The Archive core doors opened more slowly the second time.
The heavy black panels separated with a low mechanical hum while pale amber light spilled through the widening gap in long muted strips across the corridor floor. Cold air drifted outward immediately, carrying the same strange scent of polished stone, old paper, and preserved things that had not belonged to ordinary time for years.
Galathea stepped inside, not confidently but carefully this time.
The chamber remained exactly as she remembered it from twenty minutes ago, which somehow made it worse. The preserved Seers still stood inside their crystal-like enclosures beneath the domed ceiling, suspended mid-thought, mid-breath, mid-life. Gold lines pulsed faintly beneath the black flooring like something alive sleeping underneath the structure itself.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Nothing acknowledged what had happened earlier.
But Galathea noticed the difference immediately anyway.
The room was watching her now.
