Charmed: Every Truth Burns Wax
They call you the drifter who knew a dead woman's true name before her file surfaced. You died a modern man; you woke in Emi Duarte's body, a candle-glyph only you can see.
It calls itself the Taper, a watch bound to a witch-line you never knew. Look at a liar and it reads back their true name and what they hide. Burn a clause into the world: a ward, a silence, a stay.
Every read, every word you write, burns wax off a candle that is your life, and it never refills. Spend too fast and it takes your hours, then your memories, then you. The old order watches you gutter and does nothing.
To the Elders, an unsanctioned male Taper is contraband, and they've begun to smell smoke. You can read every soul but Maggie Vera, the empath who reads you back, whose file the candle returns blank. She's the one truth you'd burn the taper to know.