Kynes leads the way back into the Hall of Welcome, the ledger tucked safe and the newly awakened construct following with careful, testing steps.

Bren eases the door shut behind them, and the room settles into warm lamplight and old stone quiet.

Kynes stands with them all in the hush, the ledger resting between old wounds and new trust, while the room waits for the next story to be told.

Kynes lays two fingers on the ledger and speaks the old request into the room, not as a prayer, but as an audit of truth.

The page-light answers. Ink lifts from the binding in thin silver threads, and the Hall of Welcome fills with чуж? no, with images, names, and remembered voices, all unsoftened.

A vault of House Domini appears first, then a feast hall, then a burial chamber. Triumph, cruelty, duty, hunger, grief, all of it arrives together, impossible to excuse and impossible to ignore.

The construct stands very still as the archive shows them the good, the bad, and the ugly. Their hands lower. Their breathing changes.

Bren watches the light wash over the construct’s face, her own expression tightening with quiet sympathy. Walter does not interrupt. Veyl only nods once, as if the record finally matches the wound.