Chapter 55. Echoes Beneath the Skin

The violet lantern between them crackled softly, casting shifting light that stretched their shadows high onto the stone walls. Above, the Archive’s vaulted ceiling arched like the inside of a giant ribcage. Every breeze in the room moved like breath.

Royce remained seated, his hands folded loosely between his knees. His earlier edge had dulled. Not vanished—never that—but dulled, as though some internal war had tired even him.

Adria paced. Not out of nervousness, but to stay warm. To stay alert. She didn’t want to sit beside him again, not when the taste of that last conversation still clung to the air—bruised, intimate, sharp-edged.

“You said someone’s lying to me,” she said without turning.

“I did.”

“Then say who.”

He didn’t answer immediately. She heard the rustle of his sleeves, the shift of his posture.

“I can’t give you a name,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Convenient.”

“It’s not about convenience. It’s about safety. Yours.”