The tour had mostly ended. After enough stalls, scrolls, cursed trinkets, and a bakery that smelled like both cinnamon and burnt regrets, Ari gave Leo a look that said she was officially at 98% done.
> "Alright. I've got other council duties to return to," she said.
"You should go check out the Archive. It might help… center you."
> "Are you saying I'm uncentered?"
> "I'm saying you nearly ate a teleportation herb because it was purple."
> "…That's fair."
Ari rolled her eyes and waved him off. Leo gave her a playful salute and turned toward the Archive on his own.
---
The streets were quieter now.
The chatter of the market faded behind him.
The buildings got older — the kind of old where windows didn't open, and doors looked like they whispered behind your back.
As Leo passed into the shadows of the Archive courtyard, the wind shifted.
First it was subtle. A breeze. Then it wasn't.
He heard it.
A whisper.
Then another.
Then dozens.
Hundreds.
Voices — too many to count — crawling in his ears, his chest, his mind. Ancient. Soft. Not yelling… but pressing. Like a room full of people all whispering your name and you can't find a single one.
Leo dropped to a knee, clapping his hands over his ears.
> "Stop. Stop—what the hell is this?!"
But the whispers didn't stop.
They weren't outside anymore.
They were inside him.
In his scroll. In his magic.
He couldn't understand a single word. Not one.
But he felt them.
Warning. Calling. Watching.
His heart thudded in his throat. His fingers itched with energy he didn't know how to cast.
> "Get it together," he muttered. "You survived public speaking class. You can survive this."
Then — as suddenly as they'd come — the whispers faded.
Like someone snapped a curtain shut on the other side of reality.
---
Leo stumbled into the Archive, sweating like he'd jogged across timelines.
A clerk behind the desk looked up from a scroll about punctuation-induced explosions.
> "Can I help you?"
> "Uh… yeah. I was wondering... do you guys have anything on, like, ancient whispers?"
> "Whispers?"
> "Yeah, but ancient. The old kind. The spooky kind."
> "That'd be under 'Undocumented Aural Phenomena.' Third row. Careful—some of them whisper back."
> "Great. Totally comforting."
Leo wandered deeper into the Archive's maze of floating scrolls and wooden shelves.
He didn't say anything about what just happened.
Not the noise. Not the pain.
Not the feeling that something had noticed him.
He just… kept walking.