Today, I saw a husk for the first time. It wasn’t what I expected—but on this Plane, it never is. Shockingly, its connection to the glyphs remained intact. That was supposed to be impossible. This one was special. I’ve hidden it in the most secure place I know: between shelves no one ever visits.

  —A. Explorer.

  The Library of Thrill Park loomed like a monument to forgotten gods, wholly out of place in Freetown’s medieval charm. Its gothic towers pierced the ominous skies like jagged teeths, wrapped in coils of white mist that clung stubbornly to the upper levels. The stone walls, worn and pitted from storms long gone, bore the texture of something older than weather, older than memory.

  Kitai stood frozen before it.

  The open doors did not invite; they gaped. A patient maw. A trap that had stopped pretending it wasn’t one. Something deep in her Frame recoiled. If her soul had hackles, they would be raised.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Saon floated toward the entrance, voice maddeningly casual. His winged feet glinted under his cloak, briefly catching the moonlight with each lazy kick.

  Gemini followed behind, quiet as wind through a ribcage. Their features flickered between masculine and feminine, never holding long enough for Kitai to anchor to one version of them. The dim tint of evening only made their presence feel more uncertain, more liminal. Neither of them hesitated.

  They crossed the threshold without a glance back.

  Kitai’s Frame shivered.

  “They really just walked in,” she murmured.

  She tried to move, to follow, but her body refused. Her heel slid backward. Then the other. She staggered, spine bumping against the side of the carriage. Her chest tightened as if her ribs were shrinking.

  What is this?

  “You’re forgetting something, aren’t you?”

  The Voice. Cold. Annoyed. Awake after too long pretending to sleep.

  “I don’t have anything left to forget,” she whispered. “No possessions. Nothing.” Just people. Just pieces of herself she’d left behind in every home.

  “This is why the heirloom won’t lift the curse,” the Voice said. “You haven’t claimed it. It’s playing games with you until you do.”

  Her mind lurched. The heirloom.

  She hadn’t thought about it since—

  “It’s back at the estate,” she gasped, eyes scanning the empty street like an answer might be painted on the stones.

  “If it were, Saon would’ve stolen it. Again,” the Voice snapped. “Like he always does when you forget. So where is it, then?”

  Kitai checked the carriage: empty. Checked her hands: bare. Her heart pounded against her ribs, frantic and useless.

  “It’s something you already know, Kitai. Try using your brain for once.”

  She closed her eyes and turned inward, sinking past the surface of panic into the humming core of her Frame.

  There, swirling like a sun trapped behind glass, her connection to glyphs and fables pulsed green and gold, beating in time with her breath. She dove deeper. Past the constructs. Past the new scars and old instincts. Down, into the center of her soul.

  And there it was.

  A green figure made entirely of bag-like fabric, stitched together from straps and patches, with long, reaching tendrils that swayed as if underwater. He was stuffing something glowing and familiar into his chest, tugging it inside with greedy, practiced motions.

  Her insignia.

  Her inheritance. Her name.

  “It’s the Bagman,” the Voice said. “Your heirloom. Feeding on your legacy. It doesn’t think you’re worthy.”

  Kitai’s stomach dropped. “What happens if I don’t stop it?” Her voice trembled in the hollow space.

  “You’ll lose yourself,” the Voice replied. “Your sentience. You’ll be buried somewhere deep in your Frame, and the Bagman will walk in your place.”

  Kitai stepped forward on reflex, but a forest of tendrils lashed out, hissing through the air between them.

  “If those touch you, it’s over,” the Voice warned.

  “Then what do I do?” Fear crawled up her spine, sharp and electric. She had barely been given a life to live; she refused to let it be stolen by a sentient handbag.

  “You need a stronger will than the Bagman.”

  “How do I get that?!” she snapped. “I barely understand how any of this works. I’m not some chosen—”

  The Voice sighed, muttering something in a language older than her bones. “Why are you here, Kitai?”

  “The hammer,” she whispered. “John Henry’s hammer.”

  “Yes.”

