The corridor leaving the gallery was not marked on any map Aurelian knew.
Not because it was secret.
But because it had been removed.
The walls were made of living stone, without covering, and the air had that subtle smell of old parchment that has stopped being useful but not stopped existing. Marikka walked slowly, her hand on the railing, following vibrations that weren't trying to guide her. They were simply there.
Cedric broke the silence with a cautious whisper. "Okay. After the man-in-white-who-writes-names-on-stone... tell me there's nothing down here but dust."
Aurelian didn't answer right away. Then: "Down here is what the Order prefers not to remember."
The hall opened before them without obvious thresholds. No door. No arch. Just a natural widening of the space that seemed to have decided to stop narrowing. The walls were etched with thin stone panels, arranged like open pages. Each panel bore markings that had been erased, rewritten, and annotated in the margins.
Marikka stopped.
The vibration here wasn't unstable. It was stratified. Like a voice that has spoken too many times and has never been completely silenced.
"These are... revisions," she said. "Not destructions."
Aurelian nodded. "The Ancient Revisions. Before the Order adopted total erasure."
Cedric approached a panel. "So... they used to correct them?"
"They used to let them exist," Aurelian replied. "In imperfect forms."
Marikka placed her hand on one of the slabs. The vibrations exploded in a hushed chorus: interrupted voices, annotated decisions, doubts left halfway. She saw—no, she felt—a woman rewritten three times to make her more obedient. A man who had refused a role and had been moved to the margins of reality because of it. A child classified as "redundant."
Cedric put a hand to his mouth. "This place... is worse than the corridor."
"Because there's no trap here," Marikka said. "There's choice."
Aurelian advanced to a central, larger table. The inscriptions were deeper, the markings more careful. At the top, a heading almost intact:
REGISTRY OF KEYS — PREVIOUS VERSIONS
Cedric's breath hitched. "Wait. Previous versions?"
Marikka felt the mark pulse, not in pain but in cold recognition. "There have been others."
Aurelian touched the edge of the table with a caution that betrayed both respect and fear. "Yes. And the Order has always maintained they were... accidents."
The vibrations changed when Marikka touched the registry. It wasn't a wave. It was an alignment. The inscriptions responded as if they had been waiting for her.
She saw a Key used to stabilize an unstable boundary, then dismembered when the boundary held on its own. Another transformed into a tool of foresight, stripped of her name. Yet another... absorbed. Not dead. Rewritten.
Cedric spoke in a very low voice. "How many?"
Marikka didn't lift her hand. "Enough."
A sharp sound broke the air. Not footsteps. Not updates. Paper moving.
Aurelian stiffened. "We are not alone."
From the opposite side of the hall, a figure emerged between the slabs. Not a Keeper. Not the Inquisitor. An elderly man, dressed in a dark tunic, the symbols of the Order sewn on... and torn off.
"You shouldn't be here," he said. His voice was tired, not hostile.
Cedric blinked. "Is he... an Archivist?"
"I was," the man replied. "Before revisions became cancellations."
Aurelian gave a half-bow. "Master Alistair."
The man smiled slightly. "I see you still remember the names it is inconvenient to utter."
Marikka felt Alistair's vibration: not clean, not corrupt. Resistant.
"Why does this place still exist?" she asked.
Alistair looked at the slabs. "Because every system that cancels the past ends up repeating it. The Halls of Ancient Revisions are a... compromise."
"With whom?" Cedric asked.
"With consciousness," Alistair replied. "Even the Athenaeum has one. It just doesn't like to be disturbed."
Aurelian clenched his jaw. "Isaak Verne has returned."
Alistair's smile vanished. "Then time is up."
He turned to Marikka. "You have seen what they do to the Keys."
"Yes."
"And despite that, you remain." It wasn't a question.
Marikka lowered her gaze. "If I left, I would just become another note."
Alistair nodded slowly. "Then know this." He placed a hand on the central registry. "The Order changed methods because the revisions left... margins. And possibilities grow in the margins."
Cedric gave a nervous half-smile. "Those who control everything don't like possibilities."
"Exactly."
A tremor crossed the hall. Distant, but recognizable.
Aurelian whispered: "The Keepers."
Alistair took a step back. "I cannot stop them. But I can do one thing." He looked at Marikka. "I can show you how not to be the only one."
Marikka felt the mark react, not with fear. With anticipation.
"There is a section that Isaak no longer consults," Alistair continued. "Because it is unreliable."
"What kind of section?" Cedric asked.
Alistair gave a bitter smile. "The one with the failed revisions that continued to exist."
The tremor grew closer.
Aurelian looked at Marikka. "If we stay, they'll find us."
"If we go," she said, "we lose something."
Alistair pointed to a narrow, almost invisible side passage. "The Halls won't be here forever. But what you learn... will be."
Marikka placed her hand on the registry one last time. The vibrations settled inside her like engraved bookmarks.
Then she turned.
"Show me," she said.
And as the Keepers entered the main hall, the Halls of Ancient Revisions began, slowly, to close in on themselves.