The figure didn't move.
It stood between the trees, half-shadowed, half-lit, as if the forest itself wrestled with revealing or concealing it. The robes were unmistakable: Henry's old academy robes, the ones he'd worn under Kui, his master. They drowned the small frame, sleeves dragging in the dirt, hem soaked with dew. But it wasn't the ill-fitting robes that froze them.
It was the face.
Round, soft, unweathered by time. A child's face. Henry's face, exactly as he'd been at twelve. The same wide eyes, the same hesitant smile, the same dimple on the left cheek that only appeared when he fought back tears.
Canya stepped forward, her voice low and steady. "What are you?"
The child tilted its head, the smile never wavering. "I'm what he left behind."
Henry's breath hitched. "That's not possible."
The child took a step. Leaves didn't crunch. Twigs didn't snap. It moved like a memory—silent, weightless, inevitable.
"You forgot me," it said. "You burned the scrolls. You left the door open."
Henry shook his head. "I didn't mean to."
"But you did," the child said, its voice soft as falling ash.
Allan lifted the easel like a weapon. "Enough riddles. What do you want?"
The child turned its gaze to him. For a fleeting moment, Allan saw something reflected in those eyes—not himself, but an older, lonelier version, sitting by a fire long since extinguished. He blinked, and the vision was gone.
"I want to go home," the child whispered. "But I can't. Not without him."
It pointed at Henry.
The ring of mushrooms at the pillar's base flared blue, casting eerie shadows across the clearing. The stone pulsed, as if breathing.
Then the child vanished.
No sound. No shimmer. One moment it stood there, the next, it was gone. The space it had occupied felt colder, emptier, as if something vital had been torn away.
Henry staggered back, face pale. "That… that was me."
Canya touched his arm. "What did it mean? About the scrolls?"
Henry didn't answer. He was staring at the pillar, eyes wide with a dawning horror. "It's not just a marker. It's a mirror. It shows what we've buried."
Allan circled the stone warily. "Then we need to break it."
"No," Henry said quickly. "We need to understand it."
He stepped forward and placed his palm flat against the stone.
The world shifted.
It wasn't a jolt or a flash. It was like falling asleep mid-sentence and waking in a different paragraph entirely. The forest vanished. The clearing, the trees, the mushrooms—all gone.
They stood in a vast library.
Shelves stretched impossibly tall, vanishing into mist. Lanterns floated in midair, casting warm golden light. Scrolls hovered, unrolling and rerolling with gentle rustling. The air smelled of ink, wax, and ancient parchment.
Canya gasped. "This is your mentor's archive."
Henry nodded slowly. "But it burned. Years ago."
A voice echoed through the stacks: "Not here."
They turned.
The child stood by a desk, now older—perhaps fifteen or sixteen. The robes fit better, though still a little loose, ink stains marking the cuffs. A quill was tucked behind one ear.
"You left me in the fire," the teen said. "But I stayed. I remembered."
Henry stepped forward, his voice trembling. "What do you want from me?"
The teen smiled. "To finish what we started."
He gestured to the shelves. "You were going to rewrite the Twelve-Form Litany. You said the old ways were flawed. You said we could make something better."
Henry's eyes filled with tears. "I was young. Arrogant."
"You were right," the teen said. "But you got scared. You burned it all. You buried me."
Canya looked between them. "Is this real?"
The teen turned to her. "As real as memory. As real as regret."
Allan stepped forward. "Why now? Why here?"
The teen's smile faded. "Because the forest remembers. It feeds on what you forget. And now it's full."
He pointed to a simple wooden door at the far end of the library, marked with Henry's sigil—a spiral within a triangle.
"That's where it ends," the teen said.
Henry stared at the door. "Or begins again."
The teen nodded. "Only one way to find out."
He turned and walked toward the door, his footsteps echoing softly on the stone floor.
Henry hesitated, then followed.
Canya and Allan exchanged a glance, then moved to follow—but the library began to fade. The shelves dissolved into mist. The lanterns winked out one by one.
Only the door remained.
And the sound of Henry's voice, whispering: "I remember now."