The silence beyond the door was not reassuring.
It was selective.
Marikka understood immediately: it wasn't the silence of an empty place, but that of a place that chooses not to react. The mark on her wrist cooled, as if it had ceased to be interesting for an instant.
Cedric stopped a step from the threshold. "Okay. I don't feel anything anymore. And when I don't feel anything anymore, it usually means someone is pretending not to be there."
Aurelian took half a step forward, scrutinizing the walls. "This sector is screened. Not in an official way."
"Unauthorized?" Cedric ventured.
"Deliberate," Aurelian replied. "And old."
The room beyond the door was large and low, with worn shelves and worktables covered by gray cloths. There were no active seals. No ritual lights. Only static lamps and untouched dust.
A forgotten laboratory.
Or a hidden one.
Marikka placed her fingers on a table. The vibration that answered was faint, restrained, like a whisper covered by overly cautious hands.
Someone had been working there recently.
And had taken care not to leave recognizable traces.
"It's not an improvised refuge," she said quietly. "It's maintained."
Cedric inhaled. "Then someone always comes back here. And every time, they risk being seen."
Aurelian bent over a side bench. Among incomplete parchments and deactivated tools, he found a seal broken in half. Not shattered. Interrupted.
"This wasn't erased," he murmured. "It was suspended. Every suspension has a cost."
Marikka felt a familiar, distant vibration. Not like Serian—not so crisp—but akin. An echo, like a half-pronounced name.
Before she could say it, a voice spoke behind them.
"Don't move."
It wasn't a shouted order.
It was a precise request, spoken by someone who knew they were in control for now.
Three figures emerged from the shadow between the shelves. Not Keepers. Not official Archivists. They wore practical, neutral clothing, without obvious symbols. All carried the same detail: a strip of gray fabric sewn on the inside of their wrist, visible only when they moved their hand.
Not an emblem.
An internal recognition.
Aurelian slowly raised his hands. "We are not here to steal."
"We know," said the figure in the center. A woman in her forties, hair tied back, eyes tired but sharp. "If you were thieves, the system would have already flagged you."
Cedric blinked. "So... are we friends?"
"No," she replied. "We are a variable."
Marikka felt the vibration shift. Not hostility. Calculated choice.
"You are tracked," the woman continued. "Yet you arrived here without activating a single alarm. Do you know what that means?"
Aurelian closed his eyes for an instant. "That someone masked our imprint."
The woman nodded. "Exactly. And every time we do it, the system learns something more."
A man to her right stepped forward. "Not everyone in the Athenaeum agrees with the Order of the Blank Page."
Cedric crossed his arms. "And those who disagree usually disappear."
"Yes," the woman said. "Some of us have already paid."
Marikka spoke. "Why help us?"
The silence that followed was not awkward. It was thoughtful.
"Because if the Order takes you," the woman finally said, "they won't use you to protect the Athenaeum."
She paused, brief but heavy. "They will use you to control it."
Aurelian stiffened. "You are talking about the Keys."
"We know what they are," the man replied. "And we know what's left of them when they stop being people."
Cedric whispered: "There have been others."
"Yes," the woman said. "And none have come back."
Marikka felt a chill that didn't come from the mark. It came from awareness.
"Who are you?" she asked.
The woman hesitated. "We were once part of the Athenaeum. Now we are... those who do not wish to see it become something else."
A distant noise crossed the sector. Not footsteps. Updates.
Aurelian turned. "They are looking for you."
"Yes," the woman said. "And that's why you must leave."
Cedric sighed. "Always the same. Half-answers and side doors."
"We are not saving you," she countered. "We are moving you."
She pointed to a door at the far end, almost invisible. "That route is not yet tracked. But it will be soon. When that happens, this place will also cease to exist."
Marikka felt the echo vibrate stronger. Like a consent that didn't ask permission.
"What do you want in return?" Aurelian asked.
The woman looked him straight in the eyes. "That when they ask you to choose, you remember that not all enemies carry symbols... and not all allies remain invisible forever."
Another vibration. Closer.
"Time's up," the man said.
The woman turned to Marikka. "Trust what resists when the system attempts to use it. Everything else is negotiable."
Marikka nodded.
They crossed the door without looking back.
Behind them, the laboratory went dark. The lights dimmed. The suspended seals returned to invisibility.
When the Recovery Keepers entered the sector, they found only dust, unused tables... and a missing trace, like a deliberately skipped sentence.
One of them spoke, with a new nuance in its voice:
"UNCATALOGED INTERFERENCE."
Somewhere in the Athenaeum, someone had chosen not to see them.
And Marikka understood that that choice was not protecting them.
It was involving them.