The candle flickered once. Then again.
Velora didn't look up.
The Archive didn't keep time.
It preserved it.
And sometimes, it preserved it wrong.
She sat on the floor, coat drawn tight not for warmth, but ritual.
It was white once, but soot lined the sleeves like shadows that refused to wash out.
Black threads ran like veins through the fabric, catching the candlelight and twisting.
Her hair fell in a single long braid over one shoulder. The other side was shorn close, uneven, the result of a blade, not vanity.
She had cut it the night she stopped screaming.
Behind her, on a stone table, sat a coin.
She hadn't brought it.
It was always there.
Gold, tarnished at the edges, stamped with the Hollow Star: eight points, none even, none steady. A symbol born of rebellion and rewritten into obedience.
She hadn't flipped it in weeks.
Not since the vote.
Not since the fire.
She didn't want to know what side it would land on.
The Archive was silent.
Not quiet silent.
Like the stone itself had agreed not to speak anymore.
Names covered the walls.
Some scrawled in ink. Some etched in nail.
A few so deep they looked like the wall had bled to remember them.
She traced one near her boot with the toe of her shoe.
Velorai.
She stared at it.
That wasn't her name.
Was it?
She blinked.
The letters twisted, reformed.
Velora.
She exhaled. Slowly. Measured. Not in relief just confirmation.
The Archive remembered things the way people did: incompletely, and with bias.
A step echoed in the hallway outside.
Not heavy. Not hesitant.
Familiar in the worst kind of way.
She didn't turn.
Didn't have to.
"Velora," said Alastor's voice.
Still she didn't look up.
"You're not scheduled to be here."
"The Council can wait."
Silence again. Longer this time. He wasn't used to being dismissed.
"You missed the vote."
Velora finally moved, fingers brushing the coin. Her right hand was bare. Her left wore silver rings mismatched, dulled by time. One was fused at the band by black wire. A break that never healed clean.
"Tessa would've voted against it," she said.
Alastor didn't argue. He never did.
He shifted his weight slightly, a gesture she'd come to recognize. Not discomfort. Calculation.
"You still haven't cleared her name from the proxy system," he said.
"She earned that vote."
"It was six months ago."
"She's still dead," Velora said flatly. "So the weight of her vote hasn't changed."
The flame on the candle trembled as if reacting to the words.
Alastor stepped closer. She heard it in the way his boots slowed, as if testing her mood with every inch.
"She wouldn't want to be used like this."
"She wouldn't want to be forgotten either," Velora replied.
There was something sharp in her voice not anger, but memory.
"I've told you before," he said softly. "You need to let her go."
Velora stood.
The coat whispered around her. The candlelight touched the edges of the white fabric like reverence. Her eyes gold, rimmed in gray caught the glow without returning it.
"I did," she said. "That's why I'm still here."
She turned to the door and walked past him.
He didn't follow.
No one ever did.
The Archive's eastern wing had been sealed. Technically.
She reached it without effort. The old hallway bent as if trying to hide it, but she knew the pattern of its lies.
There was a door at the end.
No handle. No seal.
Only a keyhole that had long since rusted shut.
She pressed her palm to the center of the stone.
Nothing happened.
Then
click
Not a lock opening.
A memory returning.
She stepped back. The door didn't move.
But something inside her shifted. Like a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding for years.
She turned, coat trailing behind her like a second shadow, and walked away.
The candlelight in the hallway faded with every step, even though no one touched the flames.
When she returned to her room in the Archive, the coin was gone.
She hadn't taken it with her.
She sat down in the same spot, her back to the table.
Waited.
Waited.
A minute passed.
Then another.
A soft clink.
The sound of something small and circular being placed gently on stone.
She didn't turn.
She didn't need to.
It was always there when she came.
Even when she didn't remember bringing it.
The coin was back.
The Archive remembered.
Even when she didn't.