“Hah…” Lucimia drew in a deep breath and let it out slow, like wind sighing through an empty grotto.

“Tsk.” She pressed her temples; the world rocked like reeds in a river.

“Lucimia! What happened? Are you okay?” Desty’s voice flicked like a sparrow’s wing; she’d only seen a calm girl paging memory like moonlit paper suddenly bristle like a cornered cat.

“I don’t know if I’m okay…” Lucimia kneaded her temples, a knot tight as braided rope.

“What did you see?”

“I saw Ment. He said he’d found me. I triggered Devouring at once to block a curse, then used Reversion to reset the time, like snapping a thread.”

“And then…”

“Haa, I got careless. Ment must’ve planted some curse on the village chief long ago, meant for Nirael. Now it’s pointing at me.”

Lucimia felt strength trickle back, like warmth returning to a numb hand.

“To save energy, I only controlled Devouring to eat memory, a bare-bones swallow. That leaves a chance to get seeded by a curse. I later used Devour All… but I’m not sure it caught it.”

She tested every ability, like tapping the strings of a zither; none went silent. She couldn’t tell if the curse wasn’t about failure, or if she’d erased it.

“What do we do?”

“Maybe it isn’t that. Could be just an alarm, a beacon to pin my shadow.” Lucimia’s thoughts skimmed like swallows over water.

Wasan Village was a backwater, reeds on the map’s edge. Ment might not have time to station people. Here, she and Desty moved freely, like fish in a spring. In cities, in the Royal Capital, doors would close like iron shutters.

Ment would lay every step in advance, like chess pieces set before dawn.

“Let’s go straight for the Cross. I’ve had the Fuzzy Orb watching the whole village. Only two spots stank of trouble: the riverbed and the well’s bottom.”

Lucimia turned herself and Desty into flies with Disguise Power; they flew and talked, like two motes riding a breeze.

“Hit the well first. I probed both with the Fuzzy Orb. The riverbed looked clean but soaked in white fog. As for the well—Fuzzy Orb went down, took one turn, and died.”

“That… then it’s likely at the well.”

“Mm.”

In Jaha Town, it had been the same. The Cross killed the Fuzzy Orb in a blink. When she poisoned it later, she sent the Fuzzy Orb to die with the dose clenched like a seed.

They reached the mouth of the well, stone cool as a grave.

“I’ll go. Don’t come down.” Lucimia’s tone was a steady blade.

“…Okay. Be careful,” Desty murmured, knowing she’d be little help in the depths.

Lucimia dipped into the well, a shadow slipping through water.

Near the bottom, white fog pooled thick as curdled milk. She knew the Cross lurked close, like a thorn under skin.

She had to pin its exact spot, place the poison like a needle to flesh. Throwing wide would do nothing; the dose had to kiss the target.

She used Disguise Power and became a small fish, scales like silver chips, and swam down, down, like a leaf riding a current.

She swam a long while and saw no Cross, only rubble at the bottom, stones scattered like bones.

Strange.

The mist down here was dense, a wall of milk. Even her Magic Eye couldn’t pierce it, like moonlight blocked by winter cloud.

“Use Devouring? But it’ll drain energy… I’ve used it too often lately…”

She wavered, a reed bending under wind. Without eating the fog, she couldn’t map the well’s truth.

“Fine. One more time won’t break me.” She steadied her breath like a held bowstring.

The Fuzzy Orb yawned wide; it gulped the thick mist, sipping it like soup. The well’s image sharpened, lines clear as ink.

She saw slick moss dressing the stone walls, a green pelt. But still no Cross.

“No? That’s wrong. Mist this thick means it’s near… maybe it’s—”

She barely paused a heartbeat, then ordered the Fuzzy Orb to devour the moss. As the green veil went, the stone behind showed its teeth: a pitch-black Cross, embedded in the lower wall like a dagger in bone.

Ment hadn’t placed the Cross on the floor. He’d set it in the side wall, and mist billowed from it like breath from a sleeping monster. Lucimia thought fast, used Devouring again to swallow any lurking illusion. Once sure the Cross was real, she moved at once—no wasted beat—she surged upward and sent the Fuzzy Orb diving with the poison clamped like a pearl.

The green poison kissed the Cross. The white fog boiled like a pot, then churned and stained green, a river going sickly. Time ticked; the fog thinned and died. The black Cross began to crumble, brittle as burned paper.

“That should do it.”

It behaved exactly like the Cross in Jaha Town under the poison’s bite.

Lucimia turned and rose, body a flicker in the dim, aiming for the light.

Then her vision flipped in an instant. The well’s mossy world vanished, replaced by a blank of white fog, a blind field.

“What?” She halted, scanning. She stood in a fog-space, empty and endless, like a sea without shore.

The next heartbeat.

A pair of massive, hollow black eyes snapped open, wells dug in night.

Then the surrounding mist grew eyes—countless sizes, from pinpricks to moons—above, below, left, right, every direction. Every gaze hooked into Lucimia like barbed wire.

“Playing god?” Lucimia lifted her hand and threw Devouring at the influence, like fire at cobweb.

“Eh? No effect?!” Cold prickled her spine like needles in snow.

“Sigh.” A heavy breath rolled through her skull, a bell struck in her head. Pain bloomed like a red flower.

“Ugh… hurts…” Lucimia clutched her head, the world tilting like a broken boat.

“Olivya, obstinate.” The fog around her turned gray, ash-thick. The hollow eyes blushed into blood-red, coals in a kiln.

Their gaze twisted her sight into ribbons. Dizziness surged, stomach flipped, thoughts fogged like wet paper.

“I’m not Olivya…” Lucimia lost the map of her body. Was she upside down, standing, or a leaf sinking?

“Olivya, surrender, plan, become, a part, home.”

“I said… I’m not Olivya…”

Her insides writhed, organs wrung like damp cloth, pain sawing bone. Even so, she forced Devouring Authority wider, like a black tide pushing a cliff.

“Sigh. Obstinate. Force, invalid. Thus, punishment.”

The words fell, and the red eyes and gray fog blew out like candles. Lucimia snapped back to her body, a girl again, mind dimming, limbs weak as thread. She dropped. Well water rushed into her mouth and lungs, cold knives.

Just before her light went out, she saw a red figure streaming down from above, like a streak of cinnabar. Soft, cold skin brushed her hand, a winter petal touching flesh.