Rain drums the library's skylights like impatient fingers. Lila's woodcut glares at me from the table—Erion of the Shattered Citadel, the caption reads, as if my life is just another artifact to pin under glass. The artist got the armor wrong. Too ornate. Back then, my plates were dented, smeared with ash and bloodroot. No one carves that into history.
"You're sweating," Lila says. She's leaning too close, her sleeve brushing mine. I can smell her shampoo—strawberry, cloying and foreign. No one in Kareth smelled sweet. Only smoke, rot, and the too-clean scent of magic.
Erion shoved the woodcut away. "Coincidence. A common name."
"In 14th-century Wales?" Lila's smirk was a scalpel. She flipped open a notebook, revealing sketches of his scars, his brands, even the way he tied his apron. "I've been researching since you called the cash register a 'treasury.'"
His throat tightened. Fool. You've gotten sloppy.
Outside, thunder rumbled. The lights dimmed. A librarian shushed them, her voice drowned by the storm.
She's relentless. Like the inquisitors of the Council, peeling truth from flesh. Tell her nothing. Protect her. But her eyes—wide, unguarded—mirror my own from centuries ago. The eyes of someone who still believes answers can save them.
"Let it go," I mutter.
"Or what?" She leans in. "You'll fire me? You're not even the manager, Eddie."
A crash echoed from the stacks. Books tumbled from a shelf as if shoved. The librarian yelped, scrambling away. Erion's hand flew to his hip—where no sword hung—as a low, guttural chittering seeped from the shadows.
Lila froze. "Raccoon?"
"No."
The creature scuttled into view—a mass of matted fur and too many joints, its eyes glowing like embers. A krell. Pestilence-daemons from the marshes of Vel'Sharra. They'd once gnawed through siege engines. Now here it was, in the nonfiction aisle, dripping mucus onto 'A History of Medieval Europe'.
Impossible. The portal's closed. I'm hallucinating. But the daemon hissed, acidic drool eating holes in the carpet. Lila's breath hitched. She sees it too.
The krell lunged. I grabbed the closest weapon—a metal bookmark—and sidestepped. Too slow. Claws grazed my arm, burning.
"Run!" I barked.
Lila didn't. She hurled a dictionary. It struck the daemon's hunched spine, buying seconds.
Erion tackled the creature, driving the bookmark into its neck. It shrieked, thrashing, ichor spraying. The smell of sulfur flooded the room. Students screamed, fleeing as the krell dissolved into a black slurry that evaporated midair.
Lila stared at the stain on Erion's shirt. "What. The. Fuck."
"You asked for the truth." He yanked her toward the exit. "Now you're in it."
We spill into the alley, rain sluicing the daemon's stink from my skin. Lila's shaking, but not from fear. Excitement. She's smiling.
"That thing—it's from your world, isn't it?"
"Was," I snap. "My world is gone."
A lie. The black dog's howl tears through the storm. Closer now.
Back at the café, Erion scrubbed his hands raw in the sink. Krell in the library. The Council's hound hunting him. Lila, digging too deep. The threads were tangling again.
Mr. Park emerged from the stockroom, clutching a box of straws. "You're late."
"Carafe broke. Again."
The old man squinted. "You fight?"
Erion followed his gaze to the claw marks on his neck. "Cat."
"Hn." Mr. Park set down the straws. "My wife. She see things too. Before she die." He tapped his temple. "Monsters in the walls."
The admission hangs between us, fragile as a cobweb. Does he know? But Mr. Park just grunts and retreats.
Lila texts: "Come over. I've got proof your world's bleeding into mine."
Attached: a video. The library's security feed, timestamped an hour ago. The fight with the krell—but in the footage, we're alone. Swatting at air.
Except the books still fell.
Her apartment smelled of incense and conspiracy—clippings of "unexplained phenomena" plastered the walls. Lila played the video again. "The camera didn't pick up the creature, but the effects are there. Like a… glitch in reality."
Erion stiffened. A faded newspaper headline caught his eye: Local Woman Claims "Goblin" Invasion in 1998. The photo showed a blurry shape, but he recognized the hooked blade in its hand. Grem'al. Raiders from the Bloodplate Clan.
"You're not the first," Lila said softly. "There have been others. People who vanished. People who saw."
The room spins. Others. Refugees, like me? Or scouts from the Council? My coffee's gone cold. I taste the dregs—bitter, like the poisons I once fed traitors.
Lila grips my wrist. "Help me understand. Please."
Outside, streetlights flicker. The shadows twist, too fluid, too aware.
"They're coming," I say.
"Who?"
"The ones who'll make you wish you'd never asked."