Fallen Tower is a graveyard pretending to be a neighborhood. Most districts forgive the past after enough years. Fallen Tower never forgets. It has the sort of memory that hangs in the air like perfume you can’t place — familiar, heavy, a little sad. That is why I felt the wrongness before I saw it. The air hummed against my skin, a low vibration under my ribs. My dance teachers once told me magic travels first through the bones. I didn’t understand then. I do now. Selwyn Flaskwright was already at the fountain when I arrived, one hand pressed to the stone rim, the other holding a beaker that steamed although the liquid inside was not hot. He saw me and pushed his goggles up to his forehead. “Marji,” he said. “Touch the water.” I hesitated. “Why?” “It’s frozen.” “It’s thirty degrees warmer than normal,” he added. I touched the surface with one finger. Cold. Perfect, deliberate cold. Beneath the unmoving water were shadows, shapes — not natural ones. Faces. Echoes. They vanished when I leaned closer. “Selwyn…” I whispered. “The fountain is remembering something.” “This isn’t water,” he said. “It’s water that decided to stop being water.” A quiet voice behind us answered: “It is not a decision. It is a warning.” Elunara Dawnspear stepped into view, armor muted by fog. “Selûne sent a tremor,” she said. “A place where light refused to enter.” “No,” she whispered after kneeling, “it refuses to be lit.” Then I felt it — the humming, the resonance. Marji… remember. “The fountain is speaking,” I whispered. “In feeling. Sorrow. Fear. Anticipation.” “For what?” Selwyn asked. The fountain cracked. A soft fissure, forming an ancient rune. “Awakening,” I breathed. A face surfaced beneath the ice — not a person, but a *pattern.* Watching. “Leave,” Selwyn said. “Now.” Elunara dragged me back as the ice flashed— —and went still. Normal. Too normal. “It wiped itself,” Selwyn murmured. Elunara’s eyes narrowed. “Who?” “Not who,” I whispered. “What.” In the Ledger, the Soul Bearer wrote: > In Fallen Tower, sorrow surfaced through cold water. > Three women saw the shiver of awakening. > Only one understood the dance. > The city breathed on, unaware of the new shape forming beneath its dreams.