‘It's fine! Memory lapses happen to everyone, or so they say!’, she trumpets at full volume.

Nevenka scoops me into her arms like a rag doll and exaggeratingly strokes my hair, like a mother would to her child. All that's missing are a few cloying “there, there”s. I jerk my head back with a loud click of my tongue and shoot her a furious glare, while she wonders what on earth she’s done wrong. Unable to deal with her expression—so guileless, so disarming—I end up looking away with a sulk.

‘What? What did I say?’, she protests.

Nev plants herself in front of me, wearing a puzzled and insistent look. She clearly hasn’t grasped why I’m upset—nor that it’s a sign she should back off. And I get it, really. She’s always been like this. Still, I think I have every right to feel irritated, having to explain all this again, when it’s already so humiliating.

‘No, Nev, this kind of blank... that doesn't happen to me.’ She scratches her head.

‘You know you’re not the only one? Just yesterday, I saw an Alterer forget who they were summoning. Poof, nada, zip, complete blank. You know, it’s like when something’s on the tip of your tongue. It’s right there, but you can’t get it out. You roll your tongue around seven times trying to find it, and still—nothing. Happened to me once, too—except I realized it was actually a strawberry candy. Which was kind of a relief. Or maybe it was a mint lozenge, I don’t remember.’

I stare at her, incredulous. ‘Do you hear yourself?’ ‘Well yeah’, she says, dead serious, and I realize she took the question literally. ‘You don’t?’ ‘Forget it!’ I run a hand down my face as she makes a wounded expression.

‘My cousin Kuzma always said he hated hearing his own voice, that he never recognized it. Me, I usually hear myself. Except sometimes, for no reason, my voice just... vanishes. And then I don’t hear it at all. Sometimes for days. Usually when I’ve got a runny nose, actually. I don’t think that’s a coincidence… There’s probably a saying for that—like ‘runny nose, runaway voice,’ or something like that. Anyway, voices are fickle.’

I let out a long sigh.

‘I don’t have a cold. That’s got nothing to do with it!’ ‘Exactly! It’s like that, except not! Why are you always contradicting me? Did you check if it was a candy?’ ‘Nev!’, I hear myself snap, clearly exasperated. ‘Fen!’, she yells back.

I think she instinctively realizes she’s pushing it too far, because she starts walking again through the shadowy corridors of the sunken city. Or maybe it’s just to hear the echoes of our names bouncing off the stone. Or worse—maybe she thinks someone else is calling her farther down the hall, and she’s listening compulsively. That wouldn’t be surprising…

She clasps her hands behind her head and keeps walking.

‘Anyway, the less we know, the better, right? Isn’t that the group’s motto?’ ‘Not really. It’s more about saying it takes courage to be wise—because that means admitting you don’t know. That’s where the group’s name comes from. The way I see it, ignorance isn’t a virtue. But admitting you know nothing—that’s what leads to true bliss… and also to constant torment. Because we’re aware of our condition.’

Nev mimes a fish blowing bubbles.

‘So basically, you’re a masochist’, she says, thoughtful. ‘Still, the people who lived here might’ve been wise, but they all died anyway.’ ‘Maybe they confused wisdom with arrogance…’ ‘Or maybe someone ate their brains.’

I look at her, puzzled and slightly thrown off by the comment.

‘What do you mean?’ ‘Ignorance is having an empty head. Maybe their memories just leaked out, like a sink with a busted plug. Drip, pull the stopper, and gurgle gurgle gurgle…’ ‘I’m not sure I—’

Juju flutters overhead, chirping and flapping his wings, signaling there’s no danger nearby. I watch him disappear into the clammy darkness. All around us, black stones float in the air. Some follow defined trajectories, while others drift idly, like they’ve been abandoned to their fate. Nev seems to notice my attention on the more solitary ones.

‘That’s why I brought you here’, she suddenly admits. ‘Oh, Nev. What kind of mess are you dragging me into this time?’ ‘Well, I was looking for a place to hide your mic…’

I feel another wave of annoyance rising.

‘You stole my mic?’

She flinches.

‘Yeah, well... It was supposed to be a treasure hunt. But we’re off topic. I was just whistling along when I started hearing things.’ ‘If you start talking about your voices again…’ ‘Not my fault they won’t shut up! But no, this time it wasn’t them. It was like I was inside someone else’s dream, listening through the keyhole.’

I sigh.

‘Listen, Nev. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I know you want to understand, so I’ll try to explain one last time. But after this, we’re done, okay?’

She stops abruptly, like snapping out of a dream, clearly disoriented.

‘It’s like the words were sucked out of me’, I finally say. ‘It wasn’t just forgetting—it was like total amnesia. I had to ask Tamati to repeat them to me, to take out the notebook and go through my notes. I had to re-learn everything.’ ‘I know. But... where did it go?’ ‘Why do you assume it went somewhere?’ ‘Because.’

