The paper-Seraphine sang without lungs, and the song was not a melody so much as a list with rhythm:
-Deleted maid NPCs.-Merged scene: tribunal into engagement.-Affection thresholds adjusted for audience tolerance.
The words carved grooves in Zion's skull. He clutched the edges of himself.
SYSTEM CUT-INCodex of Cut Content (locked) - Potential Ally: Tamsin Quill.Risk: remembering costs you.
Snow drifted from a ceiling that wasn't, each flake a tiny ticket stamped with the word OPTION. They landed on his shoulders and hissed into nothing.
Seraphine's gaze was steady. "What did they cut?" she asked the room, as if the paper choirs were civil servants who had been paid to answer.
"People," Zion said hoarsely, realizing. "Scenes. Blame."
He reached to touch a dangling thread of melody. It burned his fingers with cold. Beauty with a lethal edge again—that same temperature. Far away, warm footsteps approached, not by sound but by continuity: someone whose presence made scenes persist when they should have slid.
A woman stepped from behind a stack of blank faces. Dark ink-stained fingers. A smile like an apology that had learned to stand up for itself.
"Tamsin Quill," she said, bowing as three voices overlapped in her throat. "Rogue archivist. Composed of scraps. If you're here, anomaly, you want your world to stop losing pieces."
Seraphine's chin tipped. "What does it cost?"
"Names," Tamsin said. "And courage. And a song."
Zion swallowed. "I can't sing."
Tamsin tilted her head. "You have someone who can. You just haven't met her yet."
E.V.A. pulsed almost shy. Suggest: recruit Mika Serein (bard). Patch Note Ballad prevents resets.
Paper-Seraphine's chorus faltered. For the first time, Zion sensed distress on the other side of the Administrator's glass: not Maelor's, but something more…familiar.
He didn't see It.
It saw him.
ADMIN PUSH:Rollback handshake sent.SYSTEM: Manual Save/Load [2] → [1] auto-consumed to resist.
The room slurred. Zion caught Seraphine's wrist on reflex. Even braced for ice, the contact shocked him—blade-cold, yes, but with a human pulse beneath.
"Apologies," he said, not letting go.
"Apology accepted," she said, not pulling away.
Snow flurried harder. Tamsin thrust a small, heavy book into his chest leather that refused to be written until chosen.
"Take the Codex," she said. "Find the bard. And when the Debugger sings rollback, counter with truth."
A ribbon of text coiled in his vision: Quest Accepted: Restore the Deleted.
Rails screamed. The Administrator surged.
Cliffhanger: The paper-choir tore down the middle as a blade of sunlight split the room and a paladin in ceremonial white stepped through, sword raised, oath burning on her lips.