Chapter 38 · Everyone They Erased

Evelyn did not move.

The figure inside the glass looked like Noa, but the resemblance ended at the shape of her mouth.

Her hair drifted around her face as if she were submerged in deep water. Silver light threaded beneath her skin, following the veins in her throat and wrists. When she opened her eyes, the naming core brightened behind her, and every contract chained to its walls shuddered in answer.

Not gray. Not green. Silver—old as buried bones.

Which one are you trying to save?

The question had come from Noa’s mouth. It had also come from the river, from the walls, from the hollow spaces between Evelyn’s recovered memories. It carried two voices layered together: one warm and breathless, the voice of the woman who had kissed her beneath a rain-blackened archway twelve years ago, and one vast enough to make the floor tremble.

Evelyn’s hand tightened around the broken enforcement seal at her belt. Blood had dried beneath her ribs, turning her shirt stiff. Every breath pulled at the wound. The blue river curled behind her, its current carrying fragments of names toward the core—