At midday in Thalgorrin, everything seemed perfectly ordinary. The steam behaved as it always did, the pipes hummed their deep, resonant tone, and the city pretended not to notice anything at all.

Archivist Tirr, the oldest of the Archivists of the Thalgorrin Library, walked slowly between the shelves packed with books. He greeted visitors and fellow archivists as he passed. There was always something to do. The steam kept this place pleasantly dry — a paradox Tirr had never fully understood. How could water vapor keep books dry? He didn’t know. But he knew it worked. And he knew the steam liked books. It never meant them harm. It only wanted to read them from time to time.

He climbed up to a small room in the attic of the tall Library building. He set a small pot of lunch — danirik dumplings filled with musha — onto the steam heater. This meal had to be warmed; cold, it lost all flavor.

And then it happened.

At first it was just a twitch in the steam. Short, sharp, like someone interrupting a breath halfway through.

Tirr silently watched the small control valve as steam began to escape from it. That valve hadn’t made a sound in hundreds of years. He sighed, walked over to his worktable, and turned one of the levers. The tones of the steam organs echoed through the Library.

Archivists began gathering. Not quickly. Not dramatically. But with the precision of people who know that reality has its protocols. Tirr arrived in the control room as well.

“What was that?” he asked, wasting no words.

The archivists were already clustered around the gauges, examining readouts and discussing them in low, urgent voices. Then one of them stepped forward.

“We don’t know, sir. The steam is… confused.”

Tirr nodded. “Call for a Steam Empath. Someone experienced. This isn’t work for a novice.”

A moment later, Steam Empath Lethra arrived — a Gorrath woman in her middle years, calm-eyed, with hands the steam recognized before it recognized her face.

Lethra stood before the escaping steam for a moment, then raised her hands toward it. The steam knew her instantly — its tone softened, it pressed gently against her palms, warming them just enough to greet her without burning.

Lethra closed her eyes.

“Yan‑Lum has vanished,” she said into the tense silence of the room. “But the steam doesn’t know why, or how, or where.”

“Who is Yan‑Lum?” Tirr asked.

The archivists shrugged in unison, looking away, each signaling in their own way that they had no idea.

Tirr didn’t move. He only narrowed his eyes. “So he disappeared?”

Lethra shook her head. “No. He was… taken.”