The candle's flickering light cast long, wavering shadows across Ezra Lockwood's desk as he turned the envelope over in his hands for the third time. The paper was yellowed, the edges crisp, yet the ink on the front was fresh, as though the letter had been written only yesterday.
The problem was, Dr. Alistair Crowne had been missing for two weeks.
Ezra ran a finger over the wax seal, an unfamiliar sigil pressed into deep crimson wax. He had seen countless letters in his time as a journalist—love notes, threats, blackmail—but none had carried this unsettling weight, as if the envelope itself knew it shouldn't exist.
His name was written in careful, deliberate script across the front. Ezra Lockwood, 14 Whitmore Street, Eldenwald. No return address.
A heavy silence filled the dimly lit apartment. The only sounds were the distant clatter of carriage wheels from the street below and the quiet tick, tick, tick of the grandfather clock in the corner. Outside, Eldenwald was awake—gas lamps burning through the evening fog, laughter and drunken arguments leaking from the taverns. But within these four walls, it was just Ezra, the letter, and the growing suspicion that something was terribly wrong.
Slowly, he broke the seal and unfolded the parchment.
Ezra,
If you are reading this, it means I have failed. I am no longer safe.
I do not know if I will be dead when you receive this, or if I will be something else.
You must listen carefully. They are watching. Even now.
Destroy this letter. Forget you ever received it. If you do not, they will know that you have seen it. They will come for you, just as they came for me.
There is a book hidden beneath the floorboards of my study—The Hidden Laws. Take it and leave Eldenwald. Do not read it. Do not stay.
Most importantly, Ezra—do not look for me.
I am already gone.
—A. Crowne
A chill spread down Ezra's spine. He re-read the letter, then read it again, the words refusing to change no matter how many times his eyes traced them.
He should have burned it right then and there.
Instead, he set it down on the desk, fingers pressing into the parchment as if to confirm its reality.
Dr. Crowne, a professor of esoteric philosophy, had vanished two weeks ago. His disappearance had barely made the papers—an eccentric old scholar, lost to madness or some trivial accident. That was the official story.
But this letter shouldn't exist.
No one had seen Crowne since the night he disappeared. No one had received word from him. And yet, here it was.
A letter written in his own hand. Postmarked yesterday.
Ezra exhaled slowly, his journalist instincts warring with the cold dread curling in his gut. Crowne had been researching something—something dangerous enough that he had tried to warn Ezra, even as he was being erased.
His eyes flicked to the last line.
Do not look for me.
Ezra pushed back his chair.
That was exactly what he was going to do.