The book didn't move at first.
It simply existed—heavy and silent on Lina's desk, wrapped in its velvet cocoon, like it had been waiting there for centuries instead of hours.
Lina hadn't touched it again since the knock.
Neither had Theo.
They'd just… watched it. Like it might blink.
The house had gone cold.
Not haunted. Not cursed.
Worse.
Still.
Theo finally broke the silence. "Maybe it's just… a message. Maybe someone's watching, and this is their way of saying we did something wrong."
Lina didn't look up. Her eyes were on the seal. "No. It's not a warning. It's a key."
Theo leaned against the desk, trying not to glance at the sigil on his chest. It had been glowing again—only faintly, but enough to keep him awake all night. Enough to make him wonder.
"You feel it too," Lina said.
He nodded. "Like something pulling on me. Not hard. Just… constant."
She stepped closer to the book. Close enough now to see the faint shimmer in the velvet—the way the fabric swirled with something like ink under the surface.
And then—just for a second—
It breathed.
The cover rose and fell, like a lung drawing in the scent of her.
Theo grabbed her wrist. "Don't."
But it was already too late.
The seal snapped open.
The velvet fell away.
And the book—smaller than the grimoire, but far older—opened on its own.
There were no words. Just a single illustration on the first page:
A girl with Lina's face, standing in the center of a scorched battlefield, eyes black, hands raised, power spilling from her like smoke.
But she wasn't alone.
Behind her stood a man wearing Theo's mark.
Chained.
Eyes shut.
Head bowed.
Below the image, new words bloomed in ink:
"This was the world that should have been."
Lina staggered back.
Theo's sigil flared—brighter than ever before.
He clutched his chest, breath hitching.
"Lina…" he said through his teeth. "Something's waking up."
The book snapped shut.
And across the cover, new gold lettering etched itself, letter by letter:
THE VELVET BOOK OF UNWRITTEN FATES
Theo didn't sleep.
Not really.
His eyes closed. His body lay still. But his mind was running—through forests he'd never seen, over stone bridges lit by moons that didn't exist, toward a version of Lina that wasn't Lina at all.
She stood taller. Spoke sharper.
Her magic didn't flicker. It burned.
And when she looked at him—
She didn't know his name.
He jolted awake.
The mark on his chest was glowing again—hot, steady, like a brand being pressed from the inside.
Downstairs, Lina was still staring at the book, which had refused to open since the illustration appeared. As if it had shown them just enough truth to wound—and then shut its mouth.
Theo stumbled to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, gripped the sink.
And then—a whisper.
"You shouldn't have left."
He froze.
His eyes met his reflection.
But the voice wasn't in the room.
It was in him.
"You think this life is the real one," the voice said. His voice—but older. Bitter. "You think you saved her."
Theo swallowed hard. "Who are you?"
Silence.
Then:
"I'm the version of you who stayed behind. The one who made the right choice."
A flash of memory—not his, but almost:
Lina—darker, colder—standing over a circle of fire. Power spiraling around her like a crown. Theo—that Theo—watching from chains, smiling with blood on his lips.
And in that moment, Theo understood:
The curse didn't just trap them in one loop.
It made dozens.
And one of those versions—the one where he chose duty over love—wasn't dead.
He was still out there.
And now, he was reaching across the veil.
Downstairs, Lina finally looked away from the book.
The lights flickered.
Outside, the wind howled.
And far from the house, in the heart of the old woods, a fire lit itself in a ring of stone that hadn't burned in over three hundred years.
Something was coming.
Or someone.
Lina had always known the world had secrets.
She just didn't expect them to knock on her door wearing silk gloves and bone-white smiles.
They came at dusk.
Three of them.
Their carriage didn't make a sound as it pulled up to the old Reyes estate. No creaking wheels. No hoofbeats. Just stillness, like the world was holding its breath.
Theo saw them first through the upstairs window.
He didn't need magic to know something was wrong.
They moved like dancers. Or ghosts.
Their leader—a woman with silver-streaked hair, skin like old parchment, and a voice lined with velvet—stepped forward and knocked once.
Lina opened the door.
The woman didn't bow. Didn't smile.
She simply held out a sealed scroll bearing a symbol neither Lina nor Theo had ever seen:
A closed eye… with a second, open one hidden beneath it.
"Lina Reyes," she said. "You've been summoned."
Lina's brow furrowed. "By who?"
"The Order of the Velvet Veil," said the woman. "We watched over your family for centuries. We sealed your curse. And we're here to assess… what's been let loose."
Theo stepped beside Lina, tense. "You're late."
The woman's eyes flicked to him—then dropped to his chest, where the sigil pulsed behind his shirt. Her lips curled faintly.
"You still wear it. That's interesting."
"What do you mean?" Lina asked sharply.
The woman's tone stayed maddeningly calm. "The sigil was meant to vanish with the curse. If it hasn't… then perhaps the curse wasn't what we thought it was."
She stepped back, motioning to her companions—twin men with mirrored faces and mirrored blades.
"We'd like you to come with us, Miss Reyes. Quietly."
"I'm not yours," Lina snapped.
"No," said the woman, with a tilt of her head. "That's the problem. The version of you we were meant to protect died two centuries ago. You—"
Her eyes narrowed.
"—are the wrong one."
The wind howled through the trees. The sigil on Theo's chest flared. And inside the house, the Velvet Book snapped open—on its own—to a new page.
A page depicting Lina standing in a circle of flames.
Holding a knife.
And behind her—one of the Veil twins, eyes burned out, screaming.
Theo reached for her hand.
Lina didn't flinch.
"If I'm the wrong one," she said, "you'd better be sure you're the right side."