Juno didn't move.
The man standing before her wasn't hostile—at least not yet. His presence was composed, but the air around him felt thick with static, like a memory trying to return and getting stuck halfway.
His eyes glowed gold, like the dying embers of a star.
Milo raised a hand subtly toward his weapon.
Idris didn't bother hiding his grip on his blade.
But Juno… she stepped forward.
"Who are you?"
The man gave a faint, tired smile. "That's the wrong question." He tilted his head. "The real question is: who were you—to us?"
He gestured to the sigil-covered walls. "You carved the first vault. You stole time from the Council. You rewrote what was supposed to be a singular fate, and gave it options."
Juno blinked. "I did?"
He nodded. "You called us the Echo Children. We were born in the fractures you made—people who weren't meant to exist, but did anyway. The Council labeled us anomalies. Glitches. You called us family."
Milo looked around. "Then where are they? Your Echo Children?"
The man's jaw tightened. "Most of them are gone. Harvested. Hunted. One by one."
His voice softened.
> "But some still live. Waiting. Wandering. Dreaming."
Juno's mind raced. Her body felt like it belonged to someone else—someone more important, more broken, more dangerous. The echoes of Vault Ten still whispered in her blood.
"I didn't come here to lead anyone," she said quietly. "I just wanted to understand why everything feels like a dream I never woke up from."
The man's smile faded. "You will. But understanding comes at a price."
From behind him, another door opened—revealing a room filled with fractured glass screens, each showing memories that weren't hers… but somehow were.
Different versions of Juno.
One kneeling over a friend's dying body.
One detonating a Vault.
One… walking away from Seth.
Seth stepped forward now, his voice low. "Don't look at them too long. The past is a drug."
The man—leader of the Echo Children—turned to Juno.
"There's one vault left," he said. "The original. The Council buried it beneath every timeline. Erased it so thoroughly that even time forgot it."
Juno's pulse quickened. "Vault One."
He nodded. "The First Sin. The First Rewrite."
"And I'm the key," she whispered.
The gold-eyed man's face turned solemn.
"You always were."