The Archive was quieter than the other spaces.
Not empty. Uninterested.
The room was large without trying to be. Shelves ran in slight curves, not rows. Nothing labeled. Nothing arranged to be found quickly.
I felt it before I touched anything.
This was accumulation.
Not memory. Carrying.
A figure stood between two shelves. They did not approach. They did not recede.
"Everything here came to you," they said. "You didn't ask for it."
Their voice held no comfort. That mattered.
I walked deeper into the room. The air felt older here. Not stale. Patient. Like something that has waited its turn.
Objects filled the shelves. Some small enough to miss. Some heavy enough to bend the wood beneath them. None announced themselves. Each seemed to remember hands.
I stopped in front of one without choosing it.
It felt familiar without being mine.
"Look," the figure said. "Notice the repetition."
I did.
Patterns, not events. Staying. Yielding. Learning when silence worked better than movement. When attention could be shaped. When being wanted required fewer parts of the self.
No origin point appeared. No first wound. Just continuity.
"They didn't set out to harm," the figure said. "They were shaped. Then they shaped you."
I waited for relief.
It didn't come.
"You are not guilty for learning," they continued. "You are responsible for what you keep using."
That settled differently.
I moved along the shelves slowly. I didn't touch anything. I didn't need to. The weight was already known.
Some objects were smooth from use. Others sharp, avoided but never removed. Many had been worn down until they could pass as neutral.
I stopped again.
"You can take one," the figure said. "If you want."
I understood immediately what that meant.
Taking would be continuation, but honest.
Leaving would still be continuation, just unnamed.
I stepped back.
The room did not resist. No penalty. No approval.
"Some inheritances don't end," the figure said. "They change hands."
When I turned, they were gone.
The space opened behind me without ceremony. The shelves spread farther apart. The air lightened by degrees I hadn't noticed losing.
Outside, the ground was level. My body resisted that for a moment. Then steadied.
The weight remained.
Not imposed.
Not borrowed.
Carried.