Mira unsealed her glove and reached out. Her fingers closed around the ceramic handle. It was warm. Alive. And somewhere in the depths of its lacquered soul, a long-dead calligrapher named Shoetsu Otomo smiled.
“I can learn.”
“No,” Mira admitted. “But I’m the one who found you. And I’m not letting you sing alone in the dark anymore.”
Mira’s suit sensors spiked. The object was projecting low-level chronometric radiation—time displacement. This wasn’t just an old brush. It was a brush that remembered every stroke, every breath, every intention of its masters. And it had been waiting.
Mira flinched. “Who?”
“You are not him.”