The ceiling pressed lower.
Not stone, not sky. Blank. A whiteness with hunger, thick as paste.
It swallowed sound first—the edges of voices clipped neat, words shaved shorter than mouths had spoken them. Then color drained, the villagers’ clothes fading toward uniform gray, the oak-ghost paling into a faint watermark.
The Reviser’s voice murmured smooth as chalk:
—Correction: Removal of Unauthorized Lexicon.
Lena staggered. Her throat ached as if an eraser rubbed at her syllables. Her name pulsed once inside her chest, and for a blink she heard silence where it should have been.
“No,” Dominic said, voice low, as if speaking in a courtroom where every word mattered. His blade pressed flat against the ceiling. “Corrections require consent. Show me the clause that grants you ours.”
The
