A faint, grinding screech cut through the air. Metal against dry wood.

  The sound originated from the far wall. In any other context, it would have been negligible. In the dead silence of the library, it hit my ears like a gunshot.

  I ceased all movement. I didn't breathe nor twitch.

  For a second, I was nothing more than a statue in a nightgown.

  Then my hand snapped out. I pinched the candle wick.

  The flame died instantly. Absolute, suffocating blackness swallowed the room.

  My heart hammered against my ribs. A frantic, rhythmic thudding. I ignored the physiological response and scooped up the books blindly. Aether. Chronicle. Liturgy.

  I moved.

  I took off, my bare feet silent on the cobblestone floor.

  But this vessel was flawed. This twelve-year-old body lacked the coordination I was used to.

  I fumbled.

  The heaviest book, The Prophet’s Liturgy, slipped from my grasp.

  Thud.

  The impact vibrated through the floorboards.

  There was no time to retrieve it. It was a liability. In this line of work, you cut your losses. I left the evidence where it lay and vanished into the stacks, heading for the deepest shadows on the right side of the room.

  I pressed my back against the cold wood of a bookshelf and waited.

  The library door opened.

  A single, tall silhouette stood framed against the flickering torchlight from the hallway. Even from this distance, his presence exerted a physical pressure.

  Duke Corvin D'Arden. My father.

  I closed my eyes and focused on auditory input.

  Thump... thump...

  The air shifted as he passed the main aisle. I heard the faint rustle of his heavy coat. He was heading toward the far wall, the opposite side of the bookshelf of where I was.

  He stopped.

  Scrape... click.

  A mechanical sound. A hidden latch.

  He was opening a secret passage.

  Then, silence.

  The candle. I had extinguished still trailing a faint thin ribbon of grey smoke.

  Tactical error.

  His boots turned. Thump... thump...

  He was coming back. Toward the table.

  "Who is here?"

  The voice wasn't loud. It was a low rumble that seemed to displace the oxygen in the room.

  He snapped his fingers.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Half a dozen small fireballs bloomed in the air, hanging like malevolent stars. They cast a flickering, uneven light that danced across the shelves, hunting for shadows.

  He walked to the table and looked down. He saw the fallen book.

  He bent and picked it up. His face remained an unreadable mask in the dancing orange light.

  "Interesting," he murmured.

  His tone held no curiosity. It was a flat, cold observation. He raised his head and scanned the room.

  "Show yourself."

  He knew someone was here. He just didn't know where.

  He began to move.

  He started down the main aisle, his steps deliberate, checking the gaps between the shelves.

  I moved.

  Keeping my back low, I slid silently along the opposing shelf. He turned left toward the history section. I slipped right toward philosophy.

  I kept the heavy oak bookcases between us. He was the hunter, but I was the ghost.

  He paused. He tilted his head. Listening.

  I froze mid-step, my bare foot hovering inches above the floor.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  He turned sharply and walked toward my hiding spot.

  I dropped to my hands and knees. I crawled under the long reading table, moving fast and keeping my profile low. His boots stopped exactly where I had been standing seconds ago.

  He looked around but didn't spot anything.

  I watched his boots from the shadows beneath the table. He turned again, walking toward the back of the room.

  I rolled out from under the table and slipped behind a pillar.

  Stalemate. He couldn't see me. I was too small, too fast, too quiet.

  He stopped in the center of the room and let out a frustrated breath. He knew he was chasing a shadow. He realized he couldn't catch me on foot.

  Then suddenly he began to raise his hands.

  The temperature in the room plummeted. A biting cold snapped through the air, making the hair on my arms stand up.

  I risked a glance upward.

  Water.

  A sheet of it spread across the vast, dark ceiling like a liquid sky. Then, it crystallized.

  It didn't form jagged icicles. It smoothed out into an impossibly vast, curved sheet.

  A mirror.

  He was using the ceiling as a giant convex reflector. He didn't need to search the aisles anymore. From where he stood, he could see every shadow, every hidden corner, all at once.

  I know was caught and only had seconds. No escape.

  Viper was compromised. Seraphina had to be found.

  I bolted.

  Not for the door. But towards the "Fantasy and Fiction" section. The one Seraphina’s memories indicated she loved.

  My bare feet slapped against the wood, making sure I had made enough noise to catch his attention.

  I yanked two books from the shelf to create a gap and shoved my head into the hole. I left my entire lower half exposed.

  It was a pathetic, desperate attempt to hide. The kind of thing a scared child would do.

  I heard the heavy boots stop right behind me.

  A long, heavy sigh.

  "Seraphina."

  His voice was flat. He doesn't seem to be mad but just tired.

  I kept my head in the shelf. I forced a small, high-pitched whimper.

  "Seraphina. Come out."

  Slowly, I pulled my head from the darkness.

  I turned. I widened my eyes and bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted iron. The sharp pain forced tears to well up.

  I looked up at the towering shadow of the Duke and performed for my life.

  He stood over me. The fireballs cast strange, elongated shadows across his face. He held the religious book in one hand. His eyes flicked from me to the gap in the "Fantasy" shelf, then to the heavy tome he held.

