Chapter 500: Footprints in Ash

Orion frowned the moment he noticed the look on Sophia’s face.

It was subtle. But he knew her well enough to notice the changes.

Her shoulders had gone stiff.

Her hands were clenched tightly, and her gaze wasn’t even on Mary or on the book.

It was on nothing.

Mary passed the book quietly to Lysander, who passed it to Ronan immediately.

Ronan turned—and held it out to Orion.

"Here."

But Orion didn’t take it.

Ronan’s hand lingered in the air, awkward and unmoving, the weight of the half-burnt thing resting in his palm while Orion stood frozen, staring at Sophia.

Ronan had no idea what was going on, so he gently placed the book in front of Orion instead, tapping it softly as he did so.

Orion finally tore his eyes away from Sophia and looked at the book.

It was charred at the edges.

Its dark blue leather had been blistered and cracked by fire, the once-smooth surface now puckered and peeling in places. The crescent pressed into the cover was still visible—but faint and distorted, its curve uneven, as though heat had tried and failed to erase it.

Ash clung to the corners too.

Orion turned to Sophia and tapped her softly.

"Shorty," he called out quietly. "What’s wrong?"

Her throat worked.

For a moment, she didn’t answer. Then she spoke softly.

"That book..." she said. "I know it, Orion. It’s the same book I told you about. The same one we turned your house—and even my house—upside down searching for."

Orion stilled.

"And it’s also the same one that Oculum gave to me," she added quietly.

Orion had been there when Oculum spoke about the book and how he had given it to Sophia because she apparently liked reading.

"I’m confused," Eldric spoke up. "Where exactly did you get a book like this from?"

"I do not recall seeing it in the library, and I know every volume in the library," he said firmly. "Every collection. Every restricted archive. Every private donation. Everything Tobias ever brought into the pack as well."

His gaze flicked to the ruined object on the table.

"Perhaps you didn’t know every book after all?" Mary suggested.

Eldric adjusted his glasses immediately.

"That is not true. I speak with certainty when I say I know every book in the library, and that book is not from there. It is also in very bad condition."

"It wasn’t burnt when I took it," Sophia said softly. "I’m sure this has something to do with Holly."

Sophia picked up the book, and the leather gave faintly beneath her fingers, as though it might crumble if handled too roughly.

The back cover was worse than the front.

It was burnt almost entirely through at one corner.

The pages inside had fused together in places, blackened and warped, their edges curled inward like dead petals.

And just across the cover—though faint—were smudged grey impressions.

Footprints.

They were small. Too small.

Sophia didn’t even need to be told twice that this was also Holly’s doing.

The fact that Holly would do something like this to a simple book was beyond her. She could not reconcile it. She could not even begin to understand why Holly would do something like this.

"I’m sorry," she said quietly, "but I doubt I’ll be able to get anything helpful from this book."

Her thumb brushed the edge of a page, and black dust clung to her skin immediately.

"Most of it is gone. And for this language... one has to see the whole text to make proper sense of what is being said."

Silence pressed in around the council hall.

Then Lysander spoke, his voice low.

"...what are those marks on the book? The faint ones."

Sophia’s gaze dropped to the cover. She realised he was referring to the footsteps.

Her eyes traced the smears.

"Footsteps," she said.

Ronan frowned.

"Footsteps?"

She nodded slowly.

"They weren’t there before."

"So you’re telling me that Holly apparently burnt this book and also stepped on it like the lunatic she is?" Ronan asked.

"It would seem so."

Ronan turned to Orion.

"Apart from my sister-in-law," he said, "you really do have questionable taste in women."

Orion groaned.

"You can’t even cover for me?"

"And lie?" Ronan asked. "For someone like you, who can detect a lie from a mile away? No. I’m going to be honest."

Sophia chuckled softly.

"Orion really does have questionable taste," she said. "I wonder what this book did to Holly. Perhaps it was demonic too?"

"Considering what has happened these past few days," Brynhild said to Sophia, "I’d say she hated the book because it was connected to you."

"Aren’t we curious about how Holly got the book?" Madam Tyler asked, turning to Sophia. "Do you leave the door to your home open?"

Sophia shook her head.

"I don’t... though I have done so sometimes."

"So could it be that that was when she took the book?" Madam Tyler asked with a frown.

"Was the book in your house?" Daniel asked. "Are you certain you left it there?"

"I am," Sophia said with a nod. "The thing is, I didn’t even notice the book was missing until after the last time I went to the shrine with Eldric."

Eldric frowned.

He did not remember that clearly. But then again, his memory was murky—and with the way Jeffrey had been when he woke up in the medical facility...

He was beginning to suspect that the strange dream he had about someone else being him might have been real.

He shook his head.

He was not going to focus on that.

There was no need to.

"I had no idea," Sophia continued quietly, "that the same book that made me turn Orion’s house upside down—and even mine—had been with Holly all along."

"So there’s a possibility that Holly took the book before you went to the shrine," Caspian said.

Sophia nodded.

"When did you first get this... this strange book?" Eldric asked.

"Just the day before the Festival of the Fallen," Sophia replied. "After playing a game with Orion, I went to the library to get books to learn more about the goddess and what the writing on the altar could possibly mean. That was when I saw the book. It felt like someone had placed it there on purpose... or wanted me to see it."

"Again, that is strange, because—"

"We know, Eldric," Orion cut in with a sigh. "It’s not from the library. We’ve already established that. There’s no need to repeat it over and over again."

Eldric huffed, but said nothing else.