## The Taste of Ash The flour dusted Elara’s hands, a comforting weight. She kneaded the dough with practiced ease, the rhythmic push and pull familiar as her own heartbeat. Outside, rain lashed against the bakery’s windows—a relentless drumming that…
## The Echo Bloom The rain tasted like pennies on Leo’s tongue. He hunched deeper into the doorway of Mrs. Petrov’s antique shop, the neon sign buzzing a frantic lullaby above him. It was late October in Portland—that particular damp,…
## The Cartographer’s Shadow The rain smelled of exhaust and something vaguely floral, a weird combination clinging to the cracked pavement outside Elias’s office. Neon signs bled their colors onto wet asphalt, painting a smear of pink and green across…
## The Loom’s Shadow Rain lashed against the viewport of the Weaver-ship, *Lyra’s Lament*, blurring the cityscape below into streaks of neon and gray. Inside, Elara traced a finger across the shimmering projection of fractured timelines – crimson fissures bleeding…