The child never answered on Aether's behalf, and the Garden never finished trembling. But somewhere in the space between his unspoken answer and the next flicker of the glowing paths, the child stepped aside, and the path that had shone brighter than all the rest stretched itself forward like an open hand.
Aether followed it.
He did not decide to. That was what unsettled him most, looking back on it afterward. His feet simply moved, guided by the same pull that had drawn him out of the archive and across the borders of the Garden, and the paths around him fell away one by one as though bowing him through. The light dimmed as he walked, not into darkness but into a softer, older kind of glow, the color of candlelight seen through very old glass. The air changed. The scent of living things, of roots and green growth and rain, faded gradually into something quieter and drier, the smell of paper that had waited a very long time in a very still room.
