The side passage closed behind them with a sound that wasn't a closing, but a correction.
Marikka sensed the ripple even before seeing it. It wasn't a tremor, nor a wave. It was like when a word is rewritten too many times on the same page: the paper remains, but the surface thins out.
"I don't like it," Cedric said, quietly. "This place seems... tired."
Aurelian nodded. "It's not a place. It's an intervention zone."
The corridor opened and narrowed in patches, as if breathing poorly. The walls were neither stone nor shelves: they were compressed, overlaid layers of text, stitched together with an eye-aching precision. The sentences weren't readable. They were intuited.
Marikka walked cautiously. Every step produced a vibration that didn't return the same. The mark on her wrist was lukewarm, restless, as if it were trying to decide whether to participate or resist.
"This is what's left when a revision is not completed," Aurelian said. "Not stable enough to become definitive. Not erroneous enough to be erased."
Cedric grimaced. "So... the worst of both worlds."
The corridor trembled. Not like an earthquake, but like a sentence changing meaning halfway through. A section in front of them bent slightly, then returned to its place... different.
Marikka stopped short. "Don't move forward."
Aurelian froze. Cedric nearly ran into him. "Why?"
Marikka pointed at the floor. The lines of text no longer coincided. Where there was a sharp seam before, there was now an overlap. Two versions of the same space, badly aligned.
"If we step there," she said, "it won't be able to decide who is stepping on it."
Cedric swallowed. "I vote for remaining one person."
Another ripple crossed the corridor. This time it was visible: the air trembled, like water hit by an invisible stone. The words on the walls shifted by half a character.
Aurelian gritted his teeth. "It's reacting to your presence."
"Or to what I saw," Marikka replied.
She took a step sideways, looking for a less unstable area. The mark on her wrist suddenly warmed, as if called by name. The vibration amplified, hooking onto the corridor's layers.
Marikka felt a pressure behind her eyes. Not pain. Forced alignment.
She saw—no, she perceived—a version of the corridor where they weren't present. Another where Cedric had been left behind. Yet another where she had never touched the Key registry.
All true.
All discarded.
"Marikka," Aurelian said, tense. "Tell me what is happening."
She inhaled slowly. "The Rewriting is not trying to correct us. It's... comparing."
A new sound emerged from the corridor. A double rustle, like two pages turning in opposite directions. Something detached from the left wall.
Not a complete creature.
A Double Error.
It had an unstable form, composed of two overlapping versions of the same thing: a humanoid body that never quite coincided with itself. Its hands doubled with every movement. The head wobbled, as if it couldn't choose where to be.
Cedric backed away. "No. No no no. That is exactly the kind of thing that arises when someone rewrites badly."
The Double Error advanced. It didn't walk: it realigned itself with every step.
Aurelian traced a containment rune. The line of light hit the air in front of the creature... and doubled, as if reflected in an imperfect mirror.
"It won't hold!" he shouted.
Marikka felt the mark vibrate strongly. Not a command. A dangerous possibility.
If she intervened, the corridor would react even more.
If she didn't intervene, the Error would touch them.
Cedric looked at Marikka with wide eyes. "Whatever you're thinking... do it quickly."
Marikka placed both hands against the wall. She didn't try to order. She tried to stabilize. She focused on a single version: the one where they were all there. The one where the corridor contained them without multiplying them.
The vibration that emanated from her was not violent. It was deep.
The air stopped trembling for an instant. The words on the walls slowed, as if someone had lowered the reading speed. The Double Error hesitated, its two versions desperately trying to coincide.
"Now!" Aurelian yelled.
The rune struck again. This time it did not double. The Error emitted a shriek, like paper tearing against resistance, and dissolved into fragments of text that were immediately reabsorbed by the walls.
The silence that followed was unnatural.
Marikka staggered. Cedric grabbed her shoulders before she fell. "Hey. Stay here. Just one version, okay?"
She nodded, breath short. The mark on her wrist was cold now. Exhausted.
Aurelian looked at the corridor, pale. "You did something you shouldn't be able to do."
"I didn't rewrite it," Marikka murmured. "I... convinced it."
The corridor reacted nonetheless. The ripples did not cease. They changed nature. Where before they were chaotic, now they were directional.
A distortion opened in front of them, like a poorly defined window. On the other side, Marikka glimpsed a figure.
Tall. Thin. Incomplete in outline.
Serian.
Or something that resembled him too much to be a coincidence.
His gaze met Marikka's for an instant. His lips moved.
You are becoming visible.
The distortion closed with a sharp tear. The corridor returned to being stable, as much as it could be.
Cedric was trembling. "Please, tell me I didn't just see a paper ghost."
Aurelian didn't answer immediately. Then: "It wasn't an apparition."
Marikka closed her eyes. The weight of the stabilization crushed her chest. "It was a consequence."
The corridor in front of them was now solid. Passable. But different. Stiffer. Less tolerant.
It had learned something from her.
And as they started walking again, Marikka understood that the Rewriting wasn't a distant event or a forbidden ritual.
It was a living process.
And she had just left her first, unmistakable ripple.