When we found Luka, he was being lectured by Nastaran in a low voice, giving her the occasional serious nod. Nastaran wound down as we approached, and her gaze zeroed in on me.

“Acacius,” she greeted. “What’s this I hear about you conscripting Luka away?”

“Don’t accuse me of taking him by force,” I said. “I simply persuaded him with an argument he couldn’t ignore.”

Nastaran snorted. “And what exactly is a better use of his time and energy than helping everyone here?”

I looked at her seriously… though the expression was lost behind the sunglasses. “Helping me.”

“Ouch! How terribly honest! I can’t imagine the camp agreeing with that.”

“Imagine how difficult life would be if we only did what others approve of,” I said solemnly, pretending not to notice Luka slowly stepping out of Nastaran’s line of sight while she focused on me. “But I’m not here to argue with you about that. You owe me one, Nastaran. Tell me about the ritual to escape a Fantasm World.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. If we could do it, someone would have done it already.”

“Let me worry about that.”

Nastaran shrugged. “Well, if you’re sure.”

The first requirement for the exit ritual, she explained, was a qualified ritual executor. In this case, since we were seeking to escape a reproduction of “history,” we needed an apostate of the Scribe. Some of the Broken Kaleidoscope staff fulfilled this condition, but they had been killed off in the initial attacks.

The second requirement was a doorway, real or symbolic. The ritualist had to write the Scribe’s invocations on the doorway, using a qualified scrivener’s tool, while reciting the correct rites. An effigy of the Scribe’s Serpent needed to be attached to the door, in whose mouth the ritual offerings would be made. Apparently, the Broken Kaleidoscope had two such doors set up, but they were — again — destroyed in the initial attacks.

The last requirement was a sacrifice. Every person who wanted to exit the Fantasm World needed to sacrifice a body part to the serpent effigy — typically by burning hair, blood, or nails in its mouth. Then and only then would the door open for them.

It was a lot harder to leave a Fantasm World than to enter it.

“Hanan is still alive. Can’t she do it?” I asked.

“She’s an apostate of the Signifier, not the Scribe.”

“How do we not have even one apostate of the Scribe between all the students here?”

I got a few weird looks from the others. “Being an apostate is a commitment not everyone can undertake,” said Nastaran diplomatically.

Hmm. I couldn’t imagine dedicating myself to becoming a Buddhist monk. Maybe it was something like that.

I dug a few more details out of Nastaran before deciding there was nothing more I could do with the information gained. The group I’d assembled seemed content to follow my lead and leave.

Nastaran walked with us to the edge of Jules’ zone.

“Don’t forget, Luka,” she said. “If we get out of this, you have to make things up to me, okay?”

She winked at him and left before any of us could respond.

Roxana turned to Luka, blinking guilelessly. “She seems to like you a lot, Luka! What kind of relationship do you have?”

Veric rolled her eyes, but quickly started side-eyeing him after his pensive silence dragged on too long.

“Acquaintances,” Luka finally decided with a nod.

Veric punched his shoulder. “You thought so long just to arrive at that conclusion?”

Roxana giggled. “Does that mean Nastaran is more attached to you than you are to her? I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for her.”

“Come on, Roxana.”

“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound so bad.” She twined her fingers with Veric’s and smiled at Luka. “It’s fine as long as Luka doesn’t make a habit of unreciprocated attachment, right?”

Veric frowned and pulled her hand away. Luka didn’t respond. He just looked at Roxana as if sizing her up.

I really wished they would save their problems for after we figured out our current crisis.

“Wow, Luka,” I drawled. “You mean I’m not the only person you’ve let down? At this rate, I won’t feel special anymore.”

That got everyone’s attention. Roxana looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

“After our last conversation, I reflected on myself seriously,” Luka said, and paused.

“And?” I prompted.

“I concluded I felt okay about disappointing you.”

“Ouch. How could you say that to me? Veric, tell him to stop trampling on my honest feelings.”

“The only thing I’m telling either of you is to knock it off,” she retorted. Annoyance suited her better than her previous tension. “Don’t we have something to do?”

