Chapter One: Twelve Witnesses

Ink remembered a windowless archive where his mother made him delete his own birth certificate. Goldfinch remembered an illegal gambling table; Nanny remembered a blue set of pajamas; Priest remembered a funeral; Flame remembered setting the fire with her; Luna remembered a birthday party; Rust remembered taking apart a neural engine. Little Full remembered that their mother had never died. Twelve mutually exclusive childhoods. All twelve carried Gu Yan's neural watermark. “Stop.” Gu covered his eyes, but the scenes went directly into his visual cortex. Twelve kinds of rain, flame, embrace, and grief layered together. He could remember every detail: a cigarette burn in green felt, the crooked stitches on a blue sleeve, the warmth of his mother's