Viktor lounged behind the counter, his coat draped around him like a king's robe—or maybe a beggar's blanket, it was hard to tell with him. His shirt was half-buttoned, his vest had far too many pockets, and his mismatched boots made it unclear if he had dressed in the dark or simply didn't care. He was sometimes well dressed and sometimes it seemed like he has given up completely.
His white hair was a mess, sticking up at odd angles as if he'd been electrocuted or had just lost a fight with a particularly aggressive book. His eyes, a shade of pale gray that looked too washed out to hold any real color, flickered with something unreadable.
Dust and shadow made a home among the shelves, curling in the spines of books written in languages that had been buried with their authors. The scent of moldy parchment, burnt sage, and something darker hung in the air like a second layer of silence.
When Lucian saw him, Viktor was laughing softly to himself, staring at the ceiling like it had told him a very good joke.
"Who are you talking to?" Lucian asked, his voice flat.
Viktor slowly turned his head, blinking as if he'd forgotten Lucian existed.
"Oh, you know," he said, waving a hand vaguely at the air. "The usual. Dead poets, lost kings, a woman who swears she buried something under my floorboards a hundred years ago."
Lucian stared at him.
Viktor grinned. "I'm lying about the poets. They're actually quite dull."
Lucian sighed.
"Are you listening to ghosts again, or just losing your mind?"
Viktor stretched, bones cracking in ways.
"Yes."
Lucian dragged a chair across the floor, ignoring Viktor's exaggerated wince at the screeching sound.
The Quiet Quill seemed to sigh again, like it accepted the familiarity between the two.
Viktor leaned back in his chair, arms folding behind his head. His grey eyes glimmered faintly under the fire lamp. Fire lamps were all around the library, some blue, some red and some the usual colors. These were not magitech. Magitech has not touched the Quiet Quill. These were something else, something only Viktor knew. And they almost never went out.
"Let me guess. You need something that flirts with the laws of the dead. Something stupid. Something impossible. And it's urgent." And with adramatic sigh he continued, "Or, someone important wants someone dead, and you need a map, a miracle, or a memory."
Lucian dropped the unsealed scroll onto the desk with a quiet thud.
Viktor Graves didn't reach for it. He kept leaning back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, a chipped teacup balanced lazily in his hand. Its contents smelled like burnt herbs and moonlight. Something necromantic, likely illegal.
His eyes scanned the seal, already opened.
"Dominion," he said, his voice a mix of amusement and pity. "You really are committed to the whole 'tragic antihero' thing, aren't you?"
Lucian didn't respond.
Viktor took a sip and made a face. "Ugh. Too bitter. Needs more bloodroot." Lucian didn't know what it was.
"Would you like some?" Viktor asked.
"No thanks, I don't drink dead souls," Lucian humored and Viktor gave him a weird look as if Lucian has joked for the first time.
He stood abruptly, swirling his robe around his ankles as he moved to a tall cabinet bolted into the wall. Chains crisscrossed its face, each one etched with forgotten alphabets. The air grew colder the closer he got. Books on nearby shelves creaked and shifted like they wanted to leave the room.
Lucian's blue eyes flicked over the edge of his hood. "Darius Vale."
The name sucked the warmth from the room like a sudden grave wind.
Viktor's smile froze. His mug thunked softly against the cabinet.
"...You're serious."
Lucian nodded. "They want him dead. Or they want whatever he's guarding."
Viktor's fingers twitched, rings clinking. "Typical Dominion poetry: Deliver the corpse or the secret. Lovely people. Real subtle."
"They don't know exactly what it is," Lucian said. "Just that he's hiding something in the Shroud. They're offering fifty thousand Ash-crisps."
Viktor whistled. "That's the kind of number that means they already know what he has, he has found something he wasn't supposed to."
"You're not going near the Grayscale Shroud, are you?" He asked over his shoulder, his voice casual.
Lucian's silence answered him.
Viktor turned slowly. "Oh, you absolute bastard. You are."
Lucian said nothing.
Viktor clicked open the third lock. "You remember the last time you brushed up against the Shroud? You were dragging back six ward-bearers and a pocket full of ghost teeth. Raine had to detox you with embalming salts."
