Hedi sat, leaning forward like a reed in wind; she braced her arms back like oars, then sank into the chair like a stone into still water.

Stretching, her back arched a touch, a willow curve that showed natural grace like rain smoothing a river.

She turned her face; Selina traded a few words with the guard, then drifted into the post like a slow cloud.

Her right hand clasped her left wrist; she stood by the wall, demure as a crane at a pond’s edge.

"That guy won’t come in?"

"He still has work."

"He’s not up on the wall shooting at passersby, is he?" Hedi smiled, a flick of sunlight on ripples.

They looked at each other and fell silent, like two lanterns dimming at dusk.

Crimson clouds packed the sky; sunlight, ground to powder, sifted through low cloud like ash over a sleeping town.

The post’s kerosene lamp stayed dark; the room was nightfall in ink, save a pale wedge of day at the door.

"Professor, why did you come here?" Selina asked, her voice careful as footsteps on frost.

"The guard should have told you; otherwise, how would he have brought you to me?" Hedi’s words fell like pebbles into a well.

"The Professor of Magic is interested in the Dark Realm?"

"A personal hobby, but this is the wrong season," she said, like rain arriving after harvest.

Selina dipped her chin, a sparrow bowing. "There are no Investigators here."

"You’re not wearing a mask."

"I refused. A mask feels like a cage on the face. And the Dark Realm’s corrosion isn’t spread by air."

"In that case, I don’t need one either," Hedi said, like sunlight stepping out from cloud.

"You know the corrosion is in every book on the Dark Realm."

Hedi patted her trouser leg, brushing imaginary dust like snowflakes, then glanced at her pale, small toes like porcelain beans.

"Ah, yes," she said, with a smile brief as a comma, a firefly’s blink.

"If you want to test me, ask deeper questions, not common sense," Selina said, steady as a mountain stream.

"Not everyone knows," Hedi replied, picking up the mask like a fisherman’s net. "You think you alone can close this Dark Realm?"

"No."

"Then sending you here is suspicious," she said, a thin blade under silk.

"So that’s your doubt. I’m assigned to survey," Selina answered, a map unrolled on a table.

"I see."

Hedi let the foot she’d planted on the chair edge fall; she crossed her legs like folding wings.

Her small foot swung in the air, careless as a kite tail; one arm rested on the chair, and her gaze went far like a crane over marsh.

Selina stood by the wall almost motionless, a shadow on asphalt after rain, absorbing dusk like ink.

From her chat with the guard, Hedi thought: for the Empire to seal this place, a lone Investigator is a thin reed against flood.

If it’s a lockdown, they’d watch the Dark Realm like sentries watching the moon, to halt its spread.

So, they sent her?

"If so—" Hedi murmured, words drifting like mist through pines.

Two choices opened like gates: leave, or feed the hunger called curiosity.

A professional is present; no need to perform ignorance as a cloak, then leave with excuses like falling leaves.

But if I just walk away, the next chance to near the Dark Realm might be a year that never arrives.

Go on leave and visit another Dark Realm, under a borrowed sun?

No—my holidays are almost spent, dry grass after a long summer.

And if the nobles learn I study the Dark Realm, thunder may break over my head.

Hervor Academy of Magic is the Empire’s famous school, full of noble heirs like stars in a winter sky.

Quit? They won’t let me go; the feeling gnaws like a caged fox.

Hedi rested her head on the chair back and stared at the ceiling, her mind drifting like fog over a valley.

Ideas rose like bubbles, then popped; they were small sparks that kept her from the bramble called indecision.

But inspiration isn’t a bottomless river; soon she hit an inner wasteland, bare earth under a pale sun.

If I think carefully, the fault is mine, a knot tied by my own hands.

I was reborn with memory into a world like a new sea, yet I live by old charts, safe as a harbor.

My boldest move this life was changing jobs—trading past blessings for a chair as Professor of Magic.

"Ah." Selina suddenly sighed, a reed bending under wind.

Hedi heard the stir, and pulled herself from the syrup of thought, slow at first, then quicker, like a swimmer finding breath.

As time passed and Selina spoke more, reality and thought misaligned, like two clocks out of step.

Fuzzy, she heard the self-talk, a whisper like rain on paper: "Maybe I was too reckless."

"What was reckless?"

Startled, Selina pressed her thumb and forefinger on her other thumb, rubbing like polishing a worry stone.

Her shoulders dipped like a settling bird; she smoothed a lock of hair, a ripple over still water.

"It’s too quiet here," Hedi said, apologetic as soft rain. "It’s hard not to hear."

Selina nodded, a small bell rung without sound.

"When do you survey the Dark Realm?" Hedi asked, a question hanging like a paper lantern.

"Hm?"

"Your work."

"I can’t alone," she said, the words heavy as wet rope.

Hedi set her elbow on the armrest; a strange confusion rose, a gray wash over the sky inside her.

In this quiet room—perhaps because it’s quiet—her thoughts rushed like horses into a deeper fog.

"Please pretend I said nothing."

"Interesting."

The two lines slipped out almost together, a duet colliding like cymbals, then spreading like rings on water.

Around them, sounds lost reality; only their words poured in, a river into the ear.

Hedi bent, slid her foot into her shoe, and felt the snug interior like warm clay.

