The Corridor of Judgment did not pursue.
It didn't need to.
After the sound of the bell, the space had changed its attitude. The walls didn't narrow, no new obstacles appeared. It was worse: the corridor accompanied them, as if it knew exactly where they were going and how much time they had before running became pointless.
Marikka felt it under her skin.
Not a strong vibration, but a taut, constant thread, connecting her to something behind them. The Recovery team wasn't there yet. It was being prepared.
Cedric walked in too much silence. This, for him, was an alarming sign.
"Okay," he finally said, his voice trying to sound normal. "I'll say it, so we don't have to pretend it's not happening. They are coming to get us."
Aurelian did not deny it. "Yes."
"Perfect. I appreciate the honesty."
Marikka stopped short.
Not out of fear.
Because something had answered.
Not from the corridor.
Not from the ordered Athenaeum.
From below.
The vibration arrived broken, irregular, like a sentence transmitted through too many walls. It was weak, but familiar in a way that tightened her chest.
Serian.
Not a complete presence. Not a figure. Just an echo, like a margin that refuses to be completely erased.
Marikka placed her hand on the wall. The corridor reacted with annoyance, as if it disliked the deviation.
"There is someone," she said quietly.
Aurelian spun around. "Not here. It's not possible."
The vibration became clearer. No longer just a single note, but an imperfect sequence, like poorly copied text. Marikka felt fragmented images: the Sector of Lost Drafts contracting, the columns of text collapsing one after another, cancellation procedures being initiated... and then interrupted.
Serian wasn't speaking.
He was resisting.
Cedric instinctively moved closer to Marikka. "Tell me it's not him."
"It's... what's left of him," she replied. "And it's getting worse."
The corridor trembled. Not an alarm. A warning. As if the Athenaeum had perceived unauthorized communication.
Aurelian lowered his voice. "If Isaak detects a residual persistence—"
"—he cancels it," Cedric concluded. "Yes, we get the concept."
Marikka closed her eyes.
Serian's echo wasn't asking for help directly. He no longer had the strength to do so. But every fragment that reached her was imbued with the same information: if he completely collapsed, something would be lost forever.
Not just a person.
A precedent.
She saw, for an instant, a version of the future in which Isaak could say, "Drafts do not survive."
And no one would be able to contradict him.
"I can... stabilize him," Marikka said, with hesitation.
Aurelian stared at her. "Here? Now?"
"Not completely," she replied. "Just enough to stop him from dissolving."
Cedric went pale. "And how visible would that make us?"
Marikka didn't answer right away.
Then: "Very."
The corridor changed pace. The lights seemed to align with greater precision. As if someone, elsewhere, was refining an estimate.
Aurelian clenched his fists. "If you do it, Isaak will know."
"If I don't," Marikka said, "Isaak wins anyway."
The silence that followed was not imposed by the place. It was a human pause.
Cedric spoke first, his voice cracked but firm. "I don't know anything about Keys, revisions, or procedures. But I know how to recognize when someone is being erased because they are... inconvenient." He took a deep breath. "And I know that if we leave now, this guy—" he paused, swallowing. "—this person... will never have had a chance."
Aurelian closed his eyes for an instant. When he reopened them, something in him had shifted. It wasn't courage. It was decision.
"You have little time," he told Marikka. "And if you do it... I can no longer pretend to be neutral."
Marikka nodded.
She placed both hands on the corridor wall, seeking not control, but a weak point. An interference. Serian's echo responded immediately, as if he had been waiting for that contact.
The vibration that emanated from her was unstable, cautious. It wasn't trying to rebuild. It was trying to anchor.
Serian appeared not in front of her, but within the vibration: an incomplete outline, made of broken sentences and ill-defined edges. His face was more erased than before.
Don't do it, the message arrived, distorted. It will make you too obvious.
"I already am," Marikka replied, voicelessly.
The corridor reacted strongly. The walls vibrated, and for an instant the straight line bent, as if it were considering a deviation.
Serian became more solid. Not stable. But present.
Isaak is waiting, he transmitted. Not to capture you. To understand how far you are willing to go.
A distant strike crossed the place.
Not a bell.
Footsteps.
Cedric spun around. "We have company."
Marikka felt the cost arrive all at once. The mark on her wrist became scorching hot. The vibration tore an involuntary breath from her. Stabilizing Serian was working... but it was also leaving traces everywhere.
The corridor stiffened. More than hostile, it was now aligned.
Serian looked at her for one last instant, with something that resembled gratitude. I cannot stay this long, he transmitted. But now... I am not a dead note.
The echo retreated, leaving behind a subtle, but persistent, vibrational residue.
Marikka staggered. Cedric supported her immediately.
Aurelian looked at the corridor with new eyes. "You just did something the Order cannot ignore."
Marikka nodded, her breath short. "I know."
In front of them, the corridor opened in two directions. One more direct. Orderly. Only seemingly safe.
The other... irregular. Unplanned. Less controlled.
Behind them, the footsteps grew closer.
The Recovery had begun.
And now, for the first time, the choice could no longer be postponed.