The sootglass door swung inward without a sound. Beyond it, the air changed. Thicker, not just with moisture but with presence. It smelled faintly of char and lavender, as if something had once burned here and tried to mask the memory with sweetness.
Finn stepped through first. His footfalls clicked gently on the glassy floor, which reflected only distorted shadows. The room was wide and circular, its walls curving inward toward a high, domed ceiling that blinked faintly with trapped light.
The reader followed, her eyes scanning everything with silent precision. The Midkeeper did not enter. She remained just beyond the threshold, her silhouette framed by the dim light of the spiral chamber.
"This place is older than it looks," the reader said. "It's made to forget itself."
Finn approached the center, where a low pedestal stood. Upon it sat a bowl filled with tiny white stones, each etched with unreadable script. He reached toward it.
"Wait," she warned. "These are voice stones. If you touch one, it will speak."
"To me?"
"To whoever it remembers."
Finn looked again at the bowl. The stones were warm to the eye, as if they had absorbed thousands of small moments. He chose one near the edge.
As his fingers closed around it, sound burst into the chamber.
Not speech. A laugh.
High and light. A child's laugh.
Finn froze.
The stone pulsed once, then went still.
He looked at the reader. "Did you hear that?"
She nodded. "They don't lie. Only echo."
He returned the stone to the bowl and stepped back. Something inside him stirred, a memory not quite his, or one too long buried to feel familiar.
On the far wall, a new shape emerged. A circle, then a line. Then a door.
It had no handle, no hinges. Just an invitation.
The reader stepped beside him. "The room listened. It remembered something you forgot."
"And now it wants to show me."
The door began to hum.
They stepped forward together, ready for whatever the next fold would reveal.
The glassy floor under their feet rippled slightly as they passed through the newly formed doorway. Beyond it lay a long corridor of mirrored walls, each pane veined with dark lines that pulsed like veins. The corridor felt neither cold nor warm, but suspended, as though insulated from time.
Each mirror shimmered faintly, but none reflected them exactly. Instead, they showed variations. Finn saw himself older in one, younger in another, then wearing clothes he'd never seen, standing beside people he had never met. The reader's reflections were subtler. Her eyes shifted color between panes, her posture varying. In one mirror, she was alone.
"These aren't distortions," she said. "They're paths."
"Versions of us?"
"No. Versions of memory."
Finn paused before one pane. In it, he was laughing beside someone he couldn't name. A woman, familiar only in feeling. They shared bread, wine, a rooftop view of stars he didn't recognize.
"I think I knew her."
"Or still do," the reader said. "Memory doesn't obey the present."
They continued deeper. The hallway narrowed. The walls curved tighter. Finally, it opened into a chamber lit from beneath, where the floor was transparent and glowed with slow-turning symbols.
At the center sat another pedestal. This one held no bowl, no artifact. Just a name, carved in shallow relief.
Not Finn's.
Not the reader's.
But one that made them both stop.
Cassor.
Finn stepped forward, brows furrowing. "Why here? Why now?"
The reader crouched beside the pedestal. "Because something of him was left behind. A piece even he didn't claim."
The name glowed faintly, then faded.
A voice filled the chamber. Low. Raw.
"You found what I left."
It was not Cassor's voice as they remembered it. It was softer, exhausted. Honest.
"You're not here," Finn said.
"No," the voice answered. "But I echo. That's all this place is. The pieces of what wasn't said."
The room dimmed. On the walls, fragments appeared, lines of dialogue cut off mid-sentence, questions never answered, promises half-spoken.
The reader read them aloud, slowly.
"I will come back if"
"I never meant to"
"You don't have to"
"They were meant to be closed," the voice whispered.
Finn stepped back. "Then why show us?"
"Because closure isn't the same as forgetting."
Another door appeared, smaller, barely wide enough to pass through. On it was a single word:
Continue.
The reader touched the door. "It's not a demand."
"No," Finn said. "It's a choice."
They looked once more at the name on the pedestal.
Then walked through.
The space beyond was narrow and dark, but as they stepped in, the walls grew lighter with every breath they took. Tiny lights flickered around them, darting between the walls like fireflies made of ink. Some circled Finn's head before vanishing. Others traced symbols in the air that evaporated before they could be read.
"It's responding to us," said the reader. "Or more precisely, to what we carry."
As they moved forward, a sound began to rise from the walls. Not music, not speech. Something like a pulse, a rhythm so slow it felt like the chamber itself was exhaling. It rose and fell with a cadence that felt ancient.
They reached a low platform where a circular basin waited. It was filled not with water, but fine black powder, like the ash of written things. Floating above the basin was a single feather, motionless.
Finn reached out, but before he could touch it, the feather moved on its own. It dipped low and etched a single letter into the ash. Then another. And another.
"What's it writing?" he asked.
The reader bent close. "Not a message. A memory."
When the feather finished, it dropped gently into the basin and vanished. The ash settled. A picture remained: a younger Cassor, standing in the light of the Origin Tree, looking up in awe.
Finn whispered, "He saw it too."
The ash pulsed, and the image changed. Cassor holding the first scroll, hesitating. Then, Cassor surrounded by faceless people, every one of them silent. Then, Cassor alone.
The reader's voice softened. "Even he didn't want to erase. He just didn't know how to carry it."
The image faded. The basin emptied itself. The air stilled.
Another voice, faint and genderless, whispered around the walls. "What is lost waits to be chosen."
Finn looked to the reader. "We can't go back."
"No," she said. "But we don't have to stand still either."
They turned toward the end of the corridor, where a thin crack had appeared in the wall. From it came a soft white glow.
And beyond that, the next fold.