The letter trembled in Elara's hands.
ONE OF THEM IS ALREADY DEAD.
She looked from one Professor Julian Vane to the other. They stood beneath the flickering library lights, identical in every detail. The same silver eyes. The same charcoal suit. Even the small scar beneath the left eyebrow was perfectly matched.
Yet something was different.
The professor standing beside her was breathing heavily.
The other wasn't breathing at all.
"Which one of you is real?" Elara demanded.
The newcomer smiled. "A reasonable question. Unfortunately, the answer might disappoint you."
"Stop playing games!"
"Elara," the first Vane interrupted, "step away from him."
The second professor laughed softly. "You see? He always does that. Gives you an order and expects you to mistake it for protection."
Elara tightened her grip on the letter.
"What happened to my father?"
Both men fell silent.
She stepped forward. "I'm done listening to half-truths. One of you will tell me everything."
The newcomer inclined his head.
"Your father discovered the Codex Umbra. He learned how to rewrite the boundaries between life and death. And when he tried to destroy it, someone stopped him."
"Who?"
The newcomer looked directly at the other Vane.
"Him."
Elara turned toward the professor beside her.
"Tell me he's lying."
Vane's expression hardened. "He's manipulating you."
"That's not an answer!"
"No," he admitted. "It isn't."
The silence that followed was worse than any denial.
Elara backed away from both men.
"Neither of you comes near me."
The library lights flickered again.
From somewhere deep inside the building came the sound of a door slowly creaking open.
The little girl in the white dress stood at the end of the aisle. Her face was pale, her expression unusually serious.
"Elara," she whispered, "you need to choose."
"Choose what?"
"Which one gets to leave."
The second Vane smiled.
The first looked terrified.
Then every clock in the library began ticking backward.
Elara ran.
She raced between the shelves, clutching the letter against her chest. Behind her, two identical voices called her name, each insisting the other was the impostor.
She refused to look back.
At the end of the corridor, she found a narrow staircase she had never seen before. Its stone steps descended into darkness, and strange symbols had been carved into the walls.
She hesitated.
"Of course," she whispered. "Because tonight wasn't already terrible enough."
She descended.
The air grew colder with every step. The familiar smell of paper faded, replaced by damp stone and the metallic scent of old ink.
At the bottom stood a wooden door.
Three words had been carved across it.
THORNE FAMILY ARCHIVE.
Elara's breath caught.
Her father had never mentioned an archive beneath Hawthorne University.
She pushed the door open.
Inside, hundreds of handwritten pages covered the walls. Glass cabinets contained broken watches, silver rings, and bottles filled with ink that shimmered like distant stars.
At the center of the room stood a desk.
On it lay a photograph.
Elara picked it up.
Her father stood beside Professor Vane, both of them younger than she remembered. Between them was a third person whose face had been scratched out.
On the back, someone had written:
The night we buried Julian.
Elara dropped the photograph.
"No."
A voice came from behind her.
"Now you understand why you shouldn't trust either of us."
She turned.
The second Vane stood in the doorway.
For the first time, his smile had disappeared.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
He looked at the photograph on the floor.
"I was Julian Vane."
"Were?"
He extended his hand. His skin was almost translucent, and faint black lines moved beneath it like ink flowing through veins.
"Your father made a terrible mistake seven years ago. He tried to bring someone back."
Elara's throat tightened.
"Who?"
The figure's silver eyes dimmed.
"Me."
Before Elara could respond, the door slammed shut.
A whisper rose from the walls.
He is lying.
The ink inside the glass bottles began to bubble.
Another voice followed, coming from the shadows behind the desk.
They are both lying.
Elara backed away.
"Who's there?"
A small pocket watch slid across the desk and stopped beside her hand.
She recognized it immediately.
Her father's watch.
Its cracked glass reflected her face, but the reflection wasn't hers.
It was the face of a frightened man with silver eyes.
Her father.
His lips moved.
Three words appeared across the watch's surface.
DON'T LET ME OUT.
The lights went dark.
Something knocked from inside the wall.
Once.
Twice.
Then a third time.
A voice, unmistakably her father's, whispered through the stone.
"Elara, sweetheart?"
She covered her mouth.
"I know you're there," the voice continued. "And I know what Julian told you."
The wall began to crack.
"Please," her father whispered. "Before he finds you, you must destroy the Codex."
A cold hand touched her shoulder.
Elara spun around.
The first Professor Vane stood behind her.
His face was pale, and a dark stain spread across his shirt.
"Don't listen to the voice," he said.
Elara stared at him.
"You're bleeding."
He glanced down as though he had only just noticed.
Black ink dripped from the wound.
Then he looked at the cracked wall.
And for the first time, Elara saw something that made her blood run cold.
The professor standing before her cast no shadow.
Behind him, the wall whispered again.
"Elara, don't let him take my place."
Vane seized her hand.
"We have to leave. Right now."
From behind the wall came a final, desperate cry.
"ELARA! HE'S ALREADY DEAD!"
The pocket watch snapped shut.
And somewhere above them, the library clock struck 3:01 AM.
For the first time in seven years, time had moved forward.
End of Chapter Three.