Velan opened his eyes at dusk.
They were a strange, stormy gray—not unlike Lyra's, but older, haunted by centuries. His gaze didn't dart or panic; it settled. He looked at Lyra and Elias as if he already knew them.
He whispered a name.
Not Lyra's. Not Elira's.
"Amaris."
Neither of them moved.
Elias found his voice first. "What did you say?"
Velan blinked slowly. "She was the first. The mother of the root. The name before the bloodlines."
Lyra stepped forward. "What is this place to you?"
Velan's voice sounded like soil and breath. "Not mine. Never mine. I was chosen. Then buried."
---
He sat up with effort, limbs creaking like old wood. The moss that clung to him slid off in sheets, dissolving on the stone floor. His body was thin, almost translucent in the candlelight, as if he hadn't been made to walk in this world anymore.
"You've awakened the Hollow," he said, turning to Lyra. "It will want a name."
"It already has one," she said quietly.
He shook his head. "No. It borrowed hers. You gave it breath. But not identity."
Elias shifted, uneasy. "What happens if we name it?"
Velan's smile was the kind that came before a storm. "Then it will begin."
---
They returned him to the upper house with effort. The walls of the Hollow groaned around them, not with anger but with anticipation. Lyra could feel it in her chest—the thrum of a place that had been dormant too long.
Back in the library, Velan stood by the mirror.
"It remembers me," he said.
"What do you see?" Lyra asked.
"My failure. And yours."
She flinched.
He turned to her. "You carry her. Elira. Still. Even if she's gone."
"I know."
"That means you also carry her doubts."
---
That night, the Hollow whispered again.
But this time, it used Lyra's voice.
From the shadows behind the fireplace.
From beneath the staircase.
From the mirror in her room.
Each echo was a question, soft and breathless: What will you name me?
And Lyra, sleepless and still, whispered back: "Not yet."