  I could practically hear the gears turning in his head. The connection he was making. The child's fairy tales. The adult's book about gods. A simple, childish curiosity gone wrong.

  "I... I... I'm sorry Father," I stammered, pitching my voice high and shaky. "I... I couldn't sleep. I wanted... I wanted to read about the... the Sun Fox..."

  A solid lie. It connected to the history I was supposed to be studying.

  I braced myself. I waited for the reprimand for my actions.

  Instead, he did something illogical.

  He knelt.

  He set the book down on the floor. He put one arm behind my back and the other under my knees.

  And he picked me up.

  My brain stalled. Why would He do such a thing?

  This was incorrect. This was a data mismatch. Seraphina's memories painted him as cold, distant, analytical. A man who checked on a "damaged asset," not a father who carried his daughter to bed.

  But this was gentle.

  Before I could recompose my mask, I felt a hand on my head. His hand was large, heavy, and inexplicably warm.

  A golden light began to glow from his palm. A soft and pale light.

  It wasn't fire. It was a liquid warmth that sank into my skin. It seeped through my skull and settled into my bones.

  It felt good and the pain from the inside of my cheeks began to fade.

  The exhaustion from the infiltration, the adrenaline spike, the tension in my small, overworked muscles it all dissolved.

  "You should not be down here," he said quietly.

  The cold edge was gone from his voice.

  "It is cold. Winter is coming."

  He looked at my face. I knew my shock was visible.

  "Do not push yourself so hard, Seraphina." He said in a low soft tone of voice.

  The phrase triggered a flag. Push yourself.

  It echoed something Theo had said. A hint of a promise. A past conversation I had no access to. He was referencing a memory of Seraphina I hadn’t remember.

  A small tears began to spill over but this time it weren't an act.

  They were a physiological reaction to confusion.

  Why?

  Why was the "Iron Duke," the "monster," acting like a father?

  Was Seraphina's memory a lie? Or was this the lie?

  I was a thirty five year old killer being cradled like a toddler. And the worst part was that I couldn't stop myself from leaning into it. The warmth was overwhelming. I couldn't think straight.

  I was Viper. I was Seraphina.

  And I was tired.

  I let my head rest on his shoulder.

  His magic wasn't just warmth, though. It was a sedative and healing.

  A heavy, golden comfort dragged at my eyelids. It made my limbs feel like lead. Seraphina’s body wanted to surrender to it. It wanted to sleep.

  I fought it. I kept my eyes open to a slit. I still had a mission.

  The far wall. Third panel. Two paces from the corner. Waist height mechanism.

  I recorded it all.

  I counted his steps. Thump... thump...

  Steady. Even. File. Record. Analyze later.

  But the warmth was winning. My breathing slowed. This body wanted to trust him. My head lulled against the hard muscle of his shoulder, a betrayal of my own will.

  We left the library.

  The main hall was dim, lit only by the cold moonlight filtering through the high windows.

  For the first time, I looked up. Staring directly at his face.

  Assessment. Subject: Duke Corvin D'Arden.

  He was young.

  It was a jarring realization.

  He wasn't the "tall imposing old father" of my memory. There were no deep lines of age. Just the faint shadow of fatigue under his eyes. He was a man in his prime.

  The thought was absurd but undeniable. I was thirty five. I had lived a full life, died and came back.

  It was entirely possible I was mentally older than my own father.

  It clicked then. Seraphina’s memories were a child's memories.

  Children paint the world in simple, violent strokes. To a small, frightened girl, a quiet man is cold. A firm man is cruel. A tall man is a giant. She had made him a monster because she didn't understand him.

  But the other memory didn't vanish.

  I could still feel the coldness. The weight of his gaze when I first woke up. The feeling of being an asset to be managed.

  I know that wasn't just a child's fantasy.

  My chest tightened with a strange, unfamiliar pressure. Resentment? Guilt? Doubt?

  If her memories were this warped, what else was wrong? How much of my distrust was built on a foundation of lies?

  The drowsiness was a fog now, blurring the edges of the corridor. It was almost a mercy. It kept me from having to find an answer tonight.

  We reached my room. The door stood open. He didn't call for Marin.

  He moved to the bed and laid me down. The mattress dipped softly under my weight. He was careful.

  The golden warmth receded as he pulled his hand away. The cold of the room rushed in to fill the void, and I felt suddenly.

  I missed the warmth instantly. A new weakness. Unacceptable.

  I kept my eyes half closed. I breathed deep and even. The perfect picture of a sleeping child.

  But I was still awake.

  The secret door. The young Duke. The sedative magic. Theo's questions.

  The pieces didn't fit. The core of the puzzle was missing.

  I watched him through my squinted eyes.

  He stood there for a moment, a tall shadow in the moonlight. Then he turned and left, pulling the door shut with a soft, final click.

  I lay perfectly still in the dark.

  I filed the image of his face, a young tired man.

  Another contradiction. Another variable.

  I would solve it.

  If I could just... stay... awake.