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The staircase descended slowly beneath Blackwood Hall, each footstep absorbed by stone worn smooth long before either of us had been born. The sounds of the building faded behind us until only silence remained.

It wasn’t an empty silence, but one that old places kept for themselves. I moved closer to Alexander without quite realizing I had done so.

“Does anyone else come here?” I asked.

“No.” Just one word, nothing more. The answer settled over the staircase with surprising weight. We continued downward. The corridors below felt different from the Hall above. The ceilings were lower, the walls closer. Brass sconces threw pools of warm light, leaving long stretches of shadow between them.

“What are these corridors? There seem to be so many of them.”

“They’re the original service corridors of Blackwood Hall. They allowed staff to move through the building without constantly crossing into formal places.”

“Are all of them still operational?”

“Yes and no. They are still here and can be used, but very few people have access to them.”

“Oh, okay. I remember you took Priya and me through a stairwell I hadn’t used before. Do the other buildings have similar corridors?”

“Yes. When I designed the newer buildings, I incorporated the same principle. Separate service routes allow staff and maintenance teams to move through them without disrupting the main spaces.”

“Even the Research Pavilion?”

“Yes.”

“What is on the ninth floor?”

Alexander paused before answering. “It used to house Project Helix.”

“My badge flashed red when I tried to select the ninth floor once.”

Alexander stopped. Something in his expression changed. “When?”

“A few weeks ago. I was curious. Every other floor on the directory is labeled except the ninth.”

“You tried to go up alone?”

I looked at him. “I pressed a button in an elevator. It flashed red. That’s all.”

Some of the tension left his face, though not all of it. “The ninth floor was closed after Project Helix ended. It has never been returned to general use.”

“Will it ever reopen?”

“Possibly. It’s come up in Board discussions more than once, but no decision has been made.”

It was a perfectly reasonable answer. It didn’t explain why he’d looked so concerned when I told him about the ninth floor.

Alexander reached for my hand, threading his fingers through mine. “That isn’t why I brought you here. Today is supposed to be ours.”

Some of the seriousness left his expression. “Come. There’s something I want you to see.”

We stopped before another oak door. He rested his hand against the handle without opening it. “I’ve never brought anyone here before.”

The room was nothing like what I had expected.

Blackwood Hall had taught me to expect grandeur. The soaring ceilings of the library. The magnificence of the opera house. Rooms designed to inspire admiration before they invited understanding.

This room asked for something different. It wasn’t large. It wasn’t ornate. It was simply lived in. Long worktables lined the walls, flat drawers disappearing beneath them. Shelves held notebooks, photographs, architectural models, and loose sketches. Nothing here was arranged to impress anyone. Everything had been kept because it mattered.

I stopped just inside the doorway. “This is an archive.”