The spiral on the table continued to shimmer long after Finn had pulled his hand away. It glowed with a steady rhythm, not fast, but deliberate, like the pace of thought in a dreaming mind.
The reader circled the table, fingers skimming the edge. "Spirals mean recursion," she said. "Stories that return to their beginning."
Finn sat beside the bowl of dried fruit. He took a piece, chewed slowly, and watched the spiral. "Is that where we're going? Backward?"
"Not exactly," she said. "Just deeper. Not all spirals go in reverse."
From the corridor behind them came another faint sound. Not footsteps this time, but a hush. Like breath over stone.
A figure appeared in the threshold. Not paper. Not ink. Flesh.
She was older than either of them, draped in layers of rough-woven cloth and bone charms. Her hair was long and gray and tied with what looked like teeth from animals that no longer existed. Her eyes were clouded but alert.
"Who speaks the fold?" she asked.
Neither answered.
She stepped inside. "Who bears the seed?"
Finn rose slowly, hand on his coat. "I do."
She nodded and extended a hand. Not to take, but to feel. Her palm hovered near his chest.
"Not grown yet," she said. "Good. It would die in this air."
The reader stepped forward. "You're from below?"
"Beneath even this," the woman said. "I came when the tree opened. We heard it in the root tunnels. The breath of first remembering."
"Who are you?"
"I am the Midkeeper. I watch the fold between stories. I keep it still when others try to tear it open."
Finn held out the sealed parchment the paper girl had given him. "Do you know what this is?"
The Midkeeper leaned close. Her nostrils flared. "A possible name. Not yours until you speak it. But careful. Some names are questions pretending to be answers."
He returned it to his pocket.
The reader asked, "Why show yourself now?"
"Because the spiral woke. That only happens when a choice is near."
She turned and pointed to a blank wall beside the table. It shimmered, then thinned, and became a passage.
"This is not your next step," she said. "It is your first one, remembered late."
Finn looked at the reader.
She nodded.
Together, they walked through the new threshold, into a hall that had waited for them long before they knew to seek it.
The corridor beyond was lined with thousands of suspended strands, each hanging from the ceiling like silken vines. They swayed gently, though there was no wind. Some strands shimmered. Others blinked. Finn reached out to touch one, but the reader caught his wrist.
"Don't. Some threads here are still writing."
They passed deeper into the hall, their footsteps muffled by a thick, moss-like carpet that glowed faintly with every step. At intervals along the floor, small mounds appeared, stone cradles, each holding an item: a clay flute, a worn sandal, a cracked lens, a child's tooth bound in copper.
"These are echoes," the Midkeeper said. "Offerings left by those who walked this way and could not continue. They turned back or became something else."
"Why would someone turn back?" Finn asked.
"Because what's ahead might be who they were before, and some would rather not remember."
They came to a circle of nine doors. Each carved from a different material: obsidian, bone, bark, saltstone, stitched leather, pale metal, sootglass, dyed silk, and one made entirely of braided names, written on parchment so thin it fluttered as if breathing.
Finn stood at the center.
"Which one?"
"None yet," said the Midkeeper. "First, you must fold."
She stepped forward and held out her hands. Between them floated a long, curling strip of script. The ink twisted in real time, rearranging itself as she spoke.
"Your memory is your map. But your name is the gate. Until you unfold the one you carry, these doors will only lead to reflections."
Finn hesitated.
The reader placed a hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to open it. But if you do, it won't just name you. It will summon everything that's ever known you."
He reached into his coat.
Unfolded the parchment.
Inside, a single word shimmered into shape.
Not a name he recognized.
But one that made the doors inhale.
The Midkeeper smiled. "Ah. Now the spiral continues."
The door of stitched leather unlatched itself with a low sigh.
And the reader said, "Shall we see what it never wrote?"
Finn approached the door, each step echoing softer than the last. The air near the threshold was thicker, charged with the sensation of unspoken memory. As he stepped through, the world behind him bent slightly, like parchment curling near fire.
The chamber on the other side was dim and warm, lit by thousands of tiny hanging beads filled with faint glows, some steady, others flickering as if in thought. The floor sloped downward in slow spirals, guiding them deeper.
"This place remembers choices," the Midkeeper said. "Not outcomes. Just the moments before."
Along the walls, impressions shimmered: a hand hovering near a doorknob, a child on the verge of a first step, two strangers about to speak for the first time. These weren't scenes. They were pauses. Breaths before change.
Finn passed by one and stopped. A reflection formed, of himself, years younger, crouched behind a cart with a stolen apple in hand. A woman passed in front of the cart. She had seen him but said nothing.
"That moment," Finn whispered. "That's when I didn't run."
The reader looked closely. "And everything after curved because of it."
A new passage opened as they moved, this one descending sharply. The spiral theme continued, walls wrapped around them in tighter coils.
At the base of this spiral, a single table waited. It was blank.
"No name?" Finn asked.
"None yet," said the Midkeeper. "But it will form when you sit."
He did. The surface was cool and pulsing softly.
The reader and the Midkeeper stood back.
From the ceiling, a fine ink began to fall. Not dripping, rising in a gentle upward spiral and then folding down onto the table. Letters formed. A question.
What would you change?
Finn stared at it for a long time.
"I don't know if I would."
The table pulsed. The letters changed.
Then what will you carry?
He looked up at the reader.
"Everything," he said.
The ink vanished. In its place was another sealed fold, just like the first.
The Midkeeper took it and placed it in a shallow hollow at the center of the spiral floor.
"One path closed," she said. "Another opens."
They turned.
And a door of sootglass opened on its own.