By the third day the abandoned annealing vault had become impossible to keep secret. Word of the confrontation traveled faster than caution. People began to appear at the outer corridor in small groups—some carrying sealed spheres they no longer trusted, some carrying nothing but the raw weight of memories that had already returned and would not leave again. A few came only to look at the woman whose face carried the spiral scars.
Lira received them in the vault’s main chamber with the lens resting on the stone block beside her. She made no speeches and offered no promises. When a petitioner placed a sphere in her hands she listened through the glass and through the lattice. Some burdens the Forgetting accepted at once; the glass cleared, the petitioner’s shoulders dropped, and they left