And with that, we were back on track. “Correct. Roxana, how often can you use your healing spells?”

“If there’s nothing serious, I can cast them all day.”

“Excellent. Then here’s the plan. Veric, you’ll be our front liner. Since you have the strength, stamina and self healing to survive most attacks, your job is to keep the enemy’s attention and tie up their attacks and energy.” Roxana pursed her lips, but she didn’t object, so I continued. “Luka, while Veric keeps the pressure off of you, eliminate as many enemies as you can.”

Luka nodded. Veric narrowed her eyes at him and added, “But don’t cross the line, you hear?”

“I won’t.”

I was torn between ignoring their private matters and prying due to the crisis. “Will you be able to handle everything without… crossing the line?”

“Yes. As long as Veric is here, I’ll be okay.”

Veric gave him a small but genuine smile, and his gaze softened in return.

I felt a pang of jealousy at their closeness. Judging by the expression that flashed across Roxana’s face, I wasn’t the only one.

“Good. Then that brings us to you.” I turned towards Roxana. “You have what I consider the most important job of all…”

She straightened as I thought about how to say it.

“Holding my hand,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“With my current physical condition, after just a few minutes of activity, I’ll be dead weight. I don’t want to burden our heavy hitters with carrying me, so I need your healing to keep my stamina up.”

“Rest assured, I don’t need physical contact for something as simple as that. But what will you be doing, then?”

“Giving advisory opinions,” I said. “Like this one. I think we should go look for Professor Raoul now and determine what happened to him. On the way, if we encounter any members of the Order, let’s use Veric as bait and kill them.”

Veric rolled her eyes, but Roxana said, “What? No!”

I clicked my tongue. “Would you rather leave the Order alive?”

Roxana gave a rather put-upon sigh. “Don’t be obtuse, Acacius. I simply don’t think it’s right to exploit others in pursuit of our goals.”

Veric quietly scoffed at her words.

“Why not?” I said, ignoring all that. “They’re already targeting her.”

She looked at me like I was a bug. Ha ha. “Luka, as Veric’s ‘best friend,’ shouldn’t you object to this as well?”

It would have been simplest to just ask Veric, but Veric wasn’t saying anything either. She gave Luka a questioning look, at which he glanced at me and said, “Stop teasing her, Acacius.”

How did he know? “Do you think I’m joking?”

Roxana smiled at Luka gently. “It’s heartwarming that you’re willing to believe the best of others, but this doesn’t seem to be the best time to be optimistic about others’ intentions.”

Luka shook his head.

“If you listen too closely to what Acacius says, you’ll miss everything else about him.”

Then he blinked, as if taken aback by his own statement.

I was the one who should be surprised, okay? Why the hell did you say that?

Before I could come up with a response, Veric interrupted. “I think Acacius’ strategy is fine. I mean, it’s essentially what we were doing on the way here, right? It’s just that now Roxana’s the one looking after Acacius instead of me.”

Roxana widened her eyes. “He’s already been using you as bait?”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I do it with advance warning.”

“You shut up for a second,” Veric said. “Roxana, he’s been serving as our scout, since he can detect people coming before they enter my or Luka’s range. We’ve been able to ambush all incoming attackers on the way here because of that. You can trust him on this. Just… try to ignore his whole… everything.”

Hey now. What was wrong with my winning personality?

Roxana studied me. I turned to pretend I was staring back at her, too. Looking at Acacius’ face through her eyes, with its roughly brushed back hair and the sunglasses donned in the dim underground…

Yeah, I looked really insufferable.

“Don’t ask too much of her,” I said lightly. “If we don’t judge others by appearances, how else should we understand them?”

Roxana’s expression twisted before she was able to fix it. Whoa. Had I touched a nerve?

“We judge people by their actions, and their history,” she said. “In that respect, you’ve always been quite reliable — until today.”

It must have been some kind of insult, but since I wasn’t Acacius, it didn’t really mean anything to me.

“Didn’t you see the inscription outside the Fantasm World? Aren’t we all here to break the circle of history?”

