Serenity sat in the waiting room with her hands folded in her lap, her smile warm and patient. The official would see her soon. He had something she needed desperately — a signature on paper that would prove she owned herself, at least in this court's eyes. But he wanted something in return. Something she couldn't undo once it was done. She had waited beneath the giant mushroom trees outside until the building opened, their soft glow painting her face in colors she didn't feel. Now the clerk called her name. The official stood in the doorway, holding the paper she'd traveled three weeks to find. He smiled back at her, a mirror she'd learned to hold steady. She rose. She walked forward. She signed his contract without reading it twice, because she already knew what it said. When he pressed the freedom document into her hands, still warm from the seal, she felt nothing but the weight of what she'd traded. But the paper was real, and it was hers, and that was one court down. The official gestured her into his study. Dark wood twisted up the walls like frozen vines. Books lined the shelves in languages she didn't recognize. He pointed to a small table in the corner where a glass jar sat, empty and waiting. The favor was simple. She would place a memory inside it. Not just any memory — the one of her mother's voice saying her name. Once she gave it, she would never hear it again, not even in her own mind. Serenity held the weathered document in one hand and looked at the jar. She thought about the other courts, the other papers she still needed. This was the price for proof. She stepped forward, touched her fingers to her temple, and pulled the memory free. It came out like spider silk, golden and thin. She placed it in the jar. The official sealed it and nodded. She left the study with her freedom paper tucked against her chest and a silence in her head where her mother's voice used to be.