Madelaine followed.
The temperature dropped instantly.
Not cold, exactly—but maybe absence. No sound. No scent. Nothing to identify.
The Obsidian Reliquary—as the parchment had said was where the Archivist of Silence would be—stretched out in impossible geometry. There were columns that didn’t quite align. Shelves lined with objects that pulsed faintly in a sedate blue shade, as though aware of their own existence and everything else in the room.
Madelaine stopped looking around, fearful she’d let out an accidental expression of awe and be struck down for disobedience.
She put her focus forward again, no foolish rubbernecking for her.
A figure stood waiting in the center of a patio of sorts with paler tiles. The Archivist of Silence. He was still. Patient. Certain.
He was taller than she expected. Draped in layered black that shifted like shadow folding over itself. A thin metallic veil covered the upper half of his face, etched with symbols that seemed to move when she tried to focus on them, like a superhero’s mask gone rogue.
He did not look at her. Not once. His gaze settled on Jack. And held.
“You have arrived,” the Archivist said.
His voice was quiet, but it filled the space completely.
Jack inclined his head just enough to be respectful. “I have.”
A measured pause came next.
Then. “You seek acquisition.” Not a question.
“I do,” Jack said. “An item held in quiet trust. Marked for retrieval.”
“You speak for another.”
Madelaine’s pulse spiked.
Jack didn’t falter. “I speak as required.”
Silence followed. Thick. Layered. Obtrusively toxic.
Madelaine felt it pressing against her skin, her throat, her lungs. Like the world itself was reminding her,Not you. Not here.
The Archivist shifted. Barely. But the movement sent a ripple through the room, as though every object present had noticed.
“The retrieval you request,” he said slowly, “is bound to a designation.”
Jack held his ground. “I am aware.”
Another pause. Longer this time. “The Paladin Courier.”
The words landed like a stone dropped into still water.
Madelaine’s breath caught—not audibly, not quite—but enough that her chest tightened with the effort of holding it back.
Jack answered before the silence could stretch too far.
“I am here on behalf of that designation.”
The Archivist tilted his head a fraction. The metallic veil he wore caught the dim light, scattering it in strange, fractured patterns.
“On behalf,” he repeated.