Roxana brushed her bangs aside and gave me a smile so fake, it felt like I could peel it off with a touch.

“I admire the ambitions of someone who claims they will make a change. But to this day, how many people can really do as they say?”

I couldn’t help but feel amused at how well our philosophies aligned in this one instance. That didn’t reflect badly on me, did it?

“Don’t worry, Roxana,” I said. “I never make promises that I can’t keep.”

---

After I wrote the professor’s name on it, the compass guided us back into the dim and winding caverns. Veric and Roxana couldn’t see the uneven ground very well. Luka’s night vision, however, was excellent. Because Veric constantly watched where he was stepping, I could take advantage of her perspective to stick close behind him and walk in his footsteps too.

Having Roxana in the group was also super comfortable. Although my skin and bones still ached, my fatigue no longer piled up, and the jolting pain that came from movement would disappear as fast as it came.

Roxana and Veric chatted occasionally as they walked, filling each other in on various things.

“I thought Acacius was the scout,” Roxana whispered to Veric. “How does it make any sense for Luka to be in front?”

“It’s fine,” Veric replied. “You’ll see.”

I had mixed feelings about the way Veric kept speaking up for me. Of course, it was helpful if she trusted me, but trust was such a fragile and precious thing.

I really hated holding that kind of thing anymore.

I spent a few minutes thinking about how to disappoint her before I had to focus on other things. “Someone’s coming,” I muttered. “Four ahead, coming from the left.”

I pointed where their perspectives were sweeping across the tunnels they were walking in. In my companions’ eyes, it looked like I was pointing across the water flooding the cavern to the dark tunnel mouth at the other side, faintly lit by the dead butterflies’ wings washing up on the mossy rocks.

“How long out?” Luka asked.

“About a minute.”

He nodded. “Veric, same as before?”

“Roxana, take Acacius and hide in the water,” Veric said. “We’ll go ahead.”

“Are you sure?” Roxana said. “You and I are healers, not fighters.”

Veric was silent. She smoothed the collar of her robes.

“Although we strive to embody the Dragon Shrine’s role,” she said, “that is not all that we are.”

Roxana didn’t argue with her. She just watched for a moment before grabbing Veric’s wrist. A faint blue glow enveloped Veric before she let her hand fall back.

“Be careful.”

With that, Roxana grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the water, down to the rocky silt and drifting algae at the bottom of the river. I held onto Jules’ sunglasses so that they wouldn’t wash away in the current.

“Isn’t it hard to see with those on, Acacius?” she asked, voice tinted with concern. Who could say how genuine it was.

“Some things are more important than seeing clearly,” I said seriously.

I felt sorry I couldn’t see her expression, but Roxana only kept speaking in a kind tone. “Our current situation is already so difficult. Is there a need to make things more difficult for yourself? If the sunglasses don’t help you, why don’t you put them away?”

Maybe it just annoyed her that I was wearing them. I watched Veric and Luka cross the water and position themselves around the tunnel entrance.

“Why did you give Veric a blessing? With her connection to the Dragon, she doesn’t need a thing from you.”

Luka drew his sword, and a shadowy mist rose around his body, but after Veric narrowed her eyes and gestured fiercely at him, he let it die away in favor of black aura instead.

“Of course, I did it to let her know how I feel,” Roxana said. “But your glasses hide your expression as well as your vision, don’t they? So they can’t help you or anyone else to understand each other.”

Veric crouched down on the other side of the entrance, and her draconic aura emerged once again to cloak her in blue. Luka held his hand up and folded his fingers down one by one.

“Do you only take action if it helps someone?” I said. “What are you, a saint?”

Roxana’s fingers tightened momentarily, and her fingernails dug into my skin.

“With any luck, I will be soon,” she said breezily. “So that’s why I can tell you this: selfishly and willfully pursuing your own goals won’t get you everything you want.”

Her voice grew quieter, more distant.

“As long as you live alongside others, you can’t disregard their hearts.”

Was she really only talking to me?

