Cedric kept walking ahead of her with the twitchy gait of a puppy who had just glimpsed a dragon's shadow behind a curtain. Marikka followed in perfect silence, holding the book carefully—delicate enough not to provoke it, firm enough not to drop it if the Athenaeum suddenly decided to shift its architecture beneath her feet. Which, knowing the Athenaeum, was entirely possible.
The corridor they were crossing existed only when someone from the Deep Silence Level was summoned urgently. The parchment-lined walls glowed with a faint, silver light that made Cedric look even paler than usual. He turned back toward her, moving his lips slowly so she could read them:"It's… dangerous, right?"
Marikka touched his wrist—a short, precise vibration meaning: breathe; you're not about to die.Cedric nodded. His eyes said he wasn't convinced in the slightest.Meanwhile, Aurelian walked ahead with the steady calm of someone for whom the world adjusted itself. It was one of his many unsettling qualities.
"He is waiting for us," Aurelian said, keeping his lips clear. "Alistair has already been informed."
Cedric shivered. "Maestro Alistair? The one who corrects reports even when they're perfect?"Marikka shot him a glance.Cedric quickly corrected himself: "I mean… perfect by his standards. Which is… not ours."
Aurelian didn't reply, but a microscopic smile flickered across his face for half a heartbeat. Hard to tell if it was amusement or resignation.
The corridor changed as they advanced, as though the Athenaeum was trying to settle on the appropriate configuration for whatever was about to happen. The fused pages along the walls shrank away, revealing stone blocks older than memory. Then new sheets grew over them like fresh skin sealing a wound. Marikka felt the place shifting—uneasy, but not hostile. Like an ancient animal sensing a storm.
The book in her arms reacted the same way. Its vibrations were shorter, sharper—emotional pulses, like little clenched fists.
It did not want to be here.Yet… it wanted to communicate.
Cedric glanced around nervously. "Is it just me, or does this corridor feel like it's judging us?"
Marikka tapped his shoulder: it always judges.
He paled further.
A doorway appeared at the end of the hall. It hadn't been there a second before. Doors manifested often in the Memory Depths, but this one was different: made from compressed parchment, with an almost-invisible symbol etched in the center—a circle split by a diagonal slash.
The symbol vibrated when Marikka looked at it.A call.Or a warning.
Aurelian touched the entrance, and it folded inward like soft paper.
The room beyond was far brighter than Marikka expected. A warm ivory light fell from an unseen source above. Shelves curved in concentric spirals, forming a gentle maze. And at its heart, surrounded by piles of books arranged like drowsy animals, stood Maestro Alistair.
He always looked as if carved from precision itself: hair neatly tied back, posture immaculate, eyes dark as dried ink. His entire presence radiated you are not doing this correctly.
When he saw Marikka, he nodded politely.When he saw Cedric, he raised a single eyebrow that expressed centuries of disappointment.When he saw the book, his expression froze—not with fear, but with instantaneous calculation.
"Grand Bibliarch," Alistair said with a slight bow. "I have awaited news. I did not expect… this."
His voice was low, measured, each word placed with the care of a scribe illuminating a sacred letter.
Aurelian returned the nod. "What we found does not belong to any registered archive."He gestured at Marikka. "It responds only to her."
Alistair turned to examine her as though she were a hypothesis in motion—not hostile, but intensely analytical."Archivist Marikka," he said. "What emotional states have you detected within the tome?"
Cedric held his breath.Marikka placed a hand on the book, letting its vibrations speak through her skin. Then she gestured:
Pain.Fear.A broken memory.Recognition of place.
Aurelian translated calmly.
Alistair's eyes narrowed. "Many texts in the Lost Memory Level contain echoes of eras erased by the Rewritings. But none display conscious emotional feedback… nor adaptive behavior."
Cedric raised a trembling finger. "So, uhm… that's worse?"
Alistair regarded him like one regards a punctuation error."It is different."
The book throbbed sharply in Marikka's hands. She set it gently on the central table. The table quivered, acknowledging its presence.
The tome opened on its own.
Pages flickered like wind-touched leaves—yet there was no wind. They stopped abruptly on one page, trembling at the edges.
It wanted to be read.
Marikka touched it—
—and a memory swallowed her whole.
The vision came clearer than before:
A golden hall.Suspended lamps casting soft ripples through heavy drapery.Figures gathered around a monumental tome—figures not quite human, or perhaps too human in all the wrong ways. Their emotional vibrations were layered, intricate, like songs written in overlapping staves. They were tense. Afraid.
The great tome on the table pulsed like a living organ.
Then a figure stood.A gloved hand.A decisive motion.A cluster of pages torn free——and the book's pain roared wordlessly through Marikka.
She nearly collapsed. Alistair grabbed her elbow with startling reflexes.
"What did you see?" he asked, softer than she'd ever heard him.
Marikka's breath trembled. She signed quickly:Unknown chamber.Unknown beings.A massive tome.Pages ripped.Fear.
Alistair exhaled slowly. "The symbol on the door—that split circle—is Pre-Scriptural. No modern text uses it."Aurelian added, "This volume predates the First Rewriting."
Cedric squeaked, "P-predates? But before that there was… what? A… nothing?"
"A world that no longer exists," Aurelian answered.
The page vibrated again.Marikka touched it.
A word resonated into her palm:
"Name."
Alistair leaned closer. "It is attempting to rebuild its identity. That should be… impossible."
"Or inevitable," Aurelian murmured.
A sudden vibration shook the table.Shelves in the room crept inward, shifting a few inches as though something pressed from the other side.
Cedric's face drained of color. "N-nope. I don't like that. Why does the room breathe every time she touches it?"
A thin crack of blue light split across the far wall.No sound—just pressure.
Marikka felt it like a cold finger tracing her bones.Another presence.Not hostile.But curious.
The book shuddered.Another emotional fragment shot through her hand:
"Others."
Aurelian stiffened. "It is telling us it was not alone."
Alistair closed his eyes. "If this is a fragment, the others may be anywhere. Or already awakening."
Marikka's pulse quickened.The book grew heavier, denser, as if drawing strength—or memory—from the air around them.
Cedric backed away. "Shouldn't we warn somebody? Someone who deals with things that shouldn't exist? Preferably soon?"
Aurelian gave him a look potent enough to silence a choir.Then he turned to Marikka.
"From this moment on," he said, "you are the tome's sole authorized interpreter. No one else will attempt to read it. No one else will touch it."
Alistair nodded once. "We must protect you. And protect it from whatever searches for it."
A tremor rippled through the floor.
Something deep below had answered.
Marikka felt it.Cedric felt it in his knees.Alistair in the shift of air.Aurelian in the ink itself.
The book vibrated violently.
Another emotional word seared through her skin:
"Near."
Marikka's breath froze.
Something had woken the book's memories.And something—or someone—was coming for them.