Chapter 220
Room Seventy Seven
The door marked Seventy-Seven stood in the archive’s oldest corridor, where the walls had stopped pretending to be walls. Claire could see the dark lake through the plaster, a thin line of silver moving behind the shelves.
“What is this room for?” Aster asked.
Claire held the brass key. “The question we keep avoiding.”
Inside, there were no files, no chairs, no cameras. Only a small table and two cups of coffee, one warm and one empty. On the table lay a blank witness form.
Name. Date. Statement. Signature.
Claire picked up the pen. For years, every room had asked her to prove what happened. This room asked what she intended to do afterward.
She wrote one sentence: I was there, but I am not only what happened there.
The walls shuddered. Somewhere behind them, a lock turned.
When Claire looked up, the second cup was no longer empty.
Someone had taken the first sip.