Fourth bell had cooled into fifth; the Mirror Garden wore longer shadows like commas between its basins. Sheets of water stood in bronze ribs, lilies held coins of sky, and every path asked politely for your true name before it would let your footsteps count.
Aurelia kept that exact inch at my back—the one that makes worlds behave. Lady Thalia of Glassmere walked on my left, her pace level with mine because she had learned to ask with steps.
I set the house again.
Two hair-thin Sunlines ringed the nearest basin; a low Peal went through water, not air. "Ceremonial Candor—garden keyed," I breathed. "Speak truly; ask before assuming; no loud Novas where lilies listen." The water answered in the bones, not the ears.
┌──────────── PRE-ENGAGEMENT ───────────┐
│ Eirion — HP: 13,180 / 13,180 MP: 260 / 21,100 │
│ Aegis Hymn: 33% Oathbond: Linked (94%) │
│ Buffs: Court Key, Quiet Law, Candor (garden) │
│ Aurelia — HP: 12,460 / 12,460 │
│ Ally: Lady Thalia (Glassmere chime-fork) │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────┘
We had nearly reached the east arbor when a seam in the paving stones darkened like wet ink. The drainage rill coughed up letters that should have stayed dead. They gathered on the back of the water-sheet until a figure emerged—not a person, but a remnant given function.
SYSTEM: Archivist of Remnants (Dark/Legal Construct)
Traits: Mirror Redact (overlay names), Pronoun Levy (taxes on-hit heals into debt), Paper Hooks (bind reflections), Citation Loop (panic recursion)
Terrain: Glass/Water. Constraint: Indoors/palace—edge-casts only; route tone via bronze/glass/water; avoid loud Novas.
Its voice arrived as marginalia scrawled across the water: Daughter. Bride. Assumed consent. The lilies shivered.
Aurelia slid to hinge, shield a quiet law. "Rim holds lane," she said. "No bursts."
"Write, don't break," I answered—and wrote.
"Namespring Seal—on me, on Aurelia, on Thalia." Thin Counter-Signature circles bloomed at our feet, each keyed with Bond Mirror to voice-only: Parties named as they name themselves; assent present, not inherited; no consent ventriloquized through reflection. The remnant's first Mirror Redact hit three circles and rewrote itself to unknown petitioner.
The Archivist flowed wide, printing Paper Hooks down the garden paths toward the basins. Pronoun Levy ticked at the edges of my on-hit heals like greedy teeth.
"Tax this," Aurelia said flatly. She caught a hook with Bellguard—rim kiss, elbow turn, hip math—Aegis +12% banked warm. I leaned Lysithea to the bronze rib and tapped a hush Peal into it, building the chorus the room actually needed.
"Concord Peal—water route. No loud, only correct." The bronze carried a clause into the sheet: Names first; contracts after; aid is alms. I wrote Minute Replevin inside the tone so any Levy would fail and heal would remain charity instead of debt.
New Technique (Built): True-Name Chorus — Concord Peal (bronze/water) + Namespring Seal + Noon Handshake across adjacent basins.
Effect: Garden reflections can display only declared names; Pronoun Levy fails within chorus; Oathbond +5% while inside linked basins; first hostile Redact at any linked basin forgets itself.
Four basins answered one another—soft pings like a patient clock. Our Oathbond rose on the tide.
The Archivist recoiled, then shattered its ink into Citation Loops—sleet of "assumed assumed assumed" that stung throat and eye. "Screen," Aurelia clipped.
"Suture Screen—glossary weave." Lumen Thread unrolled wide and fine between bronze ribs; Annotation printed a little glossary every handspan: he/him, she/her, they/them… The sleet struck our Glossary Net and turned into questions that slid off into the grass to compost.
New Technique (Built): Glossary Net — Suture Screen + Annotation + Peal (glass); converts hostile label-sleet into harmless queries; cancels first Shiver nearby; reinforces Candor lane.
Thalia read the air quickly. "The right-hand sheet is humming wrong," she said, and lifted her Glassmere chime-fork. "With your leave?"
"With," Aurelia said, the only permission Thalia actually needed.
Thalia tapped the fork to the bronze rib and sent a wax-quenched overtone along my chorus, cooling the edge where ink wanted heat. The water's tremor steadied; the sheet held.
The Archivist lunged close—this was still combat, ink or no. Hooks climbed for my ankles from my shadow. I cut a tight Umbra Divorce around our boots—My shadow is not my consent—and the first two binds completed to me and died on the cut.
"Finish the clause," Aurelia said, moving with me, not after me. Her sheathed Mandate pressed impropriety heavy; the Archivist's next grab forgot itself and hesitated.
"Together," I breathed.
I split a Prism Mercy off the nearest lily—three silent sub-lines crossing the Archivist's hinge, eye, heart. Aurelia set her Sunlit Verdict along the clean diagonal that does not require blood, only ending. Our edges met without so much as a tremor in the glass. The ink blew apart into harmless faint and ran back down the rill like a bad habit remembering it could stop.
I poured White Mercy—partial into the basins as Reservoir, not burst; papercuts healed, nerves cooled, lilies smoothed their shiver back into listening.
Silence—the good kind—returned.
┌──────────── POST-ENGAGEMENT ───────────┐
│ Threat: Archivist of Remnants — dispersed │
│ Hazards neutralized: Mirror Redact, Levy, Hooks│
│ Garden integrity: Glass/Water 100% │
│ HP — Eirion: 13,180 / 13,180 │
│ HP — Aurelia: 12,460 / 12,460 │
│ MP: 180 / 21,100 │
│ Aegis Hymn: 25% residual │
│ Oathbond Harmony (peak): 97% │
│ New: True-Name Chorus; Glossary Net (learned) │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────┘
We did the small ends right. Thread coaxed a hairline complaint out of a rib's weld; I left a Sunline bow on the arbor's lintel with what the day had earned: Names first; contracts after. No consent by proxy. Aid is alms.
Thalia stood with her hands open, waterlight turning her chime-fork gentle. "I spent years speaking to paper," she said, voice steadying. "Today it tried to speak through me. Thank you for not letting it."
"You thanked with work," Aurelia said, which in her liturgy is garlands.
Thalia's mouth tilted. "Then let's keep working. Glassmere will send the wax-quenching notes tomorrow."
A hush at the edge of the garden that only we notice—a shift in cedar and light. Our mother's absence had a familiar shape; a faint breeze abandoned two lemon–thyme pastilles on the bench like contraband stars. Nobody saw; the lilies pretended to be entirely innocent.
The System placed a tidy coin on the ledger that tracks manners as much as monsters.
┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│ COURT EVENT — MIRROR GARDEN II │
├───────────────────────────────────┤
│ Archivist dispersed; chorus keyed │
│ Consent norms reinforced │
│ Rewards: │
│ ▸ EXP +22,500 │
│ ▸ Court Scrip +110 │
│ ▸ Relic: Glassmere Chime-Fork (wax-quenched) │
│ ▸ Mastery: Peal Weave (water/glass) +1 │
└───────────────────────────────────┘
We walked once more around the basin so the garden could memorize our names at a slow pace. The water practiced reflecting what we said we were; the bronze practiced not raising its voice to be obeyed.
On the way out, I nudged Aurelia's elbow. "Still guarding my six?" I asked, because light words keep law supple.
"In a place where ink still thinks it can tell water who it is?" she said, dry as good bread. "Especially."
Thalia matched our steps—not behind, not ahead—asking with the rhythm. The lilies rehearsed being morning, and the Mirror Garden kept the clause we'd written into its ribs: Names first. Houses before heroics. Bells as law, not weapons.