“You’re a ghost,” Rafian said, not looking up from his ledger.

The Council of Weavers did not celebrate this discovery. They feared it. For if Rafian was right, then every innocent mistake, every whispered lie, every unkind silence was a pebble that could start an avalanche across the lives of strangers. Guilt, in Rafian’s model, was not a feeling. It was a force .

He paused. The future echo came back—his own voice, one second early, finishing his sentence: “…and I forgive you.”

The locals—the few who know of him—call him the Abacus of Regret . Children dare each other to shout his name into the chasm, believing that if he hears you, he will write your future sorrows into his book.