By the next morning, the archives looked worse than they had the night before.Books covered nearly every available surface now, stacked across tables, floors, chairs, and even the windowsills where Victoria had started leaving the ones they’d already searched through just to keep the remaining piles organized. Dust hung lightly in the air from how many old shelves had been disturbed over the last several days, and the smell of aged paper and candle wax had settled so deeply into the room that it followed anyone who left.Victoria sat at the large central table with one elbow propped against a tower of books while she skimmed through another faded text that, so far, had managed to say absolutely nothing useful in over two hundred pages.She flipped another page.Then another.Then sighed heavily before dropping her forehead briefly against the open book.“I swear if I read the phrase divine imbalance one more time, I’m setting this entire room on fire.”“You said that three books ago,
آخر تحديث : 2026-05-10
