Chapter 21: The Skin of Others
The fog had changed.
Lyra felt it the moment they stepped back into the square. It wasn't just mist it was thick, clinging to her skin like something alive. The air smelled faintly of cinders and wet ash.
Kael walked beside her in silence. His eyes once uncertain were darker now, haunted. Since the Hollowing, he hadn't said much.
Then a voice called from ahead.
"Lyra?"
She froze.
A figure stepped from the alley. Not a stranger.
It was Nella, a girl from the market. Young, bright-eyed, always quiet but always watching.
Lyra narrowed her gaze. "What are you doing here?"
"I saw what happened," Nella whispered, eyes darting behind her. "The woman in the square. You saw it too, didn't you?"
Kael stepped forward slowly. "Why didn't they take you?"
"I ran." Nella's voice cracked. "And I kept my mouth shut. That's how you survive here. You don't ask. You don't remember."
Lyra's grip tightened on her dagger. "Then why talk to us now?"
Nella hesitated, her gaze flicking toward Kael. "Because they're coming for you next."
They moved to the cellar beneath the abandoned chapel. Candlelight flickered across the cracked stone walls, casting shadows that stretched too long.
"We weren't always like this," Nella whispered. "This town… it was once a sanctuary."
Kael looked up. "For what?"
Nella swallowed. "For the cursed. The forgotten. The Hollow Saint was supposed to protect us. Not consume us."
Silence.
Then
A laugh.
Low. Sharp.
From the shadows behind the altar.
Kael turned first, but it was Lyra who stepped forward.
A man emerged. His coat was old, lined with forest rot. His face half-familiar.
"You're brave to come back," he said.
Nella gasped. "Rourke. You're alive…"
"No," he said, smiling with teeth too sharp. "I'm what's left."
Lyra stepped in front of Kael. "What do you want?"
"Same as you," he said. "The truth. But I already paid for mine."
He raised his hand.
His skin shifted.
For a moment, he was someone else. The weaver. Then the old man. Then Kael. Then
Lyra.
Her face.
Her voice. "We all wear masks in Whisperwood, Lyra."
Kael stepped back, horrified.
"You're a mimic," Lyra said.
"No," Rourke whispered. "I'm a survivor."
His eyes flicked to Kael.
"But he won't be. Not when he finds out what you're hiding."
Lyra's heart stilled.
Rourke smiled. "Tell him, Lyra. Tell him what you did. Tell him who you were before he forgot."
Rourke turns to Kael. "Didn't you wonder why she never spoke your real name?"
Kael turns to Lyra. "...What is he talking about?"