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Chapter 15: The First Warning
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2026-10-29 08:30:29The letter was slipped under Mara Albrecht's door on the night of the first thaw, and she knew what it was before she touched it.
There is a particular sound a folded paper makes on a bare floor, a small dry guilty whisper, and Mara had been listening for it, without admitting she was listening, for eleven weeks. She was seated on the edge of her bed with her shawl round her shoulders, mending by the last of the can
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