"I lived," Lucian said flatly.
"Barely. And you spent three days convinced I was your dead foster grandmother."
The last chain fell. Viktor's tone shifted, more grounded now, as he pulled a thick, black-bound book from the cabinet. Its spine pulsed softly with pale blue light, and the air thickened with the cold scent of grave dirt.
"This," he said, setting it down, "is a death-map. A path through the Shroud. It changes depending on who opens it. Which is poetic, but also terrifying."
Lucian's hand hovered over the cover.
"The Shroud eats thought, memory, shape. You lose your name in there, you're never coming back. Even I can't pull you out if you go too deep." Viktor added.
"I know, and I won't," Lucian said.
"You say that every time." Viktor gave him a stare, "and everytime you come barely living."
There was a long pause.
Viktor sipped, brows lifting. "By the way, I knew the man. Darius Vale. Haven't heard that name in a while, though. He used to haunt the archives here before he went... rogue. Obsessed with something. Pages missing from the Book of Ending. Something about memory that could survive erasure. He told me once the Hollow King wasn't just a myth. That something was waking again."
Lucian frowned. "Waking?"
"Don't ask me," Viktor muttered, rubbing his forehead. "The guy was always halfway to unraveling. Brilliant, though. And dangerous, in the way librarians should never be."
'And another thing." Viktor continued.
"I felt something shift three nights ago," Viktor added as he walked back to his chair. "In the western fringe. A tremor in the Veil. Not the kind that says 'someone crossed.' The kind that says someone left it for good."
He sat.
"I think Darius Vale is already dead."
Lucian frowned, stepping closer. "You're sure?"
"I'm not a prophet," Viktor said, "I just talk to the parts of the world most people don't like to remember. And the dead have been whispering. Something's missing. Something big."
"Then the contract—?"
Viktor shrugged. "They don't know. They're sending you to kill a man who's already dust, or to retrieve what he protected. Either way, it reeks of evil."
Lucian pulled the envelope back. "Any idea what he was guarding?"
Viktor's grin was slow, crooked. "Not a clue. But it was important enough to keep hidden in a place where memory itself rots. And if it's still there… whatever it is, it might not want to be found."
Lucian tapped on the map placed in front of him.
"I'll need more than a map," he said.
Viktor raised a brow. "Then don't go alone. And don't follow the light. It lies."
Lucian looked around the room as it pulsed gently with necromantic energy. Books shifted behind glass. Candles sputtered like they wanted to scream.
"What do you want in return?"
Viktor gave a little smirk. "Who handed you the contract?"
Lucian shrugged. "Umbral Blade. Female. Hooded."
"Of course she did," Viktor sighed. "Eyes?"
"Red."
"Seventeen."
"You keep track of all of them?"
Viktor raised both brows. "Lucian, darling. I keep track of everything the Dominion tries to bury. Some of it even says thank you... what else?"
"Missing two fingers. Left hand."
Viktor blinked. "That's… oh. That one. She should be dead."
"She's not."
"Well, someone's been cheating their erasure orders again." He sighed dramatically.
"Fine. One necro-tear for one disturbing reminder the Dominion still sucks at cleaning up its own messes."
Lucian stood up, pushing the chair a bit. He tucked the map into his coat and took the small glass Viktor was holding out. It was dazzling blue and shaped like a tear. A bone charm. He waited for Viktor to explain, but he kept sipping his weird drink. Lucian knew this thing, Viktor had explained how it worked before. He turned around.
Viktor's voice dropped as Lucian reached the door.
"And if you find what he was guarding?"
Lucian paused. "I'll decide then."
"You always say that," Viktor murmured. "But this time… whatever it is, it might decide you. Also take the unlit lantern by the door, it will light up when needed."
Lucian left without another word, the door creaking shut behind him.
The Quiet Quill settled into silence once more.
Viktor stared at the fading outline of his friend in the doorway.
Then whispered to the flickering candle on his desk:
"He doesn't know it yet, but he's already late."
And the candle sputtered once. Then burned blue.