The Night of Wrong Pages
ARC 104, Quillnib's Handle
"My mother went to bed in the Quill Market and woke up four hundred feet in the air. She never went back. She said the Shelf had better neighbours." — A Wrongsider goblin, still living on the Glimmering Shelf
Before ARC 104, anyone in Quillnib's Handle could turn the pages of the Book of Doors. Rift-Sniffers were there to help, the way a ferryman helps, but the Book was a public thing. That ended in a single night.
What Happened
Late in the evening, a goblin pup named Wick of Page Seven was sent to fetch her father home from a card game. She was eight, it was dark, and she turned two pages at once.
The Book tried to open both. For a little under an hour, the page for the Quill Market and the page for the Glimmering Shelf were the same page. When they separated again, they separated the wrong way round. The streets, stalls and houses stayed where they belonged, but the people swapped: several hundred sleeping goblins woke up in the other district, along with their beds, pets and cooking pots.
That alone would have been remembered as a strange night. What made it a disaster was the third page. While the Book was confused, a page that should never have opened let in the open Dense, and something came through with it.
The Longmouth in the Market
A Longmouth came out into the Quill Market in the dark. It was not large, as they go. It killed nineteen goblins before the Rift-Sniffers worked out that it was hunting by sound, and got the whole district to stop moving and stop breathing loudly. It was driven back through the page in near silence, by Sniffers crawling on their bellies with lanterns hooded.
Wick was found hours later, alive, on a faded page, by a young Nose named Hobb.
What Changed
- The Page Law. From the next morning, only Rift-Sniffers may turn the pages of the Book of Doors. The pedestal has had a guard ever since.
- Wrongsiders. About a third of the swapped goblins never moved back. Their families are still called Wrongsiders, and they're proud of it.
- The Quiet Hour. Every year on the anniversary, the whole Handle goes silent for one hour at midnight. No talking, no music, no pots on the stove. Visitors who break it are politely asked to leave the city.