The page rested in her lap like it belonged there. She hadn't moved in minutes. Couldn't bring herself to. It didn't glow or speak, but it pulsed. Quietly. Patiently. Like it was waiting for her to make the next move.

The door clicked open quietly, but not quietly enough. Mallory turned her head just as Crowley stepped inside, dark with rain and restless energy. His coat was damp at the shoulders, his sunglasses shoved halfway up into his hair, forgotten.

He froze as soon as he saw her.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, blanket pooled around her waist, legs bare against the wooden floor. In her lap, resting as if it belonged there, was a page. Torn, yellowed, delicate, and humming with something unseen.

Crowley's eyes locked on it. "What's that?"

Mallory didn't look away. "It was on my nightstand. I touched it. It… answered."

He stepped forward slowly, shutting the door behind him. "You had a dream."

She nodded, but her jaw was tight now, something rattling just beneath her stillness. "It wasn't just a dream. It was real. I saw her again. The woman from the monastery mural? She gave me this."

Crowley's boots thudded softly against the wood as he moved closer. "And what did she say?"

"She didn't. Not with words." She looked down at the page. "But I knew what she wanted to say."

Crowley's voice dropped. "And what was that?"

Mallory's throat worked as she swallowed. "That… I'm the last seal."

The room seemed to flinch around the words. Crowley stopped a few paces away from her. He didn't sit.

"You're tethered," he said, quiet but certain. "Fully now."

Mallory blinked slowly. "What does that mean?"

Crowley hesitated. "It means the Codex has bonded to you. Permanently."

"Bonded." Her voice went brittle. "What does that mean? I'm so confused…"

"Like… a connection. Think of it as being a… channel."

"So it's just in me now?" she said sharply, her voice rising. "Forever? I go to sleep and it leaves me presents? That's just how this works?"

Crowley winced. "It's not ideal."

Mallory stood too quickly, the blanket falling from her lap. She didn't notice. "You're telling me I've been marked by some kind of eldritch library card and you're just now bringing it up?"

"You weren't marked before. Not like this."

"I dreamed of a woman who isn't alive, who gave me this…" she gestured at the page "...and I understood it, Crowley. Not just the message, the intention behind it. Like it was planted in me. And I didn't ask for that."

"I know."

"No, I don't think you do." Her voice was shaking now, not with fear, but with the enormity of it all. "I fix bindings. I carbon-date pigment. I use scalpels and light boxes and catalogue tags. I don't-" her breath caught "-I don't talk to books that talk back."

Crowley exhaled and finally sat down in the chair across from her, legs wide, arms on his knees. Watching. Waiting.

She pressed her hands to her temples, pacing a slow, tight circle. "This isn't me. This isn't my world. I don't even believe in this stuff. I'm just a woman who catalogues dead things."

Crowley was quiet for a long beat.

"You're not dead," he said, gently breaking the silence.

She froze in her pacing, turning to fully stare at him.

"You're not weak. Or naïve. You've survived things most people wouldn't crawl out of. And this? It didn't choose you to break you." His voice softened just slightly. "It chose you because it saw you."

She laughed once - dry, bitter. "I didn't ask to be seen."

Crowley shrugged. "Yeah. Join the club."

Mallory looked at the page again. "So what happens now?"

Crowley leaned back. "Now it waits. And so do we."

"And if it tries something?"

"Then I'll be here."

She looked at him for a long, long moment. "That's not exactly reassuring."

"No," Crowley agreed. "But I haven't let it consume you yet. That's got to count for something."

Mallory snorted. Just barely. Then she sat down, holding the page in her hands - lighter now, but still pulsing with unreadable power.

"I don't know what to do with it."

"Don't do anything," Crowley said. "Not yet."

She nodded slowly. But the truth was, it was already doing something with her.