  The word rippled through her like a command.

  She was ripped upward—dragged out of her core and thrown back into her body. The Library surged back into view. She was still outside, still frozen, still alone.

  “Why haven’t they come back?” she asked aloud. Her voice sounded smaller than she liked.

  “They can’t,” the Voice said. “The Library is locked with stasis glyphs. Time moves differently inside. For them, it’s been seconds.”

  “Of course it has,” she muttered. “Alone again. Story of my life.”

  “I’ll help,” the Voice said quietly. “Just this once. I can suppress the Bagman for a few hours, but I’ll need to hibernate after. You’ll be on your own again.”

  Warmth seeped back into her limbs, slow but certain. Her fingers unclenched. Her knees steadied. It felt like someone else had taken the weight of the fear and set it aside.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, unsure if she meant it, but saying it anyway.

  She stepped forward.

  The terror remained somewhere in the distance, muted, but she would take muted over drowning. She crossed the threshold, not knowing what the Library would demand of her, only that she was finally ready to answer.

  She expected more fear. More resistance. Echoes of the Bagman snarling at the edges of her thoughts.

  Instead, she found peace.

  A cool, tingling calm washed over her as she passed fully inside, like walking into a dream stitched from stolen comforts. Her shoulders loosened, unbinding tension she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying since Boca Raton.

  The room around her looked disarmingly familiar. Like a hotel lobby from the Remembered Plane—the kind Craig used to describe from his conference trips, the ones she’d never gotten to see. A hand-painted WELCOME sign hung above a polished front desk, complete with a brass bell. Lanterns flickered from jagged stone outcroppings in the walls, their golden light soft and unhurried. Overhead, a chandelier beaded with colored glass hovered above a circle of empty chairs.

  Saon lounged on a velvet couch by the door, next to the desk where a fishbowl and a bouquet of white roses sat perfectly still, like props waiting for an actor’s cue.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Gemini rested in a high-backed chair shaped like a throne, its silver legs bent like animal claws, its golden frame catching the light like polished bone.

  Kitai hesitated, then forced herself to move forward.

  “Sorry I took so long,” she muttered. “My Frame got the best of me.”

  Neither of them questioned it. They just rose when she drew close, falling into step beside her like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  Saon floated to her left, drifting just off the ground at her pace. Gemini slipped seamlessly from their chair and reappeared at her right, each step solidifying their form until they felt fully here again.

  “It’s alright,” Saon said, voice a low hum. “It was barely a minute for us. White glyphs create time dilation around the Library. It’s… a blessing and a curse.”

  Kitai stopped when they reached the desk. The bell sat there, simple and tempting. Her hand hovered above it. Ring it. Make someone else responsible for explaining this place.

  Saon’s face, for once, wasn’t smiling.

  “A blessing and a curse?” she asked instead.

  Gemini answered, now dressed in a black tank top and loose cargo pants, their form resting in a deliberate balance between masculine and feminine. Centered. Intentional.

  “The Library is a Soulframe, suspended by white glyphs,” they said. “Those glyphs hold it out of time. Nothing rots here. Nothing fades. Whatever’s stored in its Frame… stays.”

  “But what makes that cursed?” Kitai asked.

  “If the Library likes you,” Gemini continued, leaning lightly against the desk, “you could spend a week in here, and only seconds pass outside. But if it doesn’t…” They shrugged. “You might wander for centuries before you find a door that actually opens. If you ever do.”

  Kitai’s skin prickled. “We can get trapped in here?”

  “Yes,” Saon said simply. “But we should be safe. Your parents spent a lot of time here. Your father was even a curator once—helped build your Frame in these halls.”

  Of course he did. Of course he had a hand in this too.

  “What isn’t connected to my family?” she asked the room, half-joking, half-exhausted.

  She caught it: a quick glance between Saon and Gemini. A flicker of something—guilt? Worry? Resignation? Then both of them looked away, almost in sync.

  Her frown deepened. She didn’t push. Not yet.

