The boy's mouth moved — a name half-formed on lips no longer trusted to hold it.
No sound came.
The archivist didn't react. Not with annoyance. Not with pity. She only tilted her head the smallest degree, as if re-measuring him.
"No verbal access code," she said, more to herself than anyone else. "Fallback to touch sigil."
She tapped the obsidian desk twice. A square of smoky crystal slid open. Beneath it: a flat, glowing surface etched with a hundred overlapping spirals.
"Trace the one that's yours."
The boy hesitated.
There were dozens — some broken, others whole. Some symmetrical, others twisted. But only one felt familiar in that unspoken, Threaded way. Not because he remembered drawing it — but because it knew him. Because it waited.
He reached out.
The moment his finger touched the sigil, it glowed faint violet.
The archivist didn't smile. She only turned and motioned toward the left corridor.
"Access granted. Inner wing only."
Ashur gave him a small nod. "You'll be fine. Just don't touch the sealed jars."
The corridor into the Archive's Inner Wing wasn't long. But every step sounded wrong. Not loud, just… misaligned. Echoes arrived too early. Footfalls reversed themselves. A whisper behind him repeated things he hadn't said yet.
He passed memory vaults built like altars — each with a candle burning beside them. Names carved into bone. Some full. Some scratched out.
He paused at one — a vault that pulsed faintly. Not with light, but with familiarity.
A small plaque beside it read:
SMILE: UNKNOWN OWNER. CONTRIBUTED BY K.
Inside the glass was a memory fragment. Floating. Flickering.
A young boy, maybe twelve, grinning.
His face. But not quite.
It wasn't just a younger version. It was... lighter. Unburdened.
He leaned in closer.
The memory blinked — and the boy inside turned slightly. As if noticing him.
The real boy flinched back.
The plaque was warm now. The candle had gone out.
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the hallway.
He turned.
A figure approached — not a Warden, not an archivist. A girl, taller than him by a little, with short-cropped hair the color of stormglass. Her coat bore three overlapping glyphs stitched in silver thread: Silence, Self, and a broken one he didn't recognize.
She stopped a few paces away and studied him.
"You're the new one," she said. Her voice wasn't mocking. But it wasn't impressed, either.
He nodded.
"I'm Kesh," she said. "I left that smile."
The boy blinked.
She shrugged. "You're not the first version. Probably not the last. But I liked the way he smiled. It stayed with me longer than I expected."
A pause. She stepped past him, glanced at the plaque, then back.
"Don't lose it. If you do, you'll never remember what it felt like."
Then she was gone, swallowed by the Archive's deeper halls.
The boy stood there for a long time.
Longer than he meant to.
He didn't understand everything she said.
But for the first time since the Choir's song touched his throat, something stirred again in his chest. Not warmth. Not pain.
Just memory.
Of a smile.
And a name he couldn't say.