Davan walked into the archive at eighteen months and stopped.
Nara was behind her — not guiding, she'd learned months ago that guiding Davan through new spaces produced resistance. She followed and observed and let the assessment proceed.
The archive.
Old shelves. The specific smell of paper and bound records and the particular Hold mustiness that Nara had come to understand as the smell of things kept correctly over a long time. The light, east-facing, which Davan already knew the quality of from every east window she'd ever sat at.
She stood at the entrance and looked.
Then she walked in.
Slowly. With the specific deliberate gait she'd developed once walking had become established — not the hesitant gait of someone still learning, the purposeful gait of someone going somewhere.
Sh
