Desire

: Aveline could take it and flee, living in the stolen quiet of a relic that was suffering. Or she could do the unthinkable. She didn't steal the lute. She played the one note it was holding back—a sound so pure it shattered the glass casing and the windows of the Conservatory.

: The night of the equinox, she slipped through the ventilation shafts. Her hands were raw, but the thought of that crystalline silence pushed her forward. When she finally stood before the lute, it didn't glow. It looked cold, sharp, and utterly indifferent. She reached out, her fingers trembling. This was the moment of attaining the object of desire , where the protagonist faces the reality of their want. Desire

Her desire wasn't for the fame of playing it, nor the gold it was worth. It was the it promised. The city was a cacophony of steam-whistles and grinding gears, a noise that vibrated in her teeth and kept her from the melodies she felt trapped in her own mind. The Vitreous Lute, the stories said, absorbed sound, turning chaos into a single, perfect note. : Aveline could take it and flee, living

: Aveline spent months mapping the Conservatory. She didn't look like a thief; she looked like a student, gray-eyed and quiet, blending into the shadows of the Great Library. She learned that desire has a scent—like ozone before a storm—and she smelled it on the guards who paced the halls, hungry for their next promotion. She played the one note it was holding