Lucimia listened, and her brows drew together like a stormline gathering over a still lake.

She’d thought Rexi had an Authority Power long ago, a blade hidden under silk, never caught. Yet Nirael now said that a month ago Rexi had none, not even a spark.

She remembered the hounds on Rexi’s heels and the murder charge, and a chill rose like mist: did Rexi, in one month, scythe down every memory-wielder tied to that thread?

But if she wasn’t the memory-user then, killing them wouldn’t make the power roost in her; it would leap like a firefly to some other lantern.

Did luck fall into her palm like a stray sparrow? Could a coin really land on its edge twice?

Only Rexi herself might part that fog, yet Rexi herself...

“I don’t know,” Rexi said, face blank as morning haze. “I don’t know anything. I don’t remember anything. Don’t ask me.”

“You could try pulling the thread back,” Lucimia said, voice even like a blade on ice. “Your Authority Power should do it.”

“But... I feel something recoil, like a cold wind behind a shut door telling me not to open it,” Rexi muttered, lips pressed like a sealed line.

“Forget it,” Nirael sighed, her breath white like winter steam. “Not the point. Shelf it. Lucimia, you called me here for a plan, right? You want to go after Vosh?”

Seeing no one wanted to wade deeper into that bog, Lucimia let the stone drop and turned to the river before them. “Yes. Because of her, Desty died. So...”

“Wait, who’s Desty?” Nirael cut in, fog settling in her mind like low cloud. “I sleep a few days, and the sky’s upside down?”

“Uh...” Lucimia froze, the moment snagging like cloth on a thorn. She’d forgotten: once she absorbed someone’s energy, their existence was wiped like footprints in rain, so Nirael no longer knew Desty.

“It’s fine. Bottom line, I’m taking down Vosh, and I need your help,” she said, the words straight as an arrow.

“Mm... no problem. With Ment dead, I don’t need to keep absorbing energy,” Nirael said, relief loosening like frost melting off a branch. “What do you need?”

“I need you to use your Authority Power. Release a flood of rats. Let them eat the Royal Capital’s snow or foul its water.”

“Eat the snow and poison the wells... You want to cut off Vosh’s medium and hurt her too?” Nirael’s eyes narrowed, sharp as sleet. “In theory, possible. But her Authority Power is Purification. I might not manage it. She’ll push back.”

“You misunderstand. I don’t need you to hurt her,” Lucimia said, calm as a still pond. “Just do it. You’ve stored a sea of energy, enough to spend. If she wants to keep your filth off, she’ll have to pour power into Purification without stop. You see?”

“Pouring power into Purification...” Nirael frowned, then light flickered like a lantern catching. “I get it. You want me to drain her energy dry.”

“Right,” Lucimia said, her nod a small hammer on iron.

She meant to remake the valley’s trapped-beast brawl, to cage the tiger again and make Vosh taste the bars.

Half a clever one, Nirael traced the lines fast, words clicking like stones. “You want me to wring Vosh’s energy out, then you strike with Devouring. That way, Ment’s energy in her turns to smoke. She runs in place.”

But Lucimia shook her head, like a willow shedding rain. “You’re wrong, Nirael.”

“What?” The word snapped like a twig.

“Standing still means I lose. I want more than that,” she said, hunger banked like coals.

“Then what... what do you actually want to do?” Nirael asked, her gaze clouded like glass in fog.

Lucimia didn’t show the card. She turned to Rexi, eyes steady as moonlight. “Rexi, in a bit I want you to show yourself. Let Vosh see you. Make her know the thing working in her isn’t my Devouring. It’s your memory.”

“Huh? Why?” Rexi blinked, a sparrow startled from a branch. “Didn’t you just say my effect should pretend to be your Devouring? Why tell her now?”

“Just do it. Remember what I said,” Lucimia replied, voice soft and firm like snow packing tight. “When memories appear from thin air, people doubt. When Nirael attacks, Vosh will use Purification to resist. You plant memories from nothing, like dropping a false moon into her mind. Make her forget how to use her power, or decide not to fight. Let it appear from nowhere and set doubt gnawing.”

“O-okay,” Rexi said, nodding like a reed in wind. “What about you?”

“Me? I’ve got my part,” Lucimia said, keeping her hand closed like a fist in cold.

“Alright then. That’s the plan. Nirael, come with me for a moment,” she added, slicing the air like a hand through fog.

“What about me?” Rexi said, finger tapping her chest like a little drum.

“You wait here,” Lucimia said, placing the word like a stone by the path.

“Okay~” Rexi answered, her voice trailing like a kite string.

Lucimia led Nirael a short way off, the two of them slipping around a corner and hiding behind a giant tree, shadows pooling like ink at their feet.

“What is it?” Nirael asked, her voice low as wind in reeds.

She felt Lucimia had changed, her warmth iced over like a lake at first frost.

“Mm... let me ask you something. Before Rexi lost her memories, what kind of person was she?” Lucimia asked, her fingertips brushing Nirael light as a moth’s wing.

“Rexi?” Nirael blinked, surprise crumpling her expectations like paper. She hadn’t thought you’d pull her aside just to talk about Rexi; she’d expected another gear of the plan.

“I don’t know when she lost them. The Rexi I saw back then looked like now,” Nirael said, memory flickering like sunlight on water. “Bright, sunny, optimistic. No—more than that. Mischievous. Always stirring trouble at the academy, hated studying, like a cat batting at curtains.”

“Is that so...” Lucimia murmured, thoughts circling like crows over a field.

“What’s wrong?” Nirael asked, confusion rising like valley mist.

“I’m thinking how she got her Authority Power,” Lucimia said, words measured like beads. “A month ago, the Rexi you saw had nothing. A month later, she does. That means she gained the memory Authority in that month and cut down everyone tied to it. Does that sound possible? Like a sapling turning oak overnight?”

“It’s strange, yeah,” Nirael said, a knot tightening like a twist in rope. “I was puzzled too.”

“I have a guess,” Lucimia said, a spark glowing under ash.

“What?” Nirael breathed, a bowstring drawn and held.

“I suspect Rexi altered your memories,” Lucimia said calmly, voice flat as still water.

“W-what?! My memories were changed?” Nirael’s shock cracked like thunder under a clear sky.

“Yeah. But it still doesn’t add up,” Lucimia went on, smoothing the thought like wiping glass. “Before I asked, I secretly used Devouring Authority on you to erase any influence. I brushed you just now. And still, you say Rexi in your mind matches Rexi now.”

“Besides, there’s a hole,” she added, a mask tilting in daylight. “If she altered memories before to tell outsiders she had no power, to hide, and now she suddenly ‘lost’ her memories yet shows an Authority Power—if she did that, she’s blowing her own cover.”

“Then... what are you actually saying?” Nirael asked, words groping like hands in the dark.

“Nothing much. I’m just the suspicious sort,” Lucimia said, a thorn of doubt under skin. “After what you said, I worry she might tie back to Ment or Vosh. If her business is another thread entirely, then fine.” She spread her hands, empty as the sky.

Nirael lowered her head and thought, her gaze falling like a leaf.

After a long silence, she spoke, voice rough like grit on teeth. “I’m not sure either. A month ago I’d just slipped Ment’s control, like crawling out of a net. I only saw her once while hiding. Most of that time I was fighting Ment.”

“Got it,” Lucimia said, her nod a small flame steady in wind. “Don’t worry about it. Follow the plan. Wait for my signal. I’ve got one more thing to do.”

“Okay,” Nirael replied, the word plopping into the hush like a pebble in a pond.