It started with laughter.
Not the kind that echoes from joy or mischief.
It was soft. Sharp. Misdirected.
Like someone laughing at a memory they weren't supposed to have.
Velora heard it three blocks before she reached the report site.
District Eleven. South Quadrant. Cultural sector, long dead.
Once filled with poetry carved in marble and symphonies encoded in fountains.
Now it sat quiet—reformatted, sterilized, emptied of memory.
But the echoes remained.
The Council's seal flickered across the broken fountain where the crowd had formed.
Three enforcers stood at the perimeter, struggling to keep order without raising alarm.
Children clung to mothers. Elderly citizens stared blankly toward the square's center.
None of them looked particularly afraid.
They looked… unsettled. Like they couldn't tell whether they were remembering or dreaming.
Alastor was already there, coat collar raised, voice low as he approached her.
"There's been another one," he said. "This time in public."
"Dream event?"
"Maybe. But it's different."
He pointed toward the stone circle in the middle of the square.
Velora stepped forward and froze.
A boy stood alone inside it.
Seven, maybe eight.
Barefoot. Smiling. Spinning in place slowly, like his body was following a rhythm only he could hear.
He sang.
"Turn it once, turn it twice—
If it lands, you pay the price.
Flip it thrice, and you forget—
Every sin and every debt…"
The words struck Velora like a blade dulled by time.
Old. Familiar. Wrong.
"Where did he hear that?" she asked.
"We don't know," Alastor replied. "The phrase doesn't appear in any Archive records. We cross-referenced dream logs, media feeds, even contraband poetry."
"And?"
"Nothing. It's like it wrote itself into his mouth."
Velora stepped carefully into the circle.
The boy didn't flinch.
His eyes locked on hers, gold-flecked and distant.
"Did you make that song up?" she asked gently.
"No," he whispered. "It came from the coin."
She crouched.
"What coin?"
He held up his hand. Empty.
But his fingers traced a circle in the air—once, twice, thrice.
"He said I used to be part of the story. Before you changed it."
Velora's heart tightened.
"Who told you that?"
"The man with the eyes that don't match. He called me by a name I don't know."
Back at the Archive, Velora reviewed the dream registry.
There had been four similar cases in the last week.
Children.
All between ages six and nine.
All exhibiting dream-induced behavior centered around songs, rhymes, and coins.
In each case, no parent remembered teaching the words.
No sibling had heard them before.
In two reports, the child referred to a man "from before forgetting."
"They're not just remembering," Velora muttered.
Alastor leaned against the wall behind her.
"They're dreaming in someone else's memory."
She rubbed her temples.
"How does a coin pass through a Rewrite?"
Alastor tossed her a file.
"This just came in. It's worse than the last."
The document was half redacted.
Only one phrase was left exposed at the bottom.
"Phrase detected: 'He still lives in the gaps.'"
Velora swallowed.
"That's twice we've seen that line."
"And both times," Alastor said, "it showed up in someone who shouldn't exist."
Later that night, Velora stood in front of the mirror.
The same one.
Bronze-rimmed. Dull. Uneven.
The crack down her reflection's eye hadn't faded.
She leaned in closer, searching for herself.
Then the reflection smiled.
"You remember more than you should."
Velora didn't move.
"You're not memory," she said. "You're not a dream either."
"No," the mirror whispered. "I'm what remains when the lie wears thin."
She turned away.
But the voice followed.
"You buried Tessa."
Velora froze.
"I tried to protect her."
"No. You tried to survive her."
She stared at her own hands.
They didn't look like hers anymore.
Too pale. Too quiet.
Too clean.
On her desk, the coin didn't spin.
But the candle beside it flared sideways—against the air.
She closed her eyes and saw a room.
Full of children.
All drawing the same symbol.
Over and over and over.
The Hollow Star.
Inverted.
She woke to find her window fogged.
Someone had written in the condensation:
"Tell them you buried a god, and memory will forgive you.
Tell them the truth—and it never will."