Aether stepped closer despite himself, drawn forward the way a compass needle turns toward north whether it wants to or not.
The sphere reacted to his approach immediately. His Living Memory surged to life without his consent, silver flames licking up around his arms and shoulders, and the sphere split open before him like a flower unfolding in fast motion.
A voice emerged from within it.
Not the Witness's voice. Not the Architect's, nor the Traveler's.
A child's voice, small and uncertain, echoing as though spoken from the bottom of a very deep well.
*"If they remember us..."*
*"...they will come."*
Aether went rigid.
*"If they forget us..."*
*"...we will disappear."*
Another voice answered the child's — warm, achingly familiar, the same voice that lived at the very edge of Aether's earliest recovered memory, the one he had chased through half his life without ever quite catching.
*"Then we must find another way."*
Aether's heart seemed to stop entirely in his chest.
