The smell of ink and damp parchment hit Aeris like a reprimand.

  She hadn’t meant to find the place. The alley behind the Broken Sanctum was supposed to be a shortcut, a way to avoid the lingering stares of those who’d begun calling Sorin “king” when they thought she couldn’t hear. But the cobblestones had shifted underfoot, and the wall beside her—weathered limestone that should have been solid—had sighed open like a reluctant scholar parting with a secret.

  Now she stood in a chamber where the air hummed with the whisper of paper.

  Not just paper.

  Origami creatures lined the shelves, their folded wings and limbs trembling as if caught in a breeze only they could feel. A crane with ink-blotted feathers perched on a ledger; a fox with torn ears curled around a vial of what looked like liquid shadow. They weren’t mere sculptures. They moved.

  Aeris reached for the nearest one—a sparrow with a crooked wing—but froze when a voice spoke behind her.

  “Unfold it, and you’ll wear its sorrow for a week.”

  She turned. A woman stood in the archway, her hair braided with strips of parchment, her fingers stained blue along the creases. Her eyes were the color of old tea, steeped too long.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” the woman said, though she didn’t sound upset. More… resigned.

  Aeris lifted her chin. “I’m an archivist. If there’s knowledge here, I am supposed to be here.”

  The woman laughed, a sound like pages turning. “Oh, you’re her. The sister who fights with fire but keeps her words in vaults.” She stepped forward, her bare feet silent on the stone. “I’m Origem. This is my archive.”

  Aeris frowned. “An archive of what?”

  “Regrets.” Origem plucked the sparrow from the shelf. “People bring them to me. Fold them into something pretty. Leave them behind.” She traced the bird’s spine. “This one’s from a baker who dreamed of being a poet. He drowned his verses in flour.”

  Aeris’s pulse quickened. A place where regrets took physical form? It was absurd. It was irresistible. “How does it work?”

  Origem smiled. “Touch one. Listen.”

  Against her better judgment, Aeris brushed a finger against the sparrow’s wing—

  —and the world split open.

  She stands in a sunlit kitchen, her hands (not hers, too thick, too flour-dusted) kneading dough. The rhythm is soothing. Safe. But beneath the worktable, hidden under a loose floorboard, are sheets of paper crammed with cramped, desperate handwriting. The words itch under his skin. He could burn them. Should burn them. But every morning, he adds another page to the pile.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The regret is a stone in his throat: I could have been something else.

  Aeris gasped, stumbling back. The vision shattered, but the weight of the baker’s longing lingered in her chest like a swallowed sigh.

  Origem watched her, unreadable. “Every fold is a choice. Every unfold is a wound.”

  Aeris flexed her fingers, still feeling the ghost of dough. “These are… memories?”

  “The ones people couldn’t bear to keep.” Origem gestured to the shelves. “Some are petty. Some are monstrous. All are true.”

  Aeris’s gaze snagged on a larger figure—a paper dragon, its wings edged in gold leaf. Something about it called to her, a hum in her bones.

  Origem followed her stare. “Ah. That one’s old. Older than me.”

  Aeris reached for it. “Whose is it?”

  The woman’s voice dropped. “A soldier’s. From the Hollow King’s war.”

  Aeris’s hand stilled.

  Sorin’s war.

  The dragon’s tail curled around itself, its body warm under her fingertips. This time, she didn’t hesitate.

  She unfolded it.

  The paper unfolded like a wound splitting open.

  Aeris was no longer in the archive.

  She stood on a battlefield where the sky burned violet at the edges, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood and something sharper—magic, old and hungry. Around her, soldiers in silvered armor clashed against shadows that moved like liquid night. At the center of the chaos stood a figure in a crown of fractured light, his hands raised as golden fire spilled from his scars.

  The Hollow King.

  But this wasn’t the broken monarch from the murals or the whispers. This version of Sorin—because it was him, it had to be him—stood tall, his face unlined by grief, his eyes alight with a terrible certainty. He wasn’t just fighting. He was winning.

  Aeris tried to step forward, but the memory held her like a vice. She was trapped in the soldier’s body, his pulse her pulse, his fear her fear.

  “Hold the line!” the Hollow King roared, his voice weaving through the din of clashing steel.

  The soldier—her—obeyed, raising his shield as the shadows surged. For a heartbeat, the king’s gaze locked onto him, and Aeris saw something flicker in those gold-lit eyes. Not recognition. Something worse.

  Pity.

  Then the Hollow King turned away, and the soldier’s regret tore through her like a blade:

  I followed him to the end. I would have died for him. But he never knew my name.

  The memory shattered.

  Aeris staggered, the dragon’s paper crumpled in her fist. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her skin slick with sweat that wasn’t hers. The weight of the soldier’s devotion—his useless devotion—sat heavy in her chest.

  Origem studied her. “You see now.”

  Aeris swallowed. “He loved him.”

  “They all did.” Origem took the ruined dragon from her hands. “That’s the tragedy, isn’t it? Even the worst kings are mourned.”

  Aeris’s nails bit into her palms. This wasn’t the Sorin she knew. Her Sorin flinched at the title, his scars burning brighter with every accidental “Your Grace” tossed his way. But the man in that memory had worn the crown like it was his right. Like it was his destiny.

  She needed air. She needed—

  Her gaze caught on another figure.

  A smaller one.

  A paper bird, its wings edged in familiar gold.

  Aeris reached for it before Origem could stop her.

  The bird didn’t wait for her to unfold it.

  The moment her fingers brushed its wings, it burst into flame.

  Aeris yelped, snatching her hand back—but the fire didn’t burn. It licked at her skin like a curious cat, warm but harmless, and when she looked closer, she saw the truth:

  The flames weren’t consuming the paper.

  They were part of it.

  Origem went very still. “That,” she said slowly, “is not a regret.”

  Aeris barely heard her. There, etched into the bird’s burning wings, was a name.

  Sorin.

  And beneath it, in smaller, messier script:

  I’m sorry.

  The fire flared.

  For a heartbeat, Aeris saw—

  A hand, outstretched. A child’s voice, screaming. The Hollow King’s crown, shattering—

  Then the door to the archive slammed open.

  Virellia stood in the doorway, her fire-dancer’s robes singed at the hem, her face streaked with soot. In her hands was a letter, its edges blackened.

  “They’re burning the histories,” she said, her voice raw. “Starting with yours.”