Chapter 170: Chapter 169

Louis wanted the book treated as evidence immediately.

Freya agreed.

That alone showed how much she had changed.

She did not continue reading it privately.

She did not search for the sender herself.

She photographed nothing for social media.

The package, book, wrapping, and delivery records went directly to investigators and forensic specialists.

The handwritten message was examined first.

No usable fingerprints.

No biological trace beyond ordinary handling contamination.

The package had entered the courier network through an unattended drop location.

The paperback itself was professionally printed but carried no valid ISBN.

Its paper and ink were modern.

Someone had created it recently.

That was almost reassuring.

A supernatural book appearing from nowhere would have been harder to process.

The contents were less reassuring.

The first chapters matched Claire's Gentle Devotion closely.

Then details began diverging.

The book included events that happened after Freya's transmigration.

Her cleaning the apartment.

Selling the bags.

Cooking for Louis.

Clement approaching her.

Northstar's survival.

Adrian's investigation.

Awake Stories.

Sunroom Studio.

The Open Page.

Freya stopped reading.

"Someone has been documenting us."

Louis's expression became dangerous.

Security audits began immediately.

Some information in the book was public.

Much was not.

One passage described the private conversation where Freya asked Louis whether he would have loved the original woman.

Only two people had been present.

Freya and Louis.

No devices should have been recording.

Their townhouse underwent a full sweep.

Nothing was found.

Derek checked employees, contractors, security systems, cloud accounts, and smart-home devices.

No obvious breach.

Then Freya noticed something.

The book's chapter numbers.

The private conversation appeared in Chapter 165.

The Open Page appeared in Chapter 168.

The package appeared in Chapter 169.

She turned to Chapter 170.

The page was blank except for one sentence.

Freya finally understood that someone else was still writing.

Her skin prickled.

Louis took the book from her.

"That's not proof."

"I know."

It could be psychological manipulation.

Someone with access to information might be arranging events and then presenting them as written destiny.

Adrian had done exactly that in another form.

Freya refused to fall for the trick.

Investigators examined the printing company.

The order had been placed online through stolen credentials and paid using a prepaid card.

The uploaded manuscript account was deleted.

One recoverable metadata field remained.

Uploader name: Bailey Shepard.

Freya stared at it.

For the first time since the Mirror anomaly, the mystery was no longer safely archived.

Someone using that name existed in the present.

And whoever they were, they knew far too much about Freya's life.

The investigators secured the remaining copies produced in the same print batch. Most had been destroyed by the printer after the fraudulent order was flagged, but one additional copy survived. Its Chapter 170 page contained the same sentence and nothing more.

Freya made a note of the development and returned to the practical work in front of her. She had learned that a complicated life became manageable only when she separated what she knew, what she suspected, and what she could actually do next. Louis respected that habit, even when his instinct was to solve everything immediately. For now, they chose the next useful step and left the unanswered part where it belonged.

Freya made a note of the development and returned to the practical work in front of her. She had learned that a complicated life became manageable only when she separated what she knew, what she suspected, and what she could actually do next. Louis respected that habit, even when his instinct was to solve everything immediately. For now, they chose the next useful step and left the unanswered part where it belonged.