I held the paper a moment longer. Until now I had taken it for nothing more than something someone had grabbed to scrawl a message on.

"Let me feel it," the doctor said, her voice quieter now, almost urgent. "Just let me feel it."

I slid the note across the desk. She took it at once, and every trace of the flirtation drained out of her face like someone had flipped a switch. Her playful smile vanished. Her eyes sharpened, focused, the flirtatious sparkle replaced by something serious and almost reverent.

Her fingers unfolded it carefully, almost reverently, like she was afraid it might come apart in her hands. The red hair fell forward as she leaned in, catching the sunlight from the narrow window behind her and turning it into strands of liquid copper. Her brow furrowed slightly, lips parting as she ran her fingertips slowly over the texture, feeling the weight, the slight roughness of the edges, the faint yellowing of the color.

Then she turned and held it up to the light coming through the narrow window. The paper glowed translucent for a moment, fibers and faint watermarks becoming visible in the harsh beam. Her eyes widened a fraction, breath catching.

"What is it?" I asked, already starting to second-guess coming to her at all. My pulse picked up.

Her eyes had gone somewhere far off, distant and intensely focused at the same time. A small muscle twitched in her jaw.

"Where did you get this?"

"Under my apartment door."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

She lowered the note slowly, almost reluctantly, as if letting it go cost her something. Her fingers lingered on the edge for a second longer than necessary.

"That’s impossible."

I leaned forward, elbows pressing into the cold metal desk. "Why?"

She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed fixed on the page, tracing the handwriting with something close to disbelief. Her lips pressed into a thin line, color draining slightly from her face.

"This is impossible, Abram." She turned it over, studying the ink now, her breathing shallower. "It’s impossible."

"What is it?"

"This is her handwriting," she said finally, voice barely above a whisper.

"Whose handwriting?"

She lifted her eyes to mine. The flirtatious woman from moments ago was completely gone. In her place was someone haunted, the harsh lab lights casting sharp shadows under her eyes and highlighting the slight tremble in her lower lip. Everything about today had been a mystery, and somehow the woman who had been all flirtation a few minutes ago was now holding a key to one piece of it.

My coms watch buzzed against my wrist. A message from Bala. I need you right now.

I read it and let it sit. Whatever Bala wanted could wait a few more seconds. This thread was unraveling in front of me, and I wasn’t leaving the room until I had the name.

"Whose handwriting, Doc?" I asked again, low and steady, leaning in closer.

"Emily," she corrected softly, almost absentmindedly.

I let out a slow breath.

"The first time I ever saw paper like this," she said, setting the note down between us on the desk with careful fingers, "was the day I was supposed to die."

Just answer the question.

She stood and came around the desk to where I sat. The white dress shifted against her thighs as she moved. She lifted the hem slowly along her right leg, revealing a long, pale scar that ran upward from just above her knee toward the line of her underwear — old, deep, and slightly raised against her skin, the kind of mark that never fully healed. She let the dress fall back into place and sat on the edge of the table, close enough that her knee brushed mine. Her hands trembled slightly as she smoothed the fabric back down.

"The day I got this was the day I should have died," she said, her voice losing some of its steadiness now. Her eyes were distant, reliving it. "I was young. Older-looking than my years, but young."

I watched her, waiting for the name, the harsh lab lights catching the faint tremble in her fingers as she spoke and the way her throat moved when she swallowed.

"I’d lost my mother. I moved in with someone I was close to, an ability user. His father was a healer, that was his gift, and he taught me everything I know about medicine. Four sons in that house. All of them ability users."

She told it flat, no flinching, like the memory had been worn smooth by years of carrying it. But her hands stayed clenched in her lap, knuckles whitening.

"One night the father was away. So was the one I trusted. The others turned on me. They were going to make sure I never told anyone what happened. They were going to kill me." A pause. Her voice dropped. "They were ability users. I fought. I couldn’t win that fight, and I knew how it was going to end."

"I’m sorry," I said, tracking where this led.

"And then someone pulled me out of it," she said. "The same person who sent you that paper."

"Who sent it?"

"I call her mama." Her eyes came back to mine, steady now but haunted. "She used this paper on purpose, Abram. She wanted you to find her. She could have written it on anything. She chose this."

"Who sent it?"

"Riya Belmonte," Emily said.

What.

[Today will be a revolutionary day inside the walls. The pattern is complete. There is nothing the host can do about it.]

The system flashed again. The source I was supposed to be hunting had been reaching out to me the whole time. The pieces were scattered too wide, and I needed to pull them together fast, before whatever was already in motion finished moving.

"I don’t think you’re a regular person, Abram," Emily said, lifting the note again, her red hair catching the sunlight as she tilted the paper. "Riya doesn’t send a message to just anyone."

Then something moved across the page in her hand.

I went still. The ink wasn’t where it had been a moment ago.

A second line was forming beneath the first. Fresh, the strokes appearing as if someone were writing them right now, somewhere I couldn’t see. The black ink bloomed and spread across the yellowed paper in real time, each letter forming with slow, deliberate precision. Emily saw it too. Her eyes widened, lips parting in shock.

Neither of us said a word. Letter by letter, the new sentence took shape on the paper.

Nadez. Look behind you.

The air in the lab turned colder. The hum of the equipment seemed to fade. I turned.