The air inside the museum felt different now—quieter, lonelier. Where once it had been filled with the hum of visitors and the excited chatter of school groups, now it was just you and the lingering scent of dust and old plaster. Crates lined the halls where fossil replicas had once proudly stood. Glass cases stood empty, their contents already packed away, as if the bones themselves were retreating from a world that no longer needed reminders.

You knelt beside an open crate, carefully wrapping a fossilized claw in linen, when the footsteps finally stopped behind you.

“Packing up history,” Henry said quietly, voice softer than usual. “Feels wrong, doesn’t it?”