  Gemini toyed with their ring, but their form stayed steady, no flicker of distress. “We can’t answer that,” they said softly. “But with a lineage as old as yours… assume your family’s fingerprints are on everything. Even the things that feel impossible.”

  “Okay,” Kitai said flatly. Being important still felt like a shirt three sizes too big. It hung off her, swallowing her shape.

  She turned toward the entrance. The doorway was still there, but instead of the town, a sheet of grey mist pressed up against the frame, featureless and unmoving. No way back. Not easily.

  Movement tugged at her attention.

  On the couch where Saon had lounged, she saw them—shadows. Two of them. Leaning. Watching.

  “Are we the only ones here?” she asked, taking a cautious step back from the desk.

  “Yes,” Saon said without hesitation. “Only those with the Lafiya insignia can enter this wing. That bell?” He nodded toward it. “It calls the curator. We’re not here to chat. We’re here to rob the place. No one rings that bell.”

  He floated over to a lantern on the far left wall, slipped his hand inside, and pulled out a coil of red yarn that glowed faintly in the dim light.

  “So we don’t get lost,” he said, drifting back. “I’ll tie this end to the desk, and the other to you.”

  “To… me?” Kitai asked. “Why not all of us?”

  Saon smirked as he looped the yarn around her waist. “Because if things go bad and Gemini or I melt out of our bodies, the yarn would just fall straight through us. But you? You’re always solid.”

  He cinched the knot snug. “You’re adorable, by the way.”

  Kitai rolled her eyes, trying to bury the tiny, traitorous warmth blooming in her chest. “Ha. Ha. Can we focus? I swear something is watching us.”

  Her gaze flicked back to the couch. The shadows had shifted again, closer now, curled under the chandelier. She pretended not to see them.

  Gemini tightened the knot on the desk side and stepped back. “So. This Library. I thought it was our biggest fan?”

  “It is,” Gemini said. “But even fans hate being stolen from. Especially when you’re prying out something lodged directly in their Soulframe.”

  “And outside these walls,” Saon added, rising a little higher, “a stunt like this would bring the Onye Nche down on us in minutes. They’d strip our Frames, siphon our fables, and leave us as husks.”

  Kitai swallowed hard. Her fingers brushed the red yarn at her waist. A lifeline. Or a leash.

  “So don’t get caught,” she said. “Got it.”

  As her eyes drifted back to the circle of chairs, she froze.

  The shadows had moved again.

  Closer.

  One chair away now.

  “Seriously, why am I the only one tied up?!” she asked, voice pitching higher than she meant it to.

  “Because you’re our anchor,” Saon said, tugging at the yarn around her waist to test the knot. “And you’re brave enough to handle it.”

  “Flattery won’t save you.”

  “It never does,” he agreed lightly.

  Kitai didn’t laugh. Her gaze stayed fixed on the chairs. The shadows were wrong. Not cast, not natural, not obedient to the lanterns. They sat where light should have been, thick and slow, like spilled ink trying to remember how to be human.

  “I don’t think we’re alone,” she whispered.

  “Then it’s time to move,” Saon said.

  He drifted toward the wall beside the bell desk and, without any ceremony or warning, passed straight through it. No ripple. No flash. One second he was there, the next he simply... wasn’t.

  Kitai blinked. “I’m pretty sure I can’t walk through walls.”

  “It’s not a wall,” Gemini said, slipping their fingers through hers. Their grip was steady, grounding. “It’s a hidden Lafiya entrance. Keeps wandering souls out—and lets the right ones in.”

  “Define ‘right,’” Kitai muttered.

  Gemini just smiled. “Hold your breath.”

  They tugged her forward.

  She braced for impact—body tensed, teeth clenched—

  —but there was none.

  Instead, she felt herself pass through something thin and yielding, like stepping through wet silk or the surface of a dream. Cold brushed against her Soulframe, a quick, assessing shiver, and then the lobby, the bell, the chairs, and their watching shadows vanished behind her.

  There was only darkness. And the quiet awareness that the Library now had her.