The evening air in the upper levels of Vulpine’s HQ was filtered and cooled to perfection, a sharp contrast to the humid, salt-heavy breeze of Fangreach’s streets. Before retiring for the night, Aiven and Virelle had taken a slow stroll through the accessible communal areas of the Vulpine building.

  Aiven walked with his right hand tucked into his pocket, his left shoulder feeling strangely light and vulnerable without the weight of the Armvil Mark 3. He couldn't help but gawk at the sights—floating botanical gardens, holographic news-feeds detailing trade routes across Aerilis, and automatic cleaning golems that hummed as they polished the marble. Fangreach had always been just outside his delivery route back in Lowhaven, a place of rumors and expensive imports. Seeing it from the inside felt like stepping into a future he wasn't supposed to be part of.

  "Master, do stop staring at the ceiling," Virelle remarked, her silver hair shimmering under the ambient mana-lights. "You look like a hatchling that has just discovered the concept of the sky. It is quite unbecoming for a man of your... well, my Master."

  They passed a small kiosk where a Rabbit beastfolk employee was frantically sorting through a stack of folders. The boy was dressed in a miniature version of the Vulpine suit, but his long white ears were twitching in a high-speed blur, and his nose was working double-time as he nibbled on what looked like a high-protein carrot stick.

  Virelle stopped, watching him with a look of profound, aristocratic curiosity. "Tell me, Master... is it a requirement for Vulpine staff to be perpetually vibrating? Or is he perhaps attempting to communicate through the medium of facial spasms? If I were to poke him, do you think he would hit the ceiling?"

  "Virelle, leave him alone," Aiven whispered, ushering her away. "He's just busy."

  As they walked on, Aiven’s mind drifted back to Lulu at the Prancing Paw. He wondered if she had managed to come out from under the counter yet. Between Virelle’s threats of "barbecue" and the sudden arrival of the Vulpine "Suits," the poor girl had likely been traumatized for a lifetime. He felt a pang of guilt; he seemed to leave a trail of startled people wherever he went.

  Eventually, they returned to Room 102.

  The room was silent, the warm light of the recessed mana-strips dimmed to a soft amber glow. To Aiven’s surprise, Virelle didn't take up her usual position hovering in mid-air. Instead, she had settled onto the massive four-poster bed. She lay on her side, her hair spilling across the silk pillows like a moonlit waterfall. The bed was easily large enough for three people, but ever since they had left Aelira’s forest hut, Virelle’s physical clinginess had taken on a new, quieter dimension. She didn't just hover nearby; she wanted to be within arm's reach, her presence a constant, grounding weight.

  Aiven lay on the other side of the bed, staring up at the dark canopy. Sleep felt miles away.

  His mind was a tangled mess of worries. He thought about Virelle’s fragmented memories—the white light, the screams, the marble of Hearthport shattering into dust. He thought about Cyria Amberfang and the mysterious artifact she needed them to get, but mostly, he thought about himself.

  He was a contradiction. A walking impossibility.

  He flashed back to a few weeks ago, just days after he had first summoned Virelle. He had asked Virelle to train him to use some spells, but he couldn’t produce anything, not even the tiny flame he had used to be able to conjure.

  “Your mana is vast. Absurdly so,” Virelle had said. “But it is inaccessible. Completely sealed.”

  “I don’t understand,” Aiven had replied.

  “Imagine a tap connected to an endless ocean. Infinite water. Infinite pressure. But the valve—the entrance into the pipe—is sealed shut. No matter how much water exists beyond it, not a single drop can pass through.”

  “So… I have all this mana. And I can’t use any of it?”

  “Correct.”

  The Armvil Mark 3 was the only reason he could fight. It was a bypass—a straw stuck into the ocean. But it wasn't him. It was Marnie’s genius and Noirelle’s potential upgrades. Without the brass arm, he was just a one-armed former clerk with a heavy backpack.

  Stolen story; please report.

  He talked big about uncovering the truth for Lyra and about protecting Virelle... but deep down, he was terrified. He felt like a fraud.

  Protagonists in stories grow, he thought bitterly, closing his eyes. They train, they find secret techniques, they become legends. I just get better gadgets and hide behind a miracle. He imagined a reader watching his life, feeling the mounting frustration at his incompetence.

