He woke to the sound of scratching.
It took him a moment to place it—not outside, not in the walls, but in his own hand. A pen, pressed so hard to paper it nearly tore through. His knuckles ached. The words he'd written didn't make sense at first: the tree, the key, the earth. Over and over, sometimes missing letters, sometimes reversed. His mind filled in the gaps automatically, but a part of him knew that was dangerous.
He dropped the pen.
The desk was too close to him, the room smaller than before. His breath bounced back at him from the walls.
When he looked up, the girl was there.
"You're not supposed to be here," he said.
"You're the one who keeps bringing me," she answered, though she didn't move toward him. Her dress was clean this time. No singed edges. No ashes clinging to the fabric.
He almost asked about it—
—but the scene snapped.
He was outside.The air was heavy.A crowd moved past him, their faces almost in focus but not quite.
He reached for one—literally reached, his fingers brushing a shoulder—and in that instant he was somewhere else entirely.
Dirt.Packed against his chest, under his nails, in his mouth.
He coughed, and the sound was wrong: muffled, caught. He couldn't move his arms. Couldn't feel his legs. Panic swelled in his throat before a voice cut through it.
"You can't keep that," the Archivist said, far away but clear.
The dirt was gone. He was standing again, gasping, the crowd still flowing around him.
"What was that?" he demanded.
The Archivist's answer was too slow. "A page you weren't meant to turn yet."
The swing.
It was swaying gently.The girl was sitting on it, but she wasn't a girl this time—older, sharper features, the same eyes.
He walked closer, and for a moment he saw something buried in the ground beneath the swing. A corner of fabric? A hand? No—just roots, twisted into shapes that only looked like they belonged to something once living.
"You're staring," she said, smiling faintly.
He swallowed. "Do you remember the first time we met?"
Her smile didn't change. "Do you?"
The answer formed instantly in his mind—rain, the sound of glass breaking, the weight of someone else's blood on his hands—and he wanted to believe it.
But then came the other flash.The suffocating press of earth.Two voices above him.One of them laughing.
The two memories crashed together, leaving him dizzy.
He was at the desk again.
The envelope was there, open. Inside was a page, not from his handwriting, but the Archivist's.
It read:
Some pages are anchors.Some are weights.The problem is telling which is which before you drown.
He turned it over—
—and found the dirt under his nails again.
He woke outside.
No desk.No room.Just the sky, tilting slightly.
The girl stood beside him, not looking at him, her gaze fixed upward.
"What happens if it all goes?" he asked.
Her voice was almost too quiet to hear. "Then you'll remember everything at once."
The way she said it made him shiver. It wasn't a promise. It was a warning.