The world smelled like burnt sugar and old stones.

  Lyria liked that. It meant they were close.

  She skipped ahead, her bare feet whispering over the cracked cobblestones, her toes curling against the cold. The others trudged behind her—Sorin with his golden scars flickering like sleepy fireflies, Aeris sharp-eyed and suspicious, Kael humming a broken tune under his breath, and Riven, silent as a shadow.

  But Lyria wasn’t paying attention to them. She was listening to the other voices.

  The ones only she could hear.

  "Left at the broken well," murmured the ghost of a girl who had drowned there a hundred years ago.

  "Mind the step—it’s slippery with memory," warned a soldier whose bones had long since turned to dust.

  Lyria giggled and hopped over the uneven stone, just in time to avoid tripping on nothing at all.

  "Kid," Aeris snapped, "if you know where we’re going, share."

  Lyria turned, blinking. "I am sharing. The well’s right there." She pointed.

  Aeris stared at the empty space between two crumbling buildings. "There’s no well."

  Lyria tilted her head. "Not now. But it remembers being one."

  Kael groaned. "Great. We’re following a child who takes directions from air."

  Sorin rubbed his temples. "Lyria, what exactly are we looking for?"

  She beamed. "The Echo Shrine! It’s where the past gets… sticky."

  Riven’s hand twitched toward his sword. "Sticky how?"

  Lyria twirled, her tattered dress fluttering. "Like honey! Or bad dreams. Things that won’t wash off."

  Aeris muttered something unkind under her breath, but Sorin just sighed and gestured for Lyria to lead on.

  She did, humming as she went.

  The alley narrowed, then opened into a hidden courtyard—a place the city had forgotten. Vines choked the walls, their leaves trembling as if whispering secrets. At the center stood a small, domed shrine, its surface etched with faded symbols that almost looked like faces.

  Lyria clapped her hands. "Here!"

  Kael squinted. "This looks like the kind of place that eats people."

  "It does," Lyria said cheerfully. "But only the loud ones."

  Sorin stepped forward, his scars pulsing faintly. "How do we…?"

  Lyria didn’t answer. She pressed her palm against the shrine’s door—and it sighed open.

  Inside, the air was thick, heavy, like walking through wet cloth. The walls shimmered, not with light, but with moments—fragments of time, replaying over and over. A woman laughing. A knife falling. A child crying.

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  Lyria breathed in deep. "See? Echoes."

  Aeris stiffened. "This is forbidden magic."

  Riven’s voice was low. "No. This is older than magic."

  Sorin reached out, his fingers brushing a flickering image of a crowned figure—

  —and the shrine shuddered.

  The echoes twisted, swirling into a single scene:

  A throne room. The Hollow King (Sorin? Not Sorin?) kneeling before a woman with silver hair and sad eyes. She pressed a dagger into his hands.

  "When the time comes," she whispered, "remind him."

  Then—

  A sharp clang shattered the vision.

  Lyria whirled.

  A man stood in the doorway, his coat stained with alchemical burns, his expression caught between annoyance and awe.

  "Well," drawled Harlan the Alchemist, "this explains why my shop’s been vibrating like a struck bell." He eyed Sorin. "You’re trouble, aren’t you?"

  Lyria grinned. "Oh! You’re the one who makes the potions that taste like regret!"

  Harlan blinked. "...How do you know what regret tastes like?"

  Lyria’s smile didn’t waver. "I remember."

  The air went very still.

  Then—

  A shadow moved in the corner of the shrine.

  The Exiled One stepped forward.

  And Lyria’s breath caught, because oh—

  She knew that voice.

  "Come, little seer," the Exiled One murmured. "It’s time you stopped remembering."

  Lyria didn’t scream as the darkness swallowed her.

  She just waved at Sorin, her fingers curling like a secret.

  "When the time comes," she thought, "remind him."

  Then the world went quiet.

  The darkness tasted like ink and old snow.

  Lyria didn’t struggle as the Exiled One carried her through the winding streets. She knew better. Some paths only led one way, and fighting just made the journey bumpier. Instead, she watched the world blur past—the way the lanterns bent their light around the Exiled One’s cloak, how the cobblestones seemed to flinch underfoot.

  "You’re quieter than I expected," the Exiled One mused.

  Lyria kicked her legs absently. "I’ve done this before."

  A pause. "Have you?"

  "Mm. Six times. No, seven." She frowned. "One of them was a dream, though. Or maybe this is?"

  The Exiled One’s grip tightened—just a little. Lyria giggled.

  Then, with a lurch, they stopped.

  Before them loomed a tower that wasn’t there. Its stones were the color of a bruise, its windows shuttered tight. The air around it warbled, like heat haze over a flame.

  Lyria’s nose wrinkled. "Oh. This place."

  The Exiled One set her down. "You recognize it?"

  She nodded. "It’s where the lost things go. The ones even echoes forget."

  A door groaned open. Inside, the shadows twitched.

  Lyria squared her shoulders and marched in.

  Harlan’s shop smelled like vinegar and bad decisions.

  Sorin’s knuckles were white around the edge of the worktable. "We need to find her. Now."

  Harlan ignored him, too busy muttering over a vial of Sorin’s blood. The liquid inside swirled unnaturally, shifting from crimson to gold and back again.

  Kael drummed his fingers on a shelf of pickled... things. "So, uh. Any chance this ends with not being turned inside out by shadow monsters?"

  Aeris shot him a glare. "Helpful."

  "Just saying! The kid got yoinked by a walking nightmare, and somehow, this is the part where we trust the guy who sells ‘probably not poison’ in back-alley jars?"

  Harlan snorted. "If I wanted you dead, bard, I’d let you drink your own swill." He held the vial up to the light. "Your blood’s wrong, street-rat."

  Sorin stiffened. "What?"

  "It’s old. Older than you." Harlan tapped the glass. "This reacts like king’s blood. But the last king died centuries ago."

  A beat of silence.

  Then—

  Riven’s sword hissed from its sheath. "You’re saying he’s—"

  "I’m saying I don’t know." Harlan set the vial down. "But that girl of yours? She does."

  Aeris’s dagger found its way to Harlan’s throat. "Where. Is. She."

  Harlan didn’t flinch. "Ask the Hollow King."

  Sorin’s scars burned.

  Memory, like a pressed flower, fragile and faded:

  A garden under a dying sky. Lyria, smaller, her hands sticky with peach juice.

  A woman knelt before her—silver-haired, her eyes full of storms. She pressed a dagger into Lyria’s palms.

  "When the time comes," Liraeth whispered, "remind him."

  Lyria blinked. "Remind him of what?"

  Liraeth’s smile was a wound. "That kings break easier than promises."

  Then—

  The sky cracked.

  And the memory shattered.

  Lyria sat cross-legged on the floor, humming as the Exiled One paced.

  "You’re not afraid," they observed.

  She shrugged. "I remember what happens next."

  "Do you?"

  "Yep! You ask me questions. I don’t answer. You get grumpy. Then..." She trailed off, tilting her head. "Huh. That part’s fuzzy."

  The Exiled One went very still. "What else do you remember?"

  Lyria’s grin was all teeth. "Everything."

  And for the first time, the Exiled One hesitated.