The city awoke to music.
Not the bells — they had vanished weeks ago. Not the cries of merchants, or the hammering of blacksmiths. No, this was a different kind of sound: drifting strains of flute and drum, playful and lilting, as though a festival had come in the night.
But no festival had been planned.
Lyra stood on the northern wall at dawn, the Codex pressed tight against her chest as she watched lanterns flicker in the distance. A whole carnival sprawled across the meadow beyond the gates, its tents striped in emerald and gold, its banners fluttering in the wind. Ferris wheels of iron turned without hands to push them, and laughter floated faint on the air.
Yet yesterday that meadow had been empty.
By midmorning, word of the carnival spread like fire. Families crowded the streets, children tugging at their parents' hands. Merchants argued whether to close stalls and join the parade of citizens drifting toward the gates. Even the Council guards seemed tempted, their stern eyes flicking nervously toward the sound of laughter beyond the walls.
"They say it's always been there," muttered a baker as Lyra passed. "My son swears I took him last summer, though I remember nothing of it."
"My daughter remembers the taste of candied apples," another replied, "but I've never once seen such a thing sold here."
It was the same story everywhere: memories that should not exist, nostalgia for days no one had lived.
The Codex quivered against Lyra's palm. When she opened it, the pages rippled as if stirred by wind. New glyphs carved themselves into the parchment:
"Masquerade: where truth wears masks and memory is a stage."
Kael arrived with his armor half-glimpsed, shimmering like a ghost around his body. He eyed the carnival with a soldier's suspicion.
"It appeared too quickly. A fortress cannot be built in a night, let alone a city of tents. This is sorcery."
Beside him, Rienne adjusted the straps on her satchel, her crystalline arm glowing faintly. "Not sorcery. A fracture. The Veil bends here. This carnival… it might not be built at all. It might be remembered into existence."
Lyra nodded grimly. "The Codex reacts. We can't ignore it."
Kael's hand drifted to the hilt of his blade. "Then we go armed."
Rienne gave him a dry look. "Armed against jugglers and mummers?"
"Against whatever wears their masks," he answered.
By midday, the city streamed through the open gates. A painted archway rose over them, carved with faces that smiled, frowned, laughed, and wept all at once. As Lyra passed beneath, she felt the air shift — colder, sharper, as though the world beyond belonged to another season entirely.
The carnival stretched wider than it had from the walls. Tents of crimson and sapphire twisted into impossible spirals. Lanterns floated without ropes. Stalls sold confections Lyra had never seen yet somehow knew by name: spun sugar, firefruit cider, honey glass.
Children darted past them, shrieking with delight, their parents following in dazed smiles. But Kael's eyes stayed wary, tracing every shadow.
"Do you see them?" Rienne whispered.
At first Lyra thought she meant the performers — acrobats tumbling through air, fire-breathers exhaling ribbons of flame. But then she noticed them: people who seemed… blurred. Faces too vague, bodies that shimmered as though seen through glass. Spectators who were not quite real.
"Echoes," Lyra breathed. "Like the ones the Resonator showed us."
"And yet," Rienne murmured, "the children see no difference."
They found him at the heart of the carnival: a man standing before a striped pavilion, dressed in a coat of deep violet lined with silver thread. His hair was dark, his smile sharp and playful. But it was his eyes that arrested Lyra's breath — one emerald, one amber, both gleaming with unsettling clarity.
He bowed with a flourish as though expecting them.
"Welcome, welcome, Veilbearers!" His voice rang like a bell across the square. "I am Corin Vale, ringmaster of the Masquerade. You are late, of course, but we forgive tardiness when the guests are so rare."
Lyra stiffened. "You know who we are?"
"Know?" Corin's grin widened. "My dear, I remember. I remember you before you were born, and after you are gone. I remember every version of you the Veil has ever spun. The Codex in your hands? A toy. I am the stage, the script, the applause."
Kael's hand went to his blade. "Speak plainly."
"Plainly?" Corin tilted his head. "Very well: the Veil unravels, and every thread frays into stories. I collect them. I play them. I show your people what they have forgotten. Who doesn't love a carnival of memory?"
