Ashur didn't explain much more that night. After the last of the sky's light had faded, he wrapped himself in a blanket stitched from glass-thread silk and fell asleep beneath a cracked eavespout, snoring softly. The boy sat awake beside him, knees tucked to his chest, watching the city's pulse stretch below.
Sleep wouldn't come.
Not just because of the cold, or the ache in his throat. But because something was missing. Not like a stolen object — more like a note in a song that had always been there and had quietly vanished.
He tried again to recall how Kesh had spoken to him after the ritual.
The words were there.
But her voice wasn't.
Even in his head, the sound of her was gone.
And that realization terrified him more than anything the Choir had done.
He didn't just lose his own voice.
He'd started losing others.
Ashur stirred at dawn. He squinted blearily at the rising light and scratched at the base of his neck, where an old spiraled scar faded in and out of sight depending on how the shadows touched it.
"Still alive?" he asked.
The boy nodded faintly.
Ashur stood and stretched with a groan. "That's more than I can say for most of the ones who come back from the Choir half-full."
He picked up one of his jars, popped the cork, and downed the contents — three black threads soaked in bitter rootwater — then looked at the boy again.
"You planning on heading to the Archives still?"
A silent nod.
"You'll need leverage. The Beneath doesn't trade in kindness. Only in memory and consequence."
The boy gestured weakly to his own chest. Then he traced a small spiral on the ground between them.
Ashur raised an eyebrow. "You think that mark's enough? Being a Proxy?"
He paused.
Then his smile returned, smaller this time.
"Alright," he said. "I'll get you to the outer lock."
The Archive Beneath wasn't hidden so much as ignored. It rested at the far edge of the Lower Half, built into the bones of a collapsed temple. The entrance was guarded by a gate with no keyhole and no signage — just a wall of melted metal and broken sigils carved in reverse.
Ashur touched three of them in a specific sequence, muttering something the boy couldn't hear — not because of distance, but because the words had no sound.
The gate peeled open, folding back into itself like wet cloth. Beyond it, a single spiral stair led downward.
"Careful what you remember in there," Ashur warned. "Not everything stored stays quiet."
The descent was different than the Choir's.
Colder, yes. But also structured.
This place hadn't been warped by belief. It had been designed to contain belief.
Each step deeper, the walls changed — from stone to brass, from brass to mirrorsteel, from mirrorsteel to a strange black glass that refused to reflect anything but the ceiling.
At the bottom, a flat chamber opened, ringed with memory-vaults sealed in wax and bone. Glyphs pulsed softly on the floor — some familiar, most not. A woman stood behind a curved desk of obsidian.
She looked at the boy first.
Then at Ashur.
Her expression didn't shift.
"He's marked," she said flatly.
Ashur inclined his head. "Only just. The Choir didn't finish."
The woman narrowed her eyes. "And you brought him here why?"
"Because the Choir forgets the cost," Ashur replied, "and he hasn't paid it yet."
A long pause.
Then the woman extended a hand toward the boy. "Name."
The boy's mouth opened.
But no sound came.