The upper quadrants were quieter than the lower levels.
No bickering echoes from Kevin and Vivianne, no rustle of pages or creak of old wood. Just the soft sound of our footsteps on marble and the steady rhythm of our breathing.
Trish’s hand was still in mine.
"Left or right?" she asked, her amber eyes scanning the bookshelves that towered on either side of us.
The diagram in the book had marked the upper quadrants with symbols I didn’t recognize, but the layout of the library itself seed to be guiding us. The left path wound between shelves that leaned inward like tired old n. The right path was wider, straighter, lined with reading nooks that glowed with warm lamplight.
"I’ll go left," I said.
"Left feels ominous."
"Exactly."
Trish reluctantly released my arm, her gaze lingering on it for a few seconds longer than necessary before she waved off and headed to her quadrant. That alone left a lump in my throat.
I knew what she was feeling...
And considering she was now in Evelina’s body, of course it would stir conflicting emotions in her. Even if she was Evelina herself, the rging of their souls still left enough room for their personalities to remain distinct.
"Beelzebub..."
The words ca out before I could stop them, a bitter promise whispered to no one in particular.
"Let’s just do this."
The left path swallowed whole.
Bookshelves leaned close on either side, their dark wood warped with age, their contents sealed behind iron grilles or locked in glass cases. Dust motes floated in the lamplight, undisturbed for what might have been centuries.
I walked slowly, my shadows trailing behind like a second skin.
The book beneath my arm pulsed once, warm against my ribs, and I pulled it out to check the diagram. The left quadrant’s symbol had begun to glow, a spiral, maybe, or a serpent eating its own tail. Hard to tell with the way the light shifted.
"You’re stalling."
The archmage’s voice ca from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating off the shelves and the ceiling and the floor beneath my feet.
"I’m walking," I said. "You said I had to complete the trial. You didn’t say I had to sprint."
A chuckle. Dry. Ancient.
"Clever boy. But cleverness won’t help you here. This quadrant tests sothing else."
"Let guess. Sacrifice?"
"...Lucky guess."
The bookshelves began to change.
Not dramatically, not violently. The wood simply... aged. Cracks spread across the surface like veins. The iron grilles rusted and crumbled. The glass cases fogged and shattered, their contents spilling onto the floor in piles of dust.
And from that dust, shapes began to rise.
Not monsters. Not guardians.
People.
Faces I recognized. Students I’d trained back in my old world. Nas I’d tried to forget.
"These aren’t real," I said.
"Aren’t they?"
The archmage’s voice was closer now, almost conversational.
"I pulled them from your mories, boy. Every detail. Every scar. Every fear they carried in their eyes when they looked at you. To think all it took for my mory reading to work was for more details about your world..."
One of the shapes stepped forward.
A young man, maybe twenty, with dark hair and a crooked smile. I rembered him. Lucas. He’d been in my first-year combat class when I was still ranked twenty. He’d asked for tips on concealed weapons, and I’d brushed him off because I’d been too focused on my own training.
He died in a covert op to assassinate so random congressman six months later.
"Nathan." His voice was exactly as I rembered. Warm. Nervous. "You could have saved ."
"I wasn’t there."
"You could have been. You chose not to be."
I closed the book, and just as quickly snapped my fingers and incinerated the illusion right in front of . The chaos back at the Shadow Society HQ was already enough; stupid illusions like this are nothing to .
Fiona and Trish...
Maybe I could find a way to separate their souls from Evelina here, let them live their own life while I live my new one with her.
"I’m not even sure if they want this... maybe they’re content being with Evelina." I snickered to myself.
"Talking to yourself? Have you gone insane, child?" The archmage’s voice echoed inside my ear.
"Probably."
The ashes of the illusion scattered across the marble floor, grey and weightless, and I stepped through them without looking back. The bookshelves on either side had stopped aging, their decay frozen mid-crumble like a photograph.
"Probably," the archmage repeated, his voice dripping with amusent. "At least you’re honest."
"I try."
The path ahead split again. Two narrow corridors, barely wide enough for a single person, their entrances frad by archways carved with scenes of death. On the left, figures falling from great heights. On the right, bodies burning in what looked like holy fire.
Charming.
"Which way, child?"
"I’m not your child."
"You’re all children to . Now choose."
I didn’t choose.
I stood at the divergence and closed my eyes, reaching out with [Dark Manipulation]. My shadows slipped down both corridors, tendrils of smoke and nothing, feeling for anything that might give an advantage.
The left corridor slled of old blood and older fear. Sothing waited at its end, sothing patient and hungry.
The right corridor slled of nothing at all, which was far worse.
"Left," I said, and stepped into the narrow passage.
The walls pressed close, close enough that my shoulders brushed against the stone on either side. The carvings didn’t stop at the archway; they continued along the walls, figures in eternal tornt, their faces frozen in screams that I could almost hear.
Almost.
"You could have saved them."
A whisper now. Not the archmage’s voice. Sothing else. Sothing that slithered through the gaps between the carvings, curling around my ankles like smoke.
"You had the power. You had the knowledge. And you did nothing."
"I did what I could."
"Did you?"
The corridor widened abruptly, spilling into a circular chamber. Smaller than the others, more intimate. A single chair sat in the center of the room, facing away from .
"Let guess, another stupid illusion?"
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