Chapter 23 · The Memory Reservoir

The voice in the walls stopped asking what Evelyn had seen.

It began to count.

“One,” Aveline whispered.

The corridor shuddered. Dust sifted from the vaulted ceiling, glittering like ground glass in the blue light of the memory threads.

“Two.”

Noa’s knees buckled.

Evelyn caught her before she struck the floor. Heat radiated through Noa’s coat, fierce and uneven, as if a second heart had been hammered into her chest. The burns along her neck flashed silver beneath the skin. Every pulse sent a tremor through the corridor, waking another strand of memory.

A child laughing.

A woman screaming.

The smell of rain on stone.

Noa gripped Evelyn’s sleeve. “Don’t let go.”

“I’m not going to.”

“You said that before.” Noa’s eyes lifted to hers, dark and fever-bright. “In the garden.”

Evelyn’s breath caught. A flash rose between them: two girls beneath a glasshouse roof, one with a crooked braid and ink on her fingers, the other holding a stolen peach.