffee. It was nothing new. Nothing unusual. But something about it grated on Talia’s senses this morning.

Her desk was just as she’d left it—organized, precise, safe. But the air around it felt… altered. Not wrong, exactly. Just off. Like someone had been too close, lingered too long. She scanned the surface: keyboard aligned, monitor sleeping, pens where they belonged. But still.

She sat slowly, brushing her fingers across the mouse to wake her screen. Her inbox flooded open with the usual spam, memos, and client follow-ups. Just another Tuesday. But her stomach coiled with unease.

Across the room, her supervisor Myra offered a cheerful wave. Talia managed one in return, though it felt weak, distant. She kept her head down and tried to focus on the numbers, the rhythm of data entry. She’d always found solace in routine, in order—but today the rhythm was offbeat. Her fingers fumbled. Her thoughts wandered.

A shadow moved in her periphery.

Her head snapped up.

No one.

Just the usual steady hum of office life—phones ringing, people typing, the copy machine stuttering to life.

Talia exhaled and leaned back in her chair, letting the uncomfortable stillness settle. Maybe it was the dream. Maybe it was the way Ronan had looked at her—like he knew something she didn’t. Like he saw beneath the layers she worked so hard to keep in place.

And maybe, just maybe, she was starting to see it too.

Something was changing.

Something she couldn’t explain.

And she had a sinking feeling it had already begun.

---

Talia stepped through the front door of her apartment and locked it behind her, turning the deadbolt with more force than usual. The hallway light flickered, just once, before steadying. She stood in the quiet, still wrapped in her coat and scarf, eyes scanning the dim space like something might leap from the shadows.

She shook her head. Get a grip, Elowen.

The evening commute had been uneventful. The bus was late—again—and the cold had crept into her bones despite her layers. But nothing alarming. Nothing worth the tight coil of dread still riding in her chest. And yet, as she toed off her boots and shrugged out of her coat, the silence inside felt too deep. Heavy.

She flicked on the living room light.

Everything was in place.

Sofa. Bookshelf. The armchair she never sat in. A faint, warm scent of vanilla still lingered from the candle she’d burned yesterday.

But her books—

Her gaze darted to the shelf.

No. Her books weren’t in the same order.

Her heart kicked. She walked over slowly, scanning the spines. Alphabetical. Always. But now Daughter of Smoke and Bone sat beside The Raven Boys—two shelves apart from where it belonged. The Witch’s Key was upside down.

Talia swallowed hard.

It was subtle. Careful. But she hadn’t done this.

Someone had been in her home.

She checked the windows. Still locked. The back door? Locked too. There were no signs of forced entry. Nothing else was missing or broken.

Just the books.

Just… enough to be noticed.

She backed away, reaching slowly into her purse until her fingers closed around her phone. Bria’s name hovered at the top of her favorites, but Talia didn’t hit call.

Instead, she turned and went to her bedroom. She opened the drawer where she kept the box cutter from her last move and slid it under her pillow. Just in case.

She didn’t sleep.

Not really.

And when she dreamed—it was of the woman with too-dark eyes and a voice full of bitter fire.

The woman who whispered Talia’s name like it was a warning.