Chapter 34: The Lecture on Fate, V
I didn't know where to begin.
I started with the university archives.
They were kept hidden, tucked below the old lecture halls—a quiet cellar of yellow folders, bound registries, and aging shelves sagging under the weight of decades. I didn't have clearance to go digging through them, but Johann, an old colleague now working as an assistant archivist, still owed me a favor. He let me in, on the promise that I wouldn't be long.
I wasn't sure what I was hoping to find. Maybe a mention. A surname. A date.
Instead, I found dozens.
Clara Lehmann. Clara Bauer. Clara Vogel. The deeper I dug, the more Clara entries surfaced. Some were current students, some from past years. All ordinary. All accounted for.
I moved slower after that—checking each entry by hand. Birth records. Dorm assignments. Faculty letters. One by one, I crossed them off.
And then I saw it.
Clara Weiss.
No courses. No assigned department. No birth year. The page wasn't missing—it was there, filed properly, her name centered on the header like all the rest. But everything beneath it had been... blanked.
No ink smudges. No tear marks. Just silence.