1623 to 2456
Timeline of the Keeping
Four centuries on one line: a valley going under the water, a line of keepers carrying its dead, a man in Antwerp who wakes marked, and a forgetting world at the far end of the road. Each event opens with its book.
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1623
The Drowning
A Flemish valley goes under the water. A church tower stands drowned. Not all of the valley's dead are let go.
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1623
The Walk Back
Bram goes back to the valley in 1623, the week of the flood, to bring a greying name back to dark.
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after
The Line of Keepers
For four centuries a line of Keepers carries the valley's dead from skin to skin, hidden from the ones who eat the lost.
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now
A Bar, a Marking
Idris, the last Keeper of the line, lays his whole Keeping on a stranger in a bar and gives him the key, so the dead can walk where no Taker is watching.
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now
The Worst Week
Bram wakes marked. The Vestibule reads him and recoils, then sees the truth. The Takers find his city.
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now
The First Jump
The marks are not only to look through. They are to travel, and travel spends a name off the skin. Book One ends here.
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a year on
The Quiet Year
A year with nothing at the door, while the names on his skin quietly go grey.
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forward
The Climb Forward
With Noor beside him, Bram climbs toward the far end of time, rung by rung.
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2456
The Library
Four hundred years past Bram's own time, the road forward ends at the Library of a world that has forgotten how to keep its dead.
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2456
The Founding of the Aumbry
Opens with The Founding of the Aumbry, 9 November 2026
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five years on
The Long Night
Opens with The Dead Master, 9 April 2027