The deepest room in the Spire wasn't listed on any map.
But Leo had walked its length a dozen times.
Each step now echoed with a different weight. Not hesitation. Not nostalgia. Something older. A rhythm that hadn't existed the last time he'd entered. The corridor stretched like a buried spine through the base of the tower—cold, narrow, never intended for ceremony or traffic. Just function. Just secrecy.
He moved like a man returning to something he'd once buried and hoped would stay buried.
The walls were dull silver—old alloy, pre-Zodiac. They absorbed light. Reflected nothing. Leo didn't mind. It suited what this hallway had always been: a scar pressed into the body of the Academy.
No cameras. No comm signals. No digital ghosts.
Just memory folded into infrastructure.
At the corridor's far end, the door waited.
No biometric scanner.
No retinal lens.
No voiceprint.
