Jonathan's wife's name hung in the chamber like a lamp swung over dry straw.
Evelyn.
He hadn't spoken it. Elise had. And that mattered. The book in the niche shivered, its pages fluttering in the sour air like birds startled into flight. Something in the walls leaned closer, a presence that had been listening with patience but was now listening with appetite.
Jonathan's chest constricted. His first thought was of home: Evelyn in her chair by the window, thread and needle paused in her hands, waiting for him to come back from another dull night patrol. The thought grew claws. What if she had already gone to bed? What if the fire had spread down Mill Street? What if, when he opened the door, she turned those steady eyes on him and they were mirror eyes now, too?
Gregor Hale's hand shot out, pinning Jonathan's wrist to the stone table before panic could turn into words. His grip was cold but unshaking.
"Do not repeat it," Gregor said.
Jonathan tried to wrench free. "She said my wife's name!"
"She offered it," Gregor hissed. "The Archivist will accept if you confirm. And then your wife will be more than remembered. She will be bound."
Jonathan stopped struggling. The blood in his ears roared. "Bound how?"
Gregor's face was stone. "Like a nail to a door. Like a fly to amber. If you let it, Evelyn will be trapped in this place, in this ledger, for as long as the Archivist cares to keep her. Not living. Not dead. Not yours."
Jonathan's throat worked. He wanted to deny it, call it trickery, accuse Gregor of lies—but Elise's voice still echoed in the stone. The chamber had liked the name. He could feel it, the way a dog pricks its ears at the sound of meat being cut.
The book snapped shut. Dust puffed from its spine like a sigh of satisfaction.
"It's too late," Jonathan whispered.
Gregor released him, but not gently. "Not yet. There is still refusal. But you must mean it."
Elise turned her head toward Jonathan. Her face was pale marble, but her eyes—those mirror eyes—were not his wife's. They were catalogues. They knew. And they were waiting.
"Jonathan Ward," she said again, voice rasping like cloth dragged over stone. "Do you accept?"
He staggered back. "Accept? Accept what?"
"The keeping," Gregor murmured. "She is asking if you'll let the Archivist take Evelyn in exchange for Elise."
Jonathan's mouth filled with bile. He bent at the waist, spat onto the damp stone floor. The chamber swallowed the sound.
"No," he said hoarsely. "No. I refuse."
The book trembled. The niches rattled. For a heartbeat, Jonathan thought the walls would crush inward. Then the pressure eased, like a disappointed sigh.
Elise blinked. The mirrors in her eyes fogged, then cleared. When she spoke again, it was not Evelyn's name. It was his.
"Jonathan," she whispered. "Help me."
He nearly wept at the ordinariness of it. Not Ward. Not the full name that sounded like a line in a ledger. Just Jonathan, soft and small, the way Evelyn might call across a room when she needed help lifting something heavy.
But she was dead. He had seen the knife, the blood, the way her braid fell. He had touched her cold skin. And now she was here, asking him for help with a voice that came from nowhere.
Gregor touched the table, eyes shut, as if steadying himself against the pulse running through the stone. "She will not last here," he said. "The Archivist does not keep out of kindness. It will try again. It will demand another name."
Jonathan's fists curled. "And what if I keep refusing?"
"Then it will take from her," Gregor said quietly. "And there will be less and less of Elise each time you look."
Jonathan turned on him. "You did this. You brought her here."
"Yes," Gregor said, without flinching. "Because the town had already killed her. Because Caldwell made sure of that. Because you—you were the only one who did not swing or cheer, and that is enough to make you the least liar in Ashford tonight. But if you would rather leave her for them to burn, say so. I will not stop you."
Jonathan opened his mouth, but no words came. In the silence, the muffled sound of the mob seeped down through the walls. Caldwell's voice had grown ragged with shouting. Then came a crackle—fire. They were setting the asylum alight.
Pell's voice shrieked once, high and terrified. Jonathan shut his eyes.
"I have to get to Evelyn," he whispered.
"Then keep Elise first," Gregor said. "Or you'll carry both losses on your shoulders, and you will break."
Jonathan's knees trembled. The stone seemed to lean toward him, urging. He pressed his palms against the table and bent low over Elise's body. Her face was close, pale lips parted, those impossible eyes unblinking.
"I will keep her," Jonathan said, the words scraping his throat raw. He didn't speak a name. He didn't offer a substitute. Just the promise.
The chamber listened. The book flared open, pages thrashing, then stilled. The pulse in the stone slowed, then steadied.
Gregor exhaled. "For now, it is enough."
But Jonathan could feel it—an unspoken ledger entry, a debt written in invisible ink. The Archivist had not given up. It had only postponed.
The wall behind them groaned. Smoke seeped through cracks in the stone, acrid and thick. Ashford was burning its problem to the ground.
Gregor scooped Elise up again, cradling her against his chest. Her braid brushed the damp stone as he turned toward a shadowed passage at the far end of the chamber.
Jonathan stumbled after him. "Where are we going?"
"Out," Gregor said. "If Caldwell wants to burn the asylum, let him. We will not be inside when it falls."
"But Evelyn—"
Gregor's voice was iron. "You will reach her. But only if you walk through this door first."
Jonathan hesitated, staring at the darkness ahead. It was not just a tunnel—it was another seam, another impossible door. He could hear water on the other side, not the river aboveground but something older, slower, moving under the hill.
Behind them, fire cracked. Screams echoed through stone. The asylum was collapsing into ash and ruin.
Gregor stepped into the dark with Elise. The seam began to close.
Jonathan cursed, then flung himself forward—
—just as the stone slammed shut behind him, leaving Caldwell's fire and screams on the far side.
He fell headlong into blackness, air thick with damp and the sound of unseen water rushing somewhere below.
And from ahead, deeper in the dark, came a new voice. Not Elise. Not Gregor. Not even the book.
"Jonathan Ward," it whispered, each syllable dripping slow and deliberate.
The Archivist itself had decided to speak.