Luka’s countdown hit zero, and Veric shot out at the group of enemies as they emerged from the tunnel entrance. She slashed the nearest victim with the glowing claws over her hands, kicked him aside, and landed in the middle of the group with a whirling tail-whip attack that scattered them like chickens before a fox.

“So then, what do you want me to change?” I said.

The members quickly regrouped and attacked Veric. She blocked their blades with her claws and backed away into the passage, feigning being pushed back. Behind them, Luka emerged like a ghost.

“Veric isn’t a disposable pawn,” said Roxana. “The rest of us aren’t, either. Don’t evaluate everyone just by their usefulness. You won’t understand anyone that way.”

It was advice that would never be heeded by the kind of person who needed it.

“Veric isn’t a pawn. In terms of power, she’s a queen; in terms of importance, a king.”

Luka’s black sword shone like a bloody fang as it pierced one person’s heart, and then another. The remaining two enemies launched cutting attacks at the same time. He leaned back to dodge their blades and flipped backwards, landing lightly just out of reach.

Veric stepped forward, draconic aura surging.

“Then shouldn’t you prioritize protecting her first?” Roxana said.

Veric caught an enemy combatant’s sword in one hand, shattering the blade under her grasp. Her other hand shot out towards the enemy’s exposed abdomen, curling into a fist. The dragon claws curved inward instead of ripping their guts out over the ground. The impact of her punch sent them flying backwards.

Right into Luka’s range.

“I’ve been curious for a while,” I said. “What exactly is your relationship with Veric?”

Unlike Veric, Luka didn’t tuck in his fangs.

Blood scattered and bloomed.

“You don’t know? We’re both Saintess candidates,” said Roxana. “So… technically, we’re competitors. But I have a greater vision than that.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So are you friends?”

“We eat together, work together, and live together. What do you think?”

You could do all of that without ever once knowing the other person’s heart.

In the time it took for Luka and Veric to kill his compatriot, the last masked figure threw out a handful of paper dolls. Veric swept her hand out, sending a blue wave rippling outward. The dolls hit the ground without transforming.

Luka’s sword flashed forward like a snake. The last enemy fell.

“Even if I let you see me more clearly,” I said, tapping Jules’ glasses, “I don’t think it would help you to understand me.”

“But even so,” said Roxana, “it might help others to feel closer to you. Shouldn’t you at least pretend?”

She really had no idea how funny it was to say that to me.

Veric dismissed her dragon aura, and the black aura disappeared from Luka’s blade. Her gaze was downcast, but after Luka said something to her, she finally managed a smile.

Then, at the edge of my senses, I felt it coming — a cold, clear “eye” that swept over everything as it looked down from above.

I swore and swam for the surface as fast as I could, dragging Roxana with me.

“Hey! We need to go!” I shouted as soon as I broke the surface, ignoring Roxana’s sputtered questions behind me. How long had it taken after rescuing Veric for that “eye” to find us again? Five minutes? Less? “Is there water up ahead?”

“Uh, yeah—” Veric started.

“Deep enough for everyone to hide in?”

“Yeah,” Veric said again, more confidently this time. “Is something—”

“That eye is coming again.”

A cold pressure rolled over us like a thunderstorm. Everyone looked up in unison, and the silver outline of a massive eye peered back down at us.

The paper dolls on the ground began to rustle.

“Roxana, close your eyes,” I said. “Hurry!”

Her perspective winked out as she obeyed. I pulled down Jules’ sunglasses to meet the gaze of that clear silver eye.

The [Last Genesis]’ crystalline core caught its gaze and spun. The kaleidoscope pattern in my eyes expanded to fill its vision, then shattered it into thousands of tiny pieces, a mosaic of color and shape with hardly any meaning at all.

The pressure around us dissipated. I dropped the sunglasses back down and pulled Roxana’s arm. “Move!”

We hurtled past the bodies, past the dolls, and down the passageway. Our feet splashed in the mud and shallow water, trampling on the stems of glowing flowers and the wings of butterflies as we went.

