The morning had matured into a quiet, honey-colored stillness. Elena and Styler were upstairs with the children, the distant sound of muffled laughter providing a domestic heartbeat to the otherwise silent mansion. Mild had retreated to the library to organize the medical supplies Dr. Aris had sent, but his eyes kept drifting to Arm.
Arm was standing by a towering wall of mahogany shelves, his fingers tracing the gold-embossed spines of books he had once authored or collected. He looked like a man trying to read a language that had been erased from his tongue. Suddenly, his hand stopped on a thick, shadow-black volume wedged behind a collection of architectural blueprints.
It wasn't a published book. It was a leather-bound journal, the hide worn soft by years of touch, its edges slightly frayed.
"Mild," Arm called out, his voice low and curious. "This... this feels different. It doesn't smell like the other books. It smells like... me."
