They returned to the gate. Blood-red tracery flooded the array like creeping vines. As if Adelaide’s blood had finally eaten through, the Sealing Array cracked, breaking with a viscous, uncanny sound.

"Looks like we came back just in time."

"Careful. This was my deepest point before. I don’t know what waits past here."

"Sure, sure. Miss Hazel, ever the worrier. You even picked a fight with Her Highness for sticking your nose too far in, didn’t you?"

Adelaide quipped. Hazel cut her a sidelong look, a knife’s glint under still water.

"I had a feeling from the start. But once your secret slipped, your temper’s only gotten uglier."

"No way."

Her tongue stayed playful, but a Bloodsword bloomed in her palm like a red thorn. Ready, she hooked a finger, and the gate yielded.

The sight beyond didn’t match their braced-for storm. No new corridor. No lab. No Toka. Only a cramped, sealed chamber, tight as a coffin.

The space was barely seven or eight square meters. On the wall opposite their door sat another door. Two buttons beside it showed up and down.

The down arrow was ringed by a smear of red, blood circling it like a wax seal.

"An elevator…?" Adelaide murmured.

Hazel stayed in the doorway. Her water-aspected mana swept the stain like a cool tide. Her face darkened.

"It’s No. 31’s blood."

By now, the other side’s intent was clear as winter air—if they wanted Skela freed, they had to follow the script.

Hazel met Adelaide’s eyes. Adelaide shrugged, then stepped in beside her, a shadow slipping into a pit.

It reeked of a setup, but they had no other path.

A light press. The elevator shuddered awake. The door behind them slid shut, swallowing them into the narrow box.

Silence stretched thin. Only the grind of gears gnawed at the dark, like teeth working a bone.

Time felt wasted, like sand dribbling through clenched fingers. Adelaide shifted a hand beneath her black robe and cracked the hush.

"Since we’ve got nothing to do, how about you prepay this job, Miss Hazel?"

Black silk pinched a half-burned paper. Most of it was carbonized, held together by a skein of magic so it wouldn’t crumble.

"I fished this from a fireplace in an office. It’s a ruin, but it still holds some very interesting crumbs."

Most of the words were ash. The center was only scorched yellow, the ink still clinging like bruises.

There, three lines could just be made out:

— Subject: Mira Isabella Douglas

— Result: Success

— Soul-container compatibility: Ninety-seven percent

Adelaide’s gaze fixed on the scrap. The mockery bled from her voice.

"If you’re confident enough to trade this for help, you must have more than this page, Miss Hazel."

Hazel went quiet, as if lining stones across a stream.

"Honestly, secrecy here is iron. I don’t know much. I can confirm only two things."

Adelaide arched a brow, a black wing lifting. "Go on."

"First, No. 31 and Mira underwent the same alteration surgery. In fact, every child brought here faced experiments and modifications."

"Wasn’t this place built to study corpse refinement?"

Hazel shook her head, a reed cutting water.

"As far as I know, the real focus was the surgery. They combed the nation for gifted children and dragged them here."

"The weaker ones became human trials to verify drugs. The gifted got the actual alterations—like No. 31."

She paused, bit her lower lip, and pressed the wave of feeling back down.

"Her procedure failed. They didn’t stop. They kept snatching orphans and repeating it—until Mira entered, then walked out alive."

"After that, they dropped the surgery. They shifted their weight to these Blood Magic constructs."

"So the surgery succeeded on Mira?"

"Maybe they needed only one success. I can’t swear it. The second thing I know: the surgery’s goal was to rewrite bloodlines."

"You saw Mira’s gold hair. It’s not dye. It’s a trait rising from the bones, a kin-mark."

"No doubt she carries royal blood now."

Royal blood flows in her… Adelaide closed her eyes.

She’d braced for this verdict. Still, heat surged up, nameless and sharp, like something of hers was snatched from her hands.

…Snatched?

Right. That fits. She was only miffed that after all the time spent on sweet sisterly games, Mira got claimed by the crown before Adelaide could use her.

It’s only human to rage when someone harvests what you sow.

Exactly. Mira is a tool in a plan. Nothing more. Tools don’t shake her heart. That’d be laughable.

Adelaide let out the stale breath lodged in her chest. She smoothed her mood and looked back at Hazel.

"Building a whole underground city just to add one royal branch sounds like bad business."

She paused, a knife glint in her smile. "Richard VI could just work harder with the queen at night and get the same result, no?"

Hazel scratched her head and sighed, a leaf in wind.

"Has anyone told you your sense of humor is awful?"

"...?"

"Right. No self-awareness at all, you."

Adelaide looked mutinous. Hazel rolled her eyes, then let the topic sink.

"Anyway, according to the Inquisition, eight years ago—the year Mira’s alteration finished—they stopped bringing in new orphans."

"If that’s not because their abductions got subtler, it means…"

"…they’re after something else?"

Adelaide finished the thread. Hazel nodded.

"Whatever changes the bloodline is likely just a gate, not the destination."

"I checked old notes. Some spells bind to blood. There’s one called soul-voice—only blood kin can speak through it."

"Plenty of soul-arts care about lineage—"

A jolt cut her off. The floor bit back. The elevator jammed like a throat closing.

"—Adelaide!"

A steel plate shot up between them, splitting the car like a cleaver.

Red light flared in Adelaide’s hand. She raised the Bloodsword to hew the partition—then a brutal weightlessness punched her.

The cable above felt snapped. Her half of the car lunged downward. Her body floated, light as ash.

In that instant she felt the mass halve. Hazel’s side had detached. Adelaide could only ram her blade into the wall to anchor herself.

She lost her last clean chance to cut through.

Then came nearly thirty seconds of plunging night.

Adelaide swallowed the nausea of half-flight. She spat a rapid chant. A blood-red array bloomed under her tall boots.

Almost as the spell sealed, impact smashed up from below. Even through the shock-damping array, needles of numbness stabbed her feet.

She grimaced, forced herself upright, and rubbed at her stinging ankles. A curse hissed out like steam.

Damn thing. Did they have to dig this deep?