  He tried to force his mind to go blank, to let the softness of the Vulpine linens swallow his insecurities.

  Suddenly, he felt a soft, cool pressure against his right hand.

  He didn't move, his breath catching in his throat. He turned his head slightly. Virelle was still asleep, her breathing slow and rhythmic. But in her sleep, she had reached across the gap between them, her slender fingers curling firmly around his hand. She held it with a surprising strength, as if even in her dreams, she was making sure he hadn't vanished.

  Aiven looked at her peaceful face, the sharp lavender scent of her hair filling his senses. The "tap" might be sealed, and the "ocean" might be unreachable, but for some reason, this impossible being had chosen him as her anchor.

  With a soft sigh, Aiven relaxed his fingers, letting her hold on. The dread didn't disappear, but it felt a little further away. Shortly after, the exhaustion of the day finally won, and he slipped into a dreamless sleep.

  Virelle was not having such dreamless sleep.

  The dream hit her with the force of a physical blow. It was a flashback, visceral and terrifying, and Virelle knew with absolute certainty that it was real. She was back in the thickets, the air thick with the smell of burnt ozone and fresh blood.

  Aiven had just lost his arm. He lay on the damp earth, his face deathly pale, slipping into unconsciousness. But the horror hadn't ended with the injury. Aiven’s vast, absurd mana pool had begun to pour out, unstoppable. A blinding white light erupted from his shoulder, pulsing with a frequency that made the very trees groan. It was the "star in a bottle" finally shattering; the energy was about to eradicate everything within a mile radius.

  "Master!" Virelle screamed in the dream, dashing toward him. She cast every healing chant, every protective barrier, every stabilizing seal she could think of. Her lavender mana hummed frantically, but it was like trying to put out a forest fire with a cup of tea.

  She could feel it. She had mere seconds left before the explosion consumed him—before she lost everything.

  Suddenly, a voice appeared. It didn't come from the sky or the trees, but from a hooded figure who emerged from the shadows of the thickets as if she had been there all along. It was a female, her movements urgent, dashing toward Aiven with a look of such raw worry that it suggested she feared losing him more than she feared the white light.

  "I know how to stop this," the hooded woman cried out, her voice slicing through the roar of the mana. "I can save him without hurting him!"

  Virelle’s first instinct was a protective, murderous rage. Her orb flared, ready to erase this suspicious intruder who might be using her Master’s vulnerability for some dark trick. But she hesitated. The woman's voice... it sounded so achingly sincere, so filled with a desperate, familiar love.

  The figure didn't wait for permission. She cast a spell Virelle had never seen—vast, intricate blue seals materialized in the air around Aiven, rotating with a crystalline chime. Within seconds, the blinding white glare began to retreat, the chaotic energy dissipating into the earth. The mana ocean was being siphoned back into the bottle.

  When the light finally died, leaving only the quiet of the woods, the figure turned away. "Protect him," she whispered to Virelle, her voice a fragile thread.

  "Who are you?" Virelle demanded, her voice trembling.

  The hooded woman turned her head back slightly. Even with the hood covering most of her features, Virelle caught a glimpse—light, shimmering traces of blonde hair. The figure’s lips parted as if she wanted to say something—a name, a warning, a goodbye—but she stopped herself. With a final, lingering look at the unconscious Aiven, she dashed into the thickets and vanished.

  “Please don’t tell him about this,” The hooded woman said. “Or they will come for him.”

  Virelle’s eyes snapped open.

  The soft amber light of the Obsidian Spire filled the room. The smell of salt and jasmine was gone, replaced by the clinical, expensive scent of the Vulpine suite. She looked beside her.

  Aiven was sleeping soundly, his face relaxed in a way it rarely was when he was awake. As the first faint rays of dawn began to drift through the gap in the curtains, Virelle looked down at her hand.

  She was still holding his.

  She felt a soft, rhythmic pressure against her palm. Aiven, still deep in sleep, was clasping her hand back, his fingers curled firmly around hers just as she was doing to him. The warmth of his skin felt like a promise—a tether to the world they were building together.

  Virelle didn't move. She simply closed her eyes and held on tighter, the image of the blonde-haired girl in the hood a new, silent weight in her mind.