When the tunnel opened up on another wide cavern, Luka threw the compass to Veric. She caught it in one hand, grabbed my arm with the other, and jumped down into the water. Two splashes sounded as the other two followed. Veric glanced at the compass and swam confidently through the dark water, pulling me past obstacles I couldn’t see clearly even through her eyes. She squeezed us through a narrow series of flooded tunnels before bringing us back to the surface of the water.

I pulled myself onto the bank and made a half-hearted attempt at squeezing the water out my hair. Luka shook himself like a dog and checked his sword. Veric and Roxana, those lucky bastards, were dry as bone. Should I try being a Dragon Priestess too?

“How did you sense it coming?” Roxana asked.

Come on. “You don’t need to know,” I said in my best Acacius voice. “Just enjoy this little success for what it is.”

“Oh… Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I just thought it might help us work together better, especially if we could help compensate for any blind spots in your sensing. Wouldn’t that be best?”

It would be best to nip this line of questioning in the bud.

I pretended to deliberate for a moment, before saying, “It’s not impossible to answer, but as long as we’re discussing the nature and weaknesses of our abilities, I’d like some answers, too.”

I tilted my head towards Luka, so that even with the sunglasses on, it seemed like I was looking at him.

“No, it’s fine,” Veric said quickly. “We’ve done just fine without asking for details. There’s no need to change.”

I paused and switched tracks. “Alright. I also have questions for Roxana. Of course, I’d like to guarantee that I’ll receive truthful answers, so it’s quite fortunate that Linden recently showed me a little trick for swearing oaths…”

“An oath?” Roxana said warily. “What exactly do you want to ask?”

I smiled. “Take a guess?”

The sad thing about not lying was I couldn’t say, “I wouldn’t want to scare you away.”

Veric glanced back at Roxana’s worried expression and said, “We don’t need to go that far. Roxana, it’s fine to trust Acacius this far; his abilities have worked without problem, after all. And Acacius… I don’t think you would have invited Roxana to join if you thought she was too suspicious. I’ll vouch for her, so why don’t we leave it here?”

Veric wasn’t that good at reading people, was she? I pretended to hesitate, and Roxana bit her lip lightly. You should get rid of such an obvious tell, you know?

“I suppose that’s fine,” I finally acquiesced. “But if either of you change your mind, let’s revisit this topic again.”

Roxana didn’t ask any more questions after that. Operation success.

Now my question was whether Roxana’s obvious secrets made her more or less suspicious. The simple explanation was that swearing binding oaths wasn’t as casually done as Linden made it seem, so I’d been the weird one for suggesting it. But still…

Roxana was the first to cast doubt on my attempts at warning others. During the first attack on the students, because she’d snatched the initiative from Veric, she’d been the one to raise the first protective barrier for everyone — which fell. She’d tried to drive a wedge between Veric and Luka early on, and also tried to persuade Veric to stay in place at Jules’ camp like a sitting duck. She’d just asked about my sensing ability’s weaknesses. And Veric’s relationship with her, though fraught, was clearly not nothing.

If I was in Roxana’s shoes, it would be so easy to manipulate her.

In Roxana’s favor, she’d healed me and other students, given us useful information, and stood aside while we killed members of the Order. Her fixation on Veric seemed genuine as well, but it wasn’t like people never killed the people they loved, much less if it was mere obsession.

Of course, she could just have something completely unrelated going on… But when she’d realized it was the Order of the Black Sun here, and when she’d learned what the golden dagger was for, her reaction felt personal somehow.

I still wasn’t sure how to bait more information out of her, so it would have to wait until I’d had more time to observe. Until then, well.

I really needed her healing.

We continued our search after checking the compass. A short journey later, a cluster of new perspectives entered my sensing range.

Three masked members of the Order sat around a dim lantern in a small cave. One had a sword, one held a book filled with cards, and one had no visible weapon at all.

By the cave wall, resting in the thick moss, was a colorfully clad figure who laid deathly still. If not for the faint rise and fall of her chest, I could have mistaken her for a corpse.

She wasn’t what we were looking for, but now that she was here, I couldn’t ignore her, either.

“Hey,” I said. “Hanan is up ahead.”

Chapter 26 Back to Index