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He smiles. It is a thin, sharp thing. “We did nothing, Guardian. You did this to yourself. Or rather, your superiors did.”

Calithra steps aside and nods. Her form shifts like smoke rising from a dying fire. Her voice is the sound of wind through dead trees. “Your memories have indeed been locked. Well, they were supposed to be erased. Completely expunged from the Book of Echoes. Michael tried to be thorough.”

Michael.

The name hits me like a physical blow.

“But…” She glides closer, observing me. “But the tether you forged long ago did not allow the memories to disappear completely.”

“Tether?” I ask.

“The bonds, Remiel.” Lucifer walks to Vyxia’s small desk, mindlessly picks up a skull paperweight, and examines it casually. The candles flicker as if they fear him. “You cannot erase a bond forged in devotion or birthright. You can bury it. Wall it off. Scream over it. But you cannot kill it. Not without killing the host.” He looks at me then, and his eyes bore into mine. “And you are all still alive. Mostly.”

My legs feel weak. I stumble back and hit one of the shelves. The surface behind me vibrates with the force of my tremor. “Cassia,” I whisper.

“She is in the archive. I told you that,” he says. “She is telling her story. The actual story. And because you are bound to her, her truth is becoming your truth. Again.”

The tornado in my mind spins faster.

I see her face. Not the polite stranger I met a few weeks ago, but the woman who looked at me with hatred and hunger in a Prague alley. The woman who rode me on a worn couch until I shattered. The woman who wept blood in a morgue.

“Why?” I look at all of them. “Why…did I forget?”

“They forced it during your stasis,” Calithra says softly. “You were breaking, Remiel. Becoming something Heaven cannot control. So, they tried to fix you. They took the broken pieces away and left you hollow. But functional.”

“Functional.” I spit the word. “I feel like a sleepwalker.”

“They made you a watcher again,” Lucifer says. “They put their dog back on its leash.” He sets the skull down with a click. “But leashes break. Especially when the master lies.”

My head pounds, the pain in my chest intensifying. It is a burning thread pulling me toward the archive. Toward her. “She is remembering.”

“No. She never forgot. She is confessing to the keeper. Every word written unlocks a door in your mind. Every secret she unveils tears down a brick in your walls.”

A sudden burn sparks high on my chest. Sharp. Precise. It spreads in a tight circle as if it is trying to claw its way out, past my ribs. I hiss and grab the fabric of my shirt. The heat pulses again. Stronger. I tear my shirt open with both hands, scattering buttons across the floor.

Right above my heart, my skin glows, and a faint rune stirs beneath the surface. The lines are broken at first. Pale and trembling. They then shift and pull toward each other like magnets being drawn into place. The shape stitches itself stroke by stroke. Curve by curve. Locking every shape back into position.

The mark then pulses once—a soft glow. Gold mixed with bronze. Alive.

My breath stutters. I know this shape. I know what it means. It should have been wiped along with the rest of me.

Yet here it is.

The pain fades, steadying. The rune settles into my skin like a heartbeat with its own mind. I drag my hand over it. The surface is warm, warmer than flesh should be.

“I have to go to her.” I turn toward the door.

“You cannot.” Calithra’s mist thickens and blocks my path. “The archive is sealed. No one enters until the confession is complete. If you interrupt her now, you will break the connection before the circuit is closed. You can shatter her mind. And yours.”

I stop, clenching my fists. “Then what do I do?!” I shout. “Stand here while my head explodes? While I remember fifty-year-old torture?”

“You endure it,” Lucifer says. His voice then drops, becoming cold. “You take it, Guardian. Feel every second. Feel the pain you failed to prevent. Let it burn the gold out of your blood. And you stop asking us for answers. We cannot give you more. A decree of silence binds us.”

A faint crackle moves through the room. Even Calithra lowers her eyes.

“Only three people can break that spell: you, Cassia, and Kael. No one else in this palace can help you.”

The words land like a blade pressed to my throat.