Prologue

plum · leather · patchouli

In a quiet cottage, tucked deep within the woods, a single candle flickers beside parchment and ink. The air awakens with the weight of words not yet spoken, as though the walls themselves are leaning in to listen. Ripe plum lends its velvet sweetness to the night, softened by the aged leather of books stacked in uneven towers. Patchouli threads through it all like ink across paper, earthy, grounding, permanent.

This is the opening chapter: the threshold between thought and creation, between silence and song. A story waiting to be told, held in the glow of window after dark.