The fourth layer was not a plaza. It was a vast, circular chamber of pale stone whose walls were lined with thousands of small, locked niches. Inside each niche a single moment glowed—complete, self-contained, and utterly still. In the exact center of the chamber floated a complex mechanism of interlocking crystal rings and dark metal, turning with glacial, silent precision. The engine of separation. Every rotation cut another thin slice of living time away from the memories it processed and filed the result into a niche.
The blank keeper stood beside the engine. The Archivist stood on the opposite side. Between them the air hummed with the strain of a seal that had been failing for longer than any of the party had been alive.
“This is the core,” the Archivist said. “The builders believe
