Trafalgar stayed by the table with one translated page in hand and the originals spread beside it. Dawn had already crept into the room, pale and thin across the desk, across the sheets, across Bartholomew sleeping like someone who had lost a war against exhaustion.
The translations were simpler than he expected.
Most of it echoed what Icarus had already written in his own notes, only stripped of the researcher's distance. These were remarks from the void creature itself, jagged little pieces of thought scratched into language after it had learned enough to shape its meaning.
Trafalgar read in silence.
The bloodlines of this age have thinned, there's no Primordials remain or hand exists that can stop us once passage is secured.
His thumb pressed harder against the page.
