Lyra had learned that rot never announced itself.

It did not arrive with violence or raised voices or obvious defiance. Rot arrived quietly—through permissions granted too easily, through records altered by a single mark, through delays no one questioned because delay had become normal. It thrived in the spaces where everyone assumed someone else was watching.

Tonight, she was watching.

The council archive chamber was empty save for the single lantern burning at the long table. Its light ...