Page 16 of Veil of Ashes

Chapter 5 – Kieran

The biometric scanner blinks once. Then it hisses open with a soft hydraulic groan. It hides behind a shelf of janitorial supplies, half-blocked by a cardboard box labeled bleach but reeking of machine oil.

Classic Sylvara. No signposts. No keys. No compromise.

I step into her sanctuary. This is different from her other place. The temperature drops fast as the door seals shut. Down here, the world feels gone.

Machinery hums under the floor, low and steady. Soft blue UV lighting throws pale shadows across brushed steel and smooth concrete. The air carries chemical solvents, old paper, and melted toner.

Not unpleasant. Just precise. Like her.

She hunches over a massive ledger at the far bench. One gloved hand holds the spine firm. The other moves like it’s cutting into flesh, guiding a needle-thin stylus through microfibers in ancient parchment.

I know that book. An 1802 Italian accounting journal, real as anything. But it’s not what it seems anymore.

She doesn’t look up. “Don’t breathe too hard,” she says. “This page is older than both of us.”

I stop three feet back. “Not sure whether to be impressed or insulted.”

“Go with impressed.” Her voice stays dry. “I rarely work with anything that doesn’t flinch when cut.”

Flat. Sharp. Like always.

She tweaks the UV light’s strength without a glance. The screen sharpens, and she traces a line of faded ink. It matches the original perfectly, brought back with pigment she likely stirred up in a makeshift dish.

She forges silence. Not just IDs or names. She crafts ghosts.

Whole lives. Exile. Reinvention.

I lean one shoulder against the wall. “Is it weird that I find this sexy?”

“Yes.”

She keeps her eyes on the page. I watch her hands instead. Ink-stained, gloved, steady.

They move with a sureness that isn’t for show. It’s carved into her. Earned through scars.

“You ever miss it?” I ask. “Life above ground.”

“Define life.”

“Color. Noise. People. The risk of being seen.”

She pauses. It’s brief, but I catch it. Then she starts again.

“I used to think I missed breathing room,” she says. “But ghosts don’t need oxygen.”

“And you like being a ghost?”

“Dead girls don’t get hunted.”

She looks up now. Her face gives nothing away. Except her eyes.

They’re the kind that stick with you. Eyes that have watched too many last gasps and not enough kindness.

“That why you vanished?” I ask. “All those years?”

She shrugs. “I had to die to get free.”

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