The canvas found in the crypt depicted Eliah, hanged among the shelves of the underground library.

It wasn’t a metaphor.

It was a forecast.

Edrick and Lira ran without speaking. Without breath.
 The rain followed them like a mute chorus.
 The painting was too fresh to be just a warning.

Maybe…

It hadn’t happened yet.

They reached the underground library.

Lights on.

Air cold—like a room left sealed for too long.

They found him.

Eliah hung from a makeshift rope.
 But his feet still brushed the floor.

Alive. Halfway.

Lira leapt forward and cut the rope with one swift motion.

The old archivist collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood and dust.
 His skin was gray. His hands torn.

Edrick knelt beside him.

“Who did this? Who hurt you?”

Eliah looked at them both, but his eyes no longer saw.

“You… came too early…” he whispered.
 “He… wanted you to see. To understand.
 That you can’t stop him.”

Lira grabbed his shoulders, hands trembling.

“Who is he, Eliah? What does he want from us?”

Eliah opened his mouth to answer—

But his breath broke first.

Silence arrived before truth.

Edrick lowered his head.
 Eliah’s body was already cooling.

Lira didn’t move.

She clutched a broken white mask Eliah had kept with him.

The moment she touched it—

The vision struck.

She was a child.

In the center of a dark circular chamber.

Twelve masked figures seated around her, statues in shadow.

A thirteenth chair. Empty. Waiting.

Voices layered. Words in a dead language.

Then—
 a hand placed a wooden mask on her chest.

And a male voice—a voice she didn’t know, but recognized—whispered:

“This is the thirteenth.
 She is the void that closes the circle.”

Lira awoke from the vision trembling, heart pounding in places it shouldn’t.

She whispered to herself:

“I am the thirteenth mask.
 But I don’t know what I did.”

The rain resumed as they exited the library.

Under a broken rooftop, they stopped.

They didn’t look at each other.

Edrick spoke first. His voice sharper than usual.

“If you’re hiding memories,
 you’re a danger.
 To me. To yourself.”

Lira turned to him.
 Eyes wounded.
 Rage and grief tangled.

“Are you afraid of me?
 Or of what I might remember…
 about you?”

The silence between them wasn’t empty.
 It was full.
 Of suspicions. Scars. Cracks.

Edrick walked away.

Lira remained behind.

In her hand, the broken mask.
 Its surface stiff. Cracked.
 A symbol carved into the back:

A circle split by a line.

Like an eye…
 that no longer wanted to see.

Elsewhere, on a deserted rooftop,
 a masked figure watched over Blackglass.

Behind him: a new canvas.

He was already painting.

The first brushstroke: red.

The second… was silence.

A whisper, soft as a cut:

“Divide them. Break them.
 And when they’re far enough apart…
 I’ll make them dance.”

On the unfinished canvas, one title:

“Act VIII – The Fracture.”