She walks up to a black polyhedron and lays her hand on the smooth surface.

‘Because now, it’s in here.’

I look at her, puzzled.

‘Well, maybe not this one specifically, but it’s like the mic. What you had in your head is playing hide-and-seek.’

I remain a little baffled, staring at her.

‘You mean…’ ‘That the City is a giant leech sucking out your brain through a straw, and it ends up in one of these things’, she says, completely deadpan. ‘You’ve got proof for that theory?’, I ask, horrified.

She just shrugs.

‘Seems logical to me.’

She knocks on the stone as if it were a door.

‘Nev, I don’t know what you mean by that…’ ‘Shhhh!’, she says, putting a finger to her lips and waving frantically for me to be quiet. ‘What now?’ ‘Don’t you hear it?’

I nibble my lip and fall silent, listening—opening my ears to the Wind. I frown at a faint sound, almost a lament. It sounds like a song, a chant. A kind of prayer. Nevenka presses her ear to a black stone and then smiles.

‘Maybe here?’, she murmurs, mostly to herself.

Before I can say another word, she activates her Ignescence and breathes a few scattered thoughts into the black cube. Immediately, a shimmering bubble emerges and begins to swell. When it bursts, it releases around us wisps of golden dust, coalescing into faint figures. Sketches of faces appear, then bodies, barely outlined by drifting particles. Around us, what seems like a small amphitheater takes shape.

‘Nope, not this one’, Nev says, already walking away.

I stay rooted, watching the dancing smoke. Children sit in a circle around a singer. They’re not truly there, but you can see them—like ghostly afterimages left behind. They listen to the singer with reverent attention. And even though I don’t fully understand the words she sings, I grasp the meaning behind them—carried by the thoughts they contain.

"Dance for us, honeyed girl You are the child, the budding bloom Our dawn, our miracle"

They’re praises. ‘Nope, not here either’, Nev sighs, tapping on another block of obsidian. Not far from her, a spectral mother hums a lullaby to her dozing child. Reflections and smoke from the past...

"Sing, nightingale, sing You who have a joyful heart Your heart knows laughter While mine knows only tears"

As for me, I just stand there, speechless. I listen, and I watch. I take in these songs. These words are expressions of love from the people to their City. But woven into that affection is a deep sadness—the sorrow of a lost age, of a joy that is no more.

"Watch over us, sister of sunlight You are the mother, the blossom Our zenith, our awakening"

‘Maybe here?’ Nev makes a new bubble bloom, swelling until it bursts once more. This time, it reveals washerwomen beating laundry and hanging it on invisible lines. They hum softly as they go about their work.

"On this riverbank, what are you wringing so? In the darkened wood, a plaintive voice rises On this riverbank, what are you wringing so?"

‘Ugh, still not it!’, Nevenka fumes, clenching her fists.

*"Set us free, queen of bile You are the crone, the poison The womb of endless sleep

Sleep now, cruel goddess Your throat is a prison The womb of endless sleep"*

A sudden knot tightens in my stomach as tears start to stream down my cheeks. These songs are so steeped in emotion they’re tearing mine apart. In these final verses, I hear bitterness and regret. It’s the song of the dead—the condemned, walking toward the gallows and staring at it with quiet resignation. It's their only way out, and they know it. I begin to understand that inside all these blocks reside memories—fragments sealed away from another time. They're slices of life trapped in stone, little imprisoned scenes…

‘I could get lost here’, Nevenka murmurs. ‘What are we even looking for?’, I ask, wiping my tears. ‘Your song. It’s here, somewhere. I can feel it.’ ‘How can you be sure?’ ‘Because. Because the City is in pain. She hurts. And she’s immortal, so it’s a pain that will never end. That’s why she steals memories and imagination—to lose herself, to think of something else, to dream. It’s like a drug. The only thing that soothes her. But Aether doesn’t have substance. Aether doesn’t nourish. So in the end, it’s all meaningless…’

My eyes widen. It’s rare for Nev to speak with such gravity. I open my mouth to ask how she knows all this—but I stop. Deep down, I know she’s right. It’s not knowledge. It’s something else. A feeling. An intuition.

‘That’s what you were saying, right? That sometimes it’s torture to be aware of your own condition. But in that case, forgetting becomes a refuge. Even more so if it walks hand in hand with bliss.’

I stare at her, my stomach knotted, my heart heavy. The City’s pain feels obvious now. It’s like a never-ending scream, a wrenching lament echoing endlessly through the darkness. I can hear it in the silence, behind the silence. It longs for peace—a peace forever denied...

And for true oblivion.