The fire crackled between them. Lenora watched the strange book in Derpy’s hands. "Tell me what you know about it," she said.
"Not much. Celica called herself a Calamity. I agreed to rules, not to do whatever she wants."
"You actually spoke to it?" Lenora asked. Derpy nodded. "And I’m still trying to figure out what that means."
Lenora glanced once at the hidden crest, then returned her attention to the journal. It had been warm and silent since the collision.
"That book," she said carefully, "isn’t ordinary."
"I figured that out somewhere between the nightmare and falling out of the sky."
“You’re holding a Calamity,” she said.
Derpy blinked.
“A what?”
Lenora’s jaw tightened.
“A Calamity Book.”
The journal offered no denial.
It just sat there.
Warm.
Patient.
Like a predator pretending to be paper.
Derpy swallowed.
“I didn’t—I mean, I—”
His bracelets spiked with heat.
He gasped.
The pain wasn’t just pain.
It was direction.
A pull.
A tug on his bones.
His body leaned before his mind agreed.
Lenora’s eyes widened.
“Hey—”
Derpy stumbled backward.
“No, no, no— I’m not doing this on purpose!” he snapped, panicked.
The bracelets burned again.
And his feet moved.
Toward the trees.
Toward the sound of water.
Lenora lunged.
Her hand caught his sleeve.
The moment she touched him, the bracelets flared like they hated her.
Derpy cried out.
Lenora yanked her hand back, shaking it like she’d touched a stove.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Those aren’t normal,” she muttered.
Derpy laughed once—sharp and humorless.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
The pull hit again.
Harder.
Derpy’s stomach dropped.
He ran. He didn’t move like a fighter.
He moved like someone being dragged.