THE GIRL IN THE MANUSCRIPT
A silver candelabra on the nightstand, its flames burning with a clean, white light that cast no shadows — or none she could see clearly, just shapes that moved at the corner of her eye when she wasn’t looking directly at them.
The window was tall and narrow, looking out over mountains she’d drawn from memory — the Arrowspine Range, she’d named them, because from a distance they looked like they could pierce the sky. Mountain air seeped through the glass, cold and thin, carrying the smell of pine needles and fresh snow and something else. Something metallic, like blood or iron, sharp and clean and impossible to ignore. She’d never written that scent into the book. Had never imagined it.
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