The air in the library's restricted wing tasted of dust and secrets. Lyra's fingers, still tingling from the raw energy she'd somehow unleashed in the plaza, traced the spine of a crumbling leather-bound tome. The title, *On the Nature of Echoes*, was stamped in fading gold leaf.
"It's not about volume," Kaelen's voice was a low murmur beside her, a stark contrast to his earlier, booming commands. He pulled a heavy volume from a higher shelf, the movement fluid and practiced. "It's about resonance. You were trying to shout when you should have been trying to whisper."
Lyra flinched, the memory of the shattered market stall and the terrified faces of the crowd flashing behind her eyes. "I didn't try to do anything. It just… happened. It felt like a scream I didn't know I had inside me."
"That's how it starts for most of us." He blew a layer of dust off the book's cover, sending motes dancing in the slanted beams of afternoon light. "An emotional spike—fear, anger, joy—punctures the barrier between our world and the Nexus. For Resonants like you, the connection is more like a gaping wound than a carefully drilled well. You feel everything more intensely, which makes you powerful, and incredibly dangerous."
"Resonant," Lyra repeated the word. It felt foreign on her tongue, yet it settled into a space inside her that had felt hollow since she'd woken up in this world. A label for the chaos churning within her.
"It's a natural affinity, not a learned skill," Kaelen explained, his gaze scanning the cramped aisles of books as if they were old friends. "Adepts, like most of the mages in this city, study for years to hear the Nexus's song. You… you were born with it already screaming in your ears. You just didn't know how to listen until now."
He led her to a small, isolated alcove dominated by a large, obsidian-black disc set into the floor. It was devoid of any carving or inscription, a void of pure darkness. "This is a Focusing Tableau. It will help you find your frequency without bringing the ceiling down on our heads. Place your hands on it."
Lyra hesitated, her palms sweating. The last time she'd consciously reached for that power, the results had been catastrophic. "What if I break it?"
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Kaelen's lips. "You won't. It's been here since the founding of the city. It's absorbed far worse than the tantrum of a fledgling Resonant." The jab was deliberate, and it worked. A spark of indignation cut through her fear.
She knelt, pressing her palms against the cool, smooth surface. Nothing happened. She closed her eyes, trying to force the feeling, to summon the electric panic that had coursed through her in the plaza.
"Stop trying," Kaelen's voice cut through her frustration. "You're grasping. You need to *listen*. The Nexus isn't a tool you command; it's a ocean you learn to swim in. Find the current that feels like you."
Lyra took a shuddering breath, forcing her shoulders to relax. She let the fear of her unknown past, the anxiety of her impossible present, and the faint, lingering hope that had kept her moving, all wash over her. She stopped fighting the noise in her head and just… listened.
At first, there was only the silence of the old library and the frantic beat of her own heart. Then, a hum. Faint, like a distant power line. It grew, not in volume, but in complexity. It was a symphony of whispers, a cacophony of forgotten thoughts and emotions, the echoes of a million lives from a million worlds. It was overwhelming, terrifying, and the most beautiful thing she had ever heard.
Her breath hitched. Among the chaos, a single thread of sound called to her. It was a melancholic, lonely note, a feeling of being utterly lost and out of place. It resonated with the hollowness in her own chest, a perfect, painful harmony. Without thinking, she reached for it.
The black disc beneath her palms flared to life. Not with a violent explosion, but with a soft, silver light. It swirled like liquid mercury, and from its center, a form began to rise. It was hazy, translucent, a figure woven from light and memory.
It was her.
But not the her of now, with borrowed clothes and calloused hands from a week of menial labor. This was the her from before. She wore strange, sleek clothes of a fabric Lyra had never seen in this world. She was holding a small, flat rectangle of glass and metal, her thumbs moving rapidly across its surface, a faint, distracted smile on her face. In the background of the echo, other figures blurred past, and towering structures of glass and steel gleamed under an unfamiliar sun.
Lyra's heart hammered against her ribs. A name surfaced from the depths of her stolen memories, not her chosen name, but her real one. *Elara*. The echo was a window, a reflection of a moment of trivial happiness from a life ripped away.
"By the Nexus…" Kaelen breathed, his usual gruffness replaced by awe. "A self-echo. A memory made manifest. I've never seen one so clear outside of a recorded crystal."
The echo-Elara looked up from her device, her eyes—Lyra's eyes—scanning something in the distance. Her smile widened, a genuine, unguarded expression of anticipation. She was waiting for someone. The image was so vivid, so *real*, that Lyra could almost feel the warmth of that other sun on her skin.
Then, the echo flickered. The smile vanished, replaced by a dawning confusion. The bustling cityscape behind her wavered, distorted as if seen through warped glass. A low rumble, felt more than heard, vibrated through the Tableau. The echo-Elara's head snapped around, her eyes widening in terror at something Lyra could not see. Her mouth opened in a silent scream.
The image shattered into a thousand shards of light, which then coalesced into a new, horrifying form. It was a vortex of darkness, a tear in the fabric of the echo itself. From its center, a single, baleful eye snapped open. It was not a physical eye, but a construct of pure malice and hunger, an entity made from the negative space of stolen memories. It fixed its gaze on Lyra, and a voice that was not a voice echoed directly in her mind, cold and scraping.
*Found you.*
The connection shattered. The silver light of the Tableau died instantly, plunging the alcove back into dimness. Lyra recoiled, scrambling backward until her back hit a bookshelf, sending a cascade of older texts tumbling to the floor. She was gasping, her whole body shaking.