A pause. “Nobody knows,” Czernin said. “He sent the files from a post office box in a town that burned down in 1944. The advance was cashed in pre-war złoty.”

The first chapter was fine. Muzcina’s voice was low, a little gravelly—like footsteps on wet gravel. Then came chapter two. The protagonist entered a cellar. Muzcina’s tone dropped. David felt his own throat tighten. By chapter three, the voice had changed. It wasn’t just acting. Muzcina was leaning into the words, stretching vowels until they seemed to hold something else—a second meaning, a second speaker just behind his tongue.

He played it. Not from the beginning—from the middle. The voice was no longer Jerzy Muzcina’s. It was David’s. His own vocal cords, his own breath, recorded months ago during a calibration test he’d forgotten. But the words were not his. The words were a confession. Something about a girl in a green coat. Something about a bridge. Something David had never done.