[POV: Ezekiel]
He stepped through the arch and immediately felt it—
Pressure.
Not on the skin.
Not on the bones.
But on syntax.
His thoughts slowed.
Not because of fear, but because each one needed to choose its shape before continuing.
Like every sentence he formed in his mind had to ask permission.
The Reflection Thread didn't echo.
It refused to.
Each step made his body feel less certain of its own outline.
Even Ilhera's presence beside him felt nonlocal—as if she walked beside him in time, not space.
---
> "Don't talk," she mouthed, not spoke.
> "Why?"
> "Because this place remembers different."
---
Ezekiel nodded once, slowly.
His breath fogged—but in shapes, not clouds.
Glyphs.
He recognized none of them, but the Law inside his chest stirred.
Azrael didn't whisper.
It simply observed.
---
They moved carefully through a narrowing corridor.
The walls were made of smoked reflection—glass that showed not what was behind, but what might be ahead, distorted by decisions not yet made.
Ezekiel saw:
A version of himself dressed in silver robes, expressionless.
Another with blood on his hands, dragging a blade behind him.
A third with no mouth, no eyes, just a bright crack of light beneath the skin.
None of them reacted.
But all of them breathed.
---
Ilhera reached into her coat and pulled a strip of black mirror-cloth.
She wrapped it around her throat—tight.
Ezekiel frowned.
She wrote on her wrist:
> "Silence oath. Only way through the Fold."
He didn't need to do the same.
Azrael was already holding his tongue.
Not out of suppression.
Out of precision.
---
They reached a threshold in the corridor.
A fracture in the floor.
A voice rang out ahead.
Not loud.
Not clear.
But devastating in intent.
> "Stop."
Ilhera flinched.
So did Ezekiel.
His foot froze above the fracture.
The voice hadn't come from the corridor.
It had come from a hidden mouth behind a veil of Law.
---
[POV: Black Inquiry Operative – Breach Flank]
One of the agents stood with his hand outstretched.
His glyph-glove shimmered.
He had just released a bound command word—one used only in emergencies.
> "Stop."
It wasn't a suggestion.
It was a defined action order, embedded in Conceptal language.
He expected it to sever movement.
Expected the Vessel to collapse.
Instead—
Nothing.
---
[POV: Ezekiel]
He heard the word.
Felt it reach for him.
But Azrael surged against it—not with defiance.
With dismissal.
The Concept inside him responded with a counter-definition Ezekiel didn't even choose.
A whisper only he heard:
> "Invalid authority."
The command dissolved before it could root.
And Ezekiel lowered his foot.
Stepped across the fracture.
---
The corridor behind them folded inward, like paper burning without heat.
Ilhera grabbed his wrist.
Pulled him through.
They ran now—not toward escape, but toward the Gate of Forgotten Syntax ahead.
The final threshold out of the palace's memory.
---
Behind them, the operatives of the Black Inquiry stared into nothing.
And the corridor said back to them:
> "You cannot speak here."
Their command word began to bleed from their skin like ink burned too long.