The door closed behind them with a dull, final sound.
It wasn't loud, but it echoed through the abandoned building in a way that made Liora's skin prickle. The air inside felt thicker, heavier, as if it had been sealed off from the rest of the city for far too long. Dust hung suspended, unmoving, like the building itself was holding its breath.
Liora took another step forward.
The memory echo pulsed.
It wasn't a clear image not yet. Just a distortion in the air, a tightening in her chest. The closer she moved, the stronger it became, until her ears rang softly and her vision blurred at the edges.
"Slow down," Aiden murmured from behind her. "Don't let it pull you in all at once."
She nodded, though her eyes never left the shimmer hovering near the far wall. Cracked paint peeled away in long strips, revealing older layers beneath, like scars that had never healed. Something about that wall felt wrong. Too quiet. Too aware.
Seren circled the room, boots crunching lightly against broken glass. "This place has been cleaned before," she said. "Not physically. Memory-wise. They scrubbed it and left the shell behind."
Liora reached out without thinking.
The moment her fingers brushed the air, the room shifted.
Sound rushed in all at once voices overlapping, footsteps, a sharp intake of breath. The echo snapped into focus, and suddenly she wasn't standing in the abandoned building anymore.
She was there.
Her sister stood only a few feet away.
Not whole. Not solid. Just a fragment, trembling at the edges like a reflection in broken glass. Her hair was pulled back the same way she used to wear it when she was nervous. Her hands were clenched into fists.
"You weren't supposed to follow me," her sister said.
Liora's throat closed. "I didn't I didn't know where you were."
The fragment smiled, faint and sad. "That's the point."
The walls around them pulsed, the echo straining to hold its shape. Shapes moved at the edge of Liora's vision tall figures, faceless, watching from the shadows.
"They're coming," her sister whispered. "They always come when someone remembers too much."
"Who?" Liora asked desperately. "Tell me who did this to you."
The fragment began to fade, panic flickering across her sister's face. "The Circle isn't the beginning," she said quickly. "They're just the hands. The city is the mouth."
A sharp pain tore through Liora's skull.
"Liora!"
Aiden's voice dragged her back.
She gasped, stumbling as the echo collapsed in on itself. The room snapped back into place, the shimmer vanishing like it had never been there. Her knees buckled, but Aiden caught her before she hit the floor.
Seren swore under her breath. "That was a deep pull. Way deeper than I expected."
Liora clutched Aiden's sleeve, breathing hard. "She was there. She talked to me. She said the Circle wasn't the beginning."
Aiden's expression darkened. "Then we're dealing with something older than we thought."
A low sound rolled through the building a vibration, almost like a warning.
Seren's head snapped up. "We need to move. Now. That wasn't just a memory reacting."
From the hallway outside, footsteps echoed.
Slow. Measured. Intentional.
Liora felt it then the unmistakable pressure of being seen.
Not by the city this time.
By someone who remembered her.