She hooked the heel and tugged up; she stood and stamped, making sure shoe and foot married cleanly, like seal and paper.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to Hervor Academy of Magic, of course," she said, her tone crisp as winter air.

Selina’s mouth dipped like a small valley; her eyes held hesitation, a veil hiding a moon.

Hedi pocketed that image and strode across the threshold, leaving like a gull into salt wind.

"Wait!" Selina called, a thread thrown across water.

"Speak."

"Could… could you assist me?"

"Do it yourself," Hedi said, a door swung shut.

"I can’t."

Hedi half turned. "An Investigator knows the Dark Realm better than I do. Staying won’t help you," she said, cool as stone.

"Still… not very practiced."

"Not practiced at all, right?"

"I am an Investigator!" Selina pulled a badge from her pocket and flashed it, bright as a coin in sunlight.

"November 20, 1886. Today’s the 25th?"

"Twenty-fourth."

"Fourth day after you got it, and you ran here—your theory’s probably thin as paper."

"So, I’d like… to ask you—" She smiled awkwardly, words drawn long like taffy, afraid the sentence would never land.

"No."

"I… I can pay!"

Selina unfolded a green handkerchief; her eyes counted each coin like seeds, careful fingers sorting by size, color, and wear.

After a moment, she finished, gave a small "uh," then asked, "Is a professor from a top academy very expensive?"

"What, are you trying to buy me?" Hedi’s voice clipped like shears.

"Can I?"

Hedi stepped up and rapped her knuckles on Selina’s head, a wooden knock. "The Empire forbids illicit deals!"

"This is all I have," Selina said, holding out coins like humble offerings.

"Hmph—two minutes."

"There are freshly minted coins in here," she said, pride like a glinting blade.

"Value doesn’t change with shine," Hedi replied, flat as a slate.

"Only two minutes?"

"One minute forty."

Hedi was about to pocket her watch when Selina seized her arm and sprinted toward the Dark Realm like wind over grass.

On the run, Hedi’s lungs ballooned like overfilled bladders, ready to burst; pain scratched her throat like dry reeds.

She coughed; saliva vanished from lips and mouth like dew at noon. Soon her breath rasped from thirst and haste.

She tore free, dropped into a crouch, and panted; she shot Selina a look—this girl was still marching in place like a soldier toy.

"You’ll kill me. Walk… walk," she said, words like gravel.

"Do I still need to pay?" Selina asked quickly, hope fluttering like a sparrow.

"What do you think?"

"Ah-ha-ha, I thought you’d waive it," she chuckled, a brittle laugh like thin ice.

Hedi braced her knees and rose, then followed behind Selina at a pace like drifting clouds.

The Dark Realm floated over the south wall of Shattered City, a bruise of shadow; a clean line split it from the homes.

Call it a path, really—a pale road. Cool wind flowed down the center, damp as moss.

On the wall, a staircase was hacked with a pickaxe; nails still clung; pencil marks lingered like old scars.

It was unbelievable, a wonder scratched into stone.

This boundary, fifty meters from the houses, turned one city into two scenes like split silk.

One side was living homes, smoke and stew; the other was the eerie Dark Realm, a forest of night.

"I worried when I first saw you," Selina said, climbing with hands and feet like a cat. "Now it’s much better."

"Worried about what?"

"That you’d see I’m not professional and tell the guard. Then they’d send me back," she said, fear like cold rain.

"Wouldn’t that suit you?"

"I… I slipped out."

"Afraid of being scolded," Hedi said, understanding like sunlight breaking mist.

"It’s not that simple. If I go back, I won’t get near the Dark Realm for a long while."

"There’s no hurry. You’ve barely become an Investigator," Hedi said, stepping onto the stair-top like cresting a ridge.

From the wall, the dull rows of buildings looked like half-built sky bridges abandoned, or patients lingering, waiting for winter’s end.

If the Dark Realm hadn’t opened, this would be a beautiful city, a tapestry bright with morning.

"Not much time," Selina answered, then waved her hands. "No, no, my body’s fine."

"Why say that?"

"Let me thank you first."

"You’re welcome."

Selina lowered her head and nudged a pebble with her toe, a small moon rolling. "Without you, I’d have run."

She gave Hedi a helpless smile, like rain that won’t stop. "Hard to understand?"

"You said if you return, you can’t approach the Dark Realm," Hedi replied, steady as a pier.

"When I saw those residents, I wanted to run. When I saw you, I wanted to run too. After we talked, it wasn’t so terrifying."

"That, I can mostly understand," Hedi said, recalling last night’s talk with the guard—a companion keeps fear away like a lamp.

"Back to time."

"I want to find my sister quickly," Selina said, urgency like drumming rain.

"She’s in Shattered City?"

"Mm."

"Investigator, this is thankless—every Investigator here went into the Dark Realm; not one came out," Hedi said, the truth like iron.

"My sister—" Selina faltered, the word snagging like thread. "Isn’t an Investigator."

"A resident of Shattered City?"

Hedi watched her hesitation, then spoke as if discovering a track in snow. "Your sister… is she the ‘woman who opened the Dark Realm’ the guard mentioned?"

Selina seemed not to hear; she rubbed the crystal pendant at her throat like polishing moonlight, lost as a