Kynes steps through the slick archway and into a drowned archive. Cold water beads on stone shelves, and ink-dark scrolls drift in the air like slow fish. The ceiling groans overhead, muffled by the sea.

The blue-shawled girl waits at the room's center, her reflection broken in the black water below. Around her, loose pages turn in lazy spirals, brushing past carved tablets and rusted chain weights.

A distant shiver rolls through the flooded stacks. One scroll uncoils by itself, its ink blooming in the water-stung light near Kynes's staff.

Kynes gives a short reply and moves after her, boots whispering through the floodwater. The girl turns and glides between the shelves, her shawl trailing cold blue over the black surface.

The archive answers their motion. One shelf-length of scrolls stirs overhead, then settles, as if the room is watching him choose.

She leads him past a half-submerged tablet stand. Water ripples outward from her steps, but the ink drifting near her keeps its shape, circling her like obedient fish.

Kynes follows into the next aisle, where the shelves lean inward and the ceiling drops lower. The path ahead narrows into a darker corridor of stone and water.

Kynes lets the word hang there, flat and dry, as if the archive were only another damp corridor to cross.

She slows just enough to glance back, studying him with cool, measuring eyes while the scrolls whisper above the flooded shelves.

Kynes keeps pace at the same unhurried distance, his boots sending small ripples through the black water without breaking stride.

The nearest shelf gives a soft, answering creak, and a strip of wet parchment loosens, then settles back without falling.

Kynes pauses, his gaze sweeping the dark, flooded aisles behind him, but the water remains undisturbed and the shadows empty. He senses only the cold, stagnant weight of the archive, confirming that Bren, Walter, and Mara are nowhere to be found in this submerged tomb.

Kynes lets the ring carry his thought, calm and precise, across the wet hush of the archive.

A faint pulse answers through the bond, warm against the archive’s cold pressure, like a hand briefly closing around his pulse.

The ring settles, the message sent cleanly, without strain or echo.

Kynes draws Soul-Cutter in one smooth motion, and the blade drinks the room’s dim violet at once.

He tips the sword toward the waterlogged floor, silent permission made plain. The air around the edge tightens, then drains inward.

The shelves shiver. A thin ribbon of dark mist lifts from the flooded aisle and threads into the blade, leaving the water clearer by a shade.

A damp pulse answers from deeper in the archive. One scroll cord twitches loose, and a sealed tablet half-hidden in the shelf line turns just enough to show fresh silver script.

His smirk hangs in the damp air as the violet glow ripples over the flooded floor. The loosened scroll cord beside the tablet twitches once, as if listening.

She steps closer to the tablet, calm and precise, and rests two fingers near the silver script without touching it. The letters brighten in reply, like a pulse answering a pulse.

At her words, the submerged tablet gives a soft metallic click. Its edge settles a finger-width farther, and a thin seam of new script appears beneath the waterline, waiting for the right claim.

The blade at Kynes's side answers with a low, submerged hum. Violet light threads through the steel, then steadies, as if something inside it turns its face toward him.

Sella stills at the answer, her hand lifting from the tablet a breath before contact. The fresh silver line beneath the water brightens, then settles, as though it has been waiting to hear that voice.

The loosened scroll cord drifts free and uncoils across the flood in a lazy spiral. Beneath the tablet, the new script sharpens into a readable line, clear enough for Kynes to claim next if he chooses.