The choice had an immediate weight.
Not moral.
Physical.
The irregular corridor reacted to Marikka's decision like a wound being touched for too long. The walls stiffened, the vibrations became shorter, drier. It was no longer a transit space: it had become a containment vector.
"They're not chasing us," Aurelian murmured. "They're... funneling us."
Cedric looked behind them. "I liked it better when they were running."
The footsteps arrived distinctly.
Not hurried.
Not coordinated with each other, but perfectly consistent.
Runic Keepers.
They were not made to pursue. They were made to close.
Marikka felt them even before seeing them: three separate vibrational signatures, all identical in structure, differing only in intensity. Embodied procedures. Not hostile by choice, but irrevocable by function.
"Three," she said quietly. "They are cutting off our options."
The corridor in front of them widened into a junction hall. Too regular. Too symmetrical. Cedric pointed to it with a nervous gesture. "Tell me it's not a 'come on in, we're waiting for you here' kind of room."
Aurelian nodded. "It is."
The Keepers emerged from the side openings as if they had always been there. Humanoid bodies of runic stone, etched with luminous lines that pulsed at identical intervals. Their faces were smooth. Expressionless. Eyeless.
One of them spoke.
Not with a voice.
With a reading.
"Anomaly classified. Unregistered Key. Recovery in progress."
Cedric took half a step back. "Hey, hey—can we talk about this? Maybe... fill out a form?"
The Keeper did not react.
Aurelian stepped forward, his hand already ready to trace a formal rune. "This area is not under direct jurisdiction—"
"Jurisdiction verified," the Keeper replied. "Authorization: Inquisitor Verne."
The name did not vibrate.
It sealed.
Marikka felt Serian's echo quiver beneath her skin, as if he too recognized that signature. The mark on her wrist heated in response.
"They are not coming to kill us," she said. "They are coming to take me."
"Great," Cedric said. "Worse."
The second Keeper moved. It did not attack. It placed a seal on the ground, and the floor reacted immediately: a runic grid lit up, dividing the hall into sectors.
A trap.
Aurelian swore under his breath. "They are isolating the Key from the context."
The third Keeper advanced toward Marikka.
Cedric instinctively stepped in front of her.
For an instant—just one—the Keeper hesitated.
Not out of empathy.
Out of inconsistency.
"Unclassified element," it said. "Risk of interference."
Cedric went pale. "I'm... a risk. Fantastic."
Aurelian seized the moment. He traced a rune not of attack, but of derivation. He launched it toward the grid.
The runic structure trembled. It didn't break, but it slipped half a step.
It was enough.
"Now!" he shouted.
Marikka moved without thinking. She didn't stabilize. She didn't order. She did the only thing she had learned to do without destroying herself: she chose a version.
A version where Cedric was not isolated.
A version where Aurelian remained standing.
A version where she was not alone in the center of the grid.
The vibration exploded, brief and painful. The mark burned like a forced signature.
The Keeper advancing toward her stopped abruptly.
Its luminous lines flickered.
"Alignment error," it said.
The corridor reacted as if hit by a sharp blow. A side sector gave way, creating an oblique fracture, too narrow for a Keeper... but enough for three people.
Cedric didn't wait. "Run!"
Aurelian grabbed Marikka by the wrist and pulled her toward the fracture. The second Keeper attempted to realign the grid. The third raised an arm, and a containment rune formed in the air.
Too late.
Cedric accidentally hit a secondary seal as he passed, and the floor gave way beneath the nearest Keeper, swallowing it up to its torso in a mesh of compressed text.
The Keeper did not scream.
It registered.
"Recovery... partially compromised."
Marikka crossed the fracture with a sharp pain behind her eyes. Serian's echo contracted, as if trying not to be noticed.
Behind them, the Keepers did not immediately follow.
They stopped.
And that was worse.
Because it meant only one thing:
They were adapting the procedure.
When the passage closed behind them, the silence was broken only by Cedric's ragged breathing.
"Okay," he said, bent double. "Okay. I'm saying it. We just made some statues with the authority of God angry."
Aurelian ignored him. He looked at Marikka with a tense, almost frightened expression. "You interfered directly with a Recovery procedure."
Marikka nodded. The mark on her wrist was bruised. "I couldn't let them isolate me."
"Isaak will know," Aurelian said.
"I know."
And somewhere in the Athenaeum, much higher up, a procedure was being rewritten.
Not to stop them.
But to capture them better next time.