They didn't make camp that night.
No one said it, but none of them trusted the beds waiting in the immaculate, dustless houses. Not after the eyes. Not after the way the city had shifted around them.
So they gathered around a low fire in the plaza, close to the cracked harp. The wind sang through its strings like something remembering how to weep.
Lucian sat beside Merry, the Grimoire unopened for once.
"You saw the eyes too," he said.
Merry didn't answer immediately. Her gaze tracked the horizon like she was still watching for blinks between shadows. Then, softly:
"Yes. But not all of them were Spymaster-made."
Lucian looked at her.
Merry's voice was calm, but her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve. "Some of them were made from thread. Not wire. Not glyph. Weave."
"That shouldn't be possible," Lucian said.
"It isn't. Unless someone tried to weave the future so tightly... they threaded consciousness into the pattern itself."
Lucian froze.
