The Girl's eyes drop to the book. She opens the cover with trembling fingers — the first page still holds its lone word in storm-grey ink, unchanged, as if it has always been there. She turns the page. Blank. She turns another, and another, fanning through paper that smells faintly of pine resin and old rain. Then her breath catches: near the middle of the book, where no page should differ from any other, a second word has appeared in that same grey hand. She feels it before she reads it — a faint vibration in the paper, like a plucked string still settling. Ember Fox pads soundlessly to her side and cranes its nose toward the open page, amber eyes alight. The word shimmers at the edge of meaning. She isn't sure whether to whisper it now, or wait until she better understands the first.