Rienne's voice cut sharp. "You feed on it."
He clapped once, delighted. "Ah, the clever one. Yes. Memory is sweeter than sugar, sharper than wine. And your city has such rich, desperate memories to share."
Before they could question him further, a drumbeat rolled across the square. The pavilion curtains swept aside, and performers spilled out — masked dancers, painted jesters, acrobats leaping into impossible heights.
The crowd roared with joy. Parents wept as though remembering their own childhoods. Children clutched at memories they never lived.
But to Lyra's eyes, the dancers flickered. Their masks shifted, becoming faces she half-recognized — her mother, a friend long dead, Kael in another armor, Rienne as a child. Each glimpse was gone in an instant, leaving her heart pounding.
She snapped the Codex open. New words seared across the page:
"Masquerade shows not what is, but what could have been. Beware the hunger of nostalgia."
Lyra's throat tightened. The carnival wasn't just a show. It was a lure.
Corin drifted closer, his mismatched eyes gleaming. "Do you wish to play, little scholar? Each guest must choose a mask. Only then may you see the true performance."
Masks hung from a nearby stall — laughing, weeping, snarling, serene. Each one seemed to pulse faintly, as though waiting for a wearer.
Kael scowled. "This reeks of a trap."
Rienne folded her arms. "Which is precisely why we must play. The Veil has placed this before us. If we refuse, we learn nothing."
Lyra hesitated, her fingers brushing the Codex. The pages fluttered, revealing one line:
"To unmask truth, you must first wear lies."
Her decision was made. She reached for a mask — the face of a calm, smiling woman. It was cool in her hands, but when she pressed it to her face, the world shifted.
The carnival vanished.
She stood in a hall of mirrors, endless reflections of herself staring back. But they were not the same: some were older, some younger, some cloaked, some armored, some with eyes burning gold. Lives she might have lived, lives she never would.
In the glass beside her, Kael appeared in full plate, crowned as a king. In another reflection, he lay dead on a battlefield.
Rienne's mirrors showed her consumed by glass entirely, or else standing triumphant with both arms whole.
Corin appeared between the mirrors, his grin wide. "Do you see? Every mask is a door. Every choice, a branch. The Veil crumbles because it cannot contain all its selves. I simply… help the flood along."
Lyra's heart pounded. "You're accelerating it."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps I am merely showing what was always there."
The reflections pressed closer, voices whispering in their ears. Stay here. Choose me. Live this life instead.
Kael snarled and struck a mirror with his sword. The glass shattered, but instead of falling, the shards swirled into shadowy figures that lunged toward him.
Rienne raised her crystalline arm, its glow flaring as she repelled the shards with a burst of light. "It's feeding on indecision!" she cried.
Lyra opened the Codex, forcing herself to ignore the seductive pull of the mirrors. Words burned into being:
"A mask has no power if you name the face beneath."
She ripped the mask from her face and shouted, "I am Lyra Calwyn! Scholar of the Codex, Veilbearer of this age!"
The mirrors rippled and dissolved. The carnival returned with a thunderclap.
Corin clapped slowly, mock applause echoing through the square. "Bravo, bravo. Few cast aside the masks so quickly. You may yet surprise me."
His smile sharpened. "But remember this: the Veil does not break without reason. It breaks because it is burdened with stories that cannot coexist. Every fracture is a tale demanding to be told. You can patch the sky all you like — but can you silence the chorus of possibility?"
With that, he turned and vanished into the pavilion. The carnival erupted into laughter once more, as though nothing had happened.
But Lyra, Kael, and Rienne stood together, shaken and silent.
The Codex still glowed faintly in Lyra's hand, one last message searing into the page:
"The Masquerade has begun. To play is to risk, to refuse is to fade."
Night fell over the city, and the carnival's lanterns burned like stars. Families lingered in its glow, laughing, feasting, remembering things they had never lived.
But on the rooftop that night, Lyra whispered to her companions:
"This Masquerade isn't entertainment. It's invasion."
And above them, the cracks in the sky pulsed brighter, as though laughing along with Corin Vale.