Overview

It begins in an opium den. Not just any opium den, but one hidden among the damp, pulsating alleys of colonial Singapore, where the scent of the sea mingles with incense, spices, and the whispers of those seeking refuge from the excess of reality. It is a place suspended between worlds: between day and night, between waking and dreaming, between what is remembered and what one would rather forget. And it is precisely there, in that dense and hypnotic atmosphere, that the story begins. It is 1903, and the opium den is not merely a suggestive setting: it is a portal. A threshold. A point of contact between what has been and what could be. It is the place where the protagonists - unknowingly - have already lived, already chosen, already failed, and already created. It is the crossroads where memory blurs with imagination, where the past is never truly past, and where every breath can open a door to another version of the world. In this enigmatic setting, we meet the four protagonists: Arthur Pembroke, a reluctant accountant, accidental master of anxiety, and future Custodian of Will; Colette, elegant as a constellation that has learned to walk among humans; Rajiv, a living balance between light and shadow; Mei Lian, silent guardian of a knowledge that speaks only to those who know how to listen. And then there is No One, an enigmatic presence that exists precisely where it shouldn't, and a drowsing dragon who seems to know far more than it ever says. The opium den is the first clue. A place where boundaries blur, where perception expands, where the mind opens to what it would normally reject. It is the perfect symbol of what is to come: a journey through worlds that do not obey the laws of physics, but those of memory, will, and Breath. From that point onward, the story unfolds like a cosmic origami. A forbidden book opens on its own, releasing memories that no longer belong to anyone. An ancient shadow - the Dark Awakening - manifests not as an enemy, but as a question. A Lost Custodian returns, carrying a truth that overturns every certainty. And the protagonists discover they are far more than they believed: not mere travelers, but unconscious architects of entire worlds. Each chapter reveals a fragment of what was forgotten: the division of the map, the creation of the dragon, the destruction of the original world, the birth of the rewritten world, and finally the possibility - unthinkable, impossible, inevitable - of creating a third. The reader follows the Custodians on a journey that is at once epic and intimate, metaphysical and comic, surreal and deeply human. Arthur, with his disarming reluctance and his tendency to faint at the least opportune moments, becomes the emotional heart of the story: a hero in spite of himself, who doesn't want to be special but ends up being so precisely because of that. The opium den, with its scent of suspended dreams, remains an echo throughout the novel. It is the place where everything began. It is the place where everything might return. It is the symbol of a threshold the protagonists cross again and again: the one between who they think they are and who they truly are. The novel invites the reader to discover, page after page, how every choice - even the smallest, even the most reluctant - can rewrite an entire world. And above all, how every shadow we fear is nothing more than a part of ourselves waiting to be recognized.

Full Product Details

9798245719597

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Countries Available