The world folded.
She stood in two places: the archive and somewhere else. A desert at night. A temple burning. A figure walking into flames while creditors watched from the shadows. The vision expanded, contracted, showed her symbols and names and relationships she couldn’t quite understand.
Then it snapped back, and she was holding a clay tablet that felt warm in her hands.
“Time!” Derek’s voice crackled through Victor’s phone. “Security’s moving. Three minutes, maybe less.”
“Go,” Whitmore said. His playfulness had vanished, replaced by something grimmer. “Use it well. And Mr. Morningstar?”
Victor paused at the corridor entrance.
“The memory I took. It was the first time you failed someone who trusted you.” Whitmore’s smile was almost kind. “You’ve been carrying that for eight hundred years. The archive thanks you for the meal.”
They ran.
Victor and Avaburst through the bronze door into the B13 corridor. Derek was pacing, laptop showing security feeds: guards two floors up, descending fast.
“Did you get it?”
Ava held up the tablet.
The elevator dinged.
They froze.
Grimm stood in the opening doors, his features sharp under emergency lighting that hadn’t been red a moment ago. His winter-gray eyes took in everything: the tablet in Ava’s arms, the blood still visible on their palms, the guilt they weren’t quite managing to hide.
Nobody moved.
“Ms. Feng. Mr. Morningstar. Derek.” His voice scraped like gravel on ice. “The archives. At this hour.”
“Sir…” Victor started.
“Marchosias arrives in six days.” Grimm stepped out of the elevator, and the temperature dropped another ten degrees. “You’re preparing to petition him directly. Using firm resources without authorization. Risking the archive’s defenses. All for a human’s family restaurant.”
Nobody answered. Derek looked like he wanted to disappear into the stone.
“Yes,” Ava said. “We are.”
Grimm’s eyes found hers. Ancient. Calculating. The kind of gaze that had watched empires rise and fall and felt nothing.
“The tablet you’re holding is the foundation of demonic contract law. Marchosias values it above almost anything else in existence.” He stepped closer. “If you lose it. If you damage it. If you fail to return it after your petition, the consequences will be severe. For all of you.”
“We understand,” Victor said.
“Do you?” Grimm’s attention shifted to him. “You gave the archive a memory. I can smell the absence on you. What else are you willing to lose for this human?”
Victor didn’t hesitate. “Everything.”
Grimm’s expression shifted, recognition. One predator acknowledging another.
“Six days.” Grimm stepped back into the elevator. “Prepare well. Marchosias doesn’t grant audiences to fools.” He held the doors open with one hand. “And Victor? We will discuss your unauthorized access. After Peterson Holdings is resolved.”
The doors closed. The red emergency lighting faded back to normal.
Derek exhaled so hard he nearly collapsed. “I thought we were dead. I actually thought we were dead.”
They rode the elevator up in silence. At the lobby, the security guard looked up from his newspaper, noted them on his clipboard without comment, and went back to his crossword. The blood on their palms had vanished, absorbed by the archive’s hunger.
