The library didn't just change; it solidified. The violent, glitching projections on the ceiling—those fractured, aching memories of Earth and our seventeen-year-old mistakes—shuddered and vanished as if wiped clean by a giant, invisible hand. In their place, the architecture hardened with a sound like grinding tectonic plates. The stone arches, which had been weeping that soft, feverish violet light, went rigid. The shifting, surreal shadows retreated into the base of the pillars, pulled back into the depths of the masonry as if the building were exhaling, bracing itself for a return to cold, clinical order.
The wisps, which had been acting like nervous, agitated fireflies, suddenly calmed. They didn't flee; they drifted toward the aisle, bobbing in a rhythmic, expectant greeting that ma
