The corridor behind the cabinet was narrower than Fang expected.
Not in a physical sense alone, though the walls did close in sharply on either side, forcing them into a single-file descent for the first few metres. It was narrower in atmosphere too, as if the air itself had been compressed by years of being kept secret. The temperature dropped the moment the cabinet shut behind them, and the light from the archive room vanished in a clean, abrupt slice of black.
Then a narrow strip of lamps along the ceiling woke one by one, each casting a pale amber glow over stone that had been worn smooth by old traffic.
Fang listened as they moved.
No voices now except their own. No institutional hum. No distant footfalls from the main archive wing. Only the quiet scrape of shoes on stone, the occasional soft brush of cloth, and underneath it all the deeper sound, that low patient pressure he had begun to associate with the chamber network.
