The vibration changed without warning.
It wasn't a wave, nor a sudden impact. It was something worse: a realignment. Like when a silent room stops being neutral and becomes hostile without making a sound.
Marikka noticed it first.
She stopped suddenly in the corridor, forcing Aurelian and Cedric to do the same. The mark on her wrist wasn't pulsing, burning, or warning. It was... rigid. Present in an unnatural way.
"We don't fit here anymore," she said quietly.
Cedric blinked. "What do you mean 'we don't fit anymore'? Like... wrong dress code?"
Aurelian didn't laugh. He was observing the walls, the joints of the shelves, the seals embedded in the stone. "She's right. This sector has... registered us."
As if to confirm his words, a rune carved above the arch in front of them went out. It didn't explode. It didn't react. It simply stopped recognizing them.
Cedric took a step back. "Okay. No. I don't like it when walls decide to ignore me."
Marikka pressed her fingers to the stone. The vibration that answered her was different than usual: cold, filtered, impersonal. There was no curiosity. There was no listening.
Only function.
"It has begun," Aurelian murmured.
"What?" Cedric asked.
Aurelian inhaled slowly. "The first order."
The corridor in front of them opened nonetheless, but not as before. The walls drew aside with a minimal, calculated delay. As if passage had been granted... not offered.
They advanced.
After a few meters, Marikka felt something else: not a presence behind them, but a distance that was shortening. As if someone had started measuring the space between already known points.
"They're not chasing us," she said. "They are... tracking us."
Aurelian nodded. "Active surveillance. It's worse."
Cedric shrugged. "Great. I preferred it when they wanted to kill us."
The first intersection lit up when they reached it. Thin lines of runes emerged from the floor, drawing a circular symbol that Marikka had never seen before.
Aurelian stopped abruptly.
"Oh no."
"Oh no what?" Cedric asked immediately. "When you say 'oh no' with that look, usually someone loses a piece."
Aurelian read the seal aloud. "Order of Priority Conservation."
The silence fell heavy.
Marikka felt a knot in her stomach. "Explain."
Aurelian looked up at her. "It's not an order for elimination."
Cedric managed a hysterical half-smile. "See? Excellent news."
"It's an order for delivery," Aurelian continued. "Intact. Functional."
The mark on Marikka's wrist reacted for the first time in minutes. A dry pulse, like a seal closing.
Cedric stopped smiling. "Intact... like an object."
"Like a resource," Aurelian confirmed. "As something that must not be damaged."
Marikka felt the Athenaeum's vibration change again. Some side corridors were closing slowly. Others remained open, but not for them.
"It's narrowing the options," she said. "Not to stop us immediately. To direct us."
"Towards where?" Cedric asked.
Aurelian hesitated for only an instant. "Towards whoever can claim her."
A new presence crossed the sector. Not sudden. Not aggressive. Official.
Two Runic Keepers emerged from the opposite arch. Not the slender ones of Convergence. These were more massive, with active binding runes pulsing along their arms.
Recovery Keepers.
They did not attack.
They stopped at regulatory distance.
"ANOMALY LOCALIZED," one of them declared. "ORDER ACTIVE."
Marikka took a step forward instinctively.
Aurelian placed a hand on her arm. "No."
Cedric whispered: "They're not charging."
"Because they don't have to," Aurelian replied. "The protocol says she must arrive... not that she must resist."
One of the Keepers tilted its head toward Marikka.
"DELIVERY NOT IMMEDIATE," it declared. "OPTIMAL PATH IN CALCULATION."
The corridor behind them slammed shut.
In front of them, instead, a side path opened. Narrow. Dark. Unstable.
Cedric looked at the passage, then at the Keepers. "That route is a terrible idea."
"It's the only one that hasn't been optimized yet," Aurelian said. "The system hasn't fully taken it over."
Marikka felt something similar to a decision taking shape inside her. Not heroic. Not grand.
Necessary.
"Let's go now," she said.
The Keepers did not move to stop them.
One of them spoke again, with a voice devoid of emotion: "ESCAPE REGISTERED."
Aurelian clenched his jaw. "Not escape. Delay."
They launched into the unstable corridor.
Behind them, Marikka felt the Athenaeum update itself. New seals were activating. New routes were being calculated.
Someone was about to be informed.
As they ran, Cedric gasped: "Tell me one thing, Aurelian. Who is it that claims... things like her?"
Aurelian didn't answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was tense as never before. "The Order of the Blank Page."
Marikka felt the mark on her wrist tighten, as if it had understood the name before her.
And for the first time since everything began, she understood one thing with terrifying clarity:
They were no longer trying to eliminate her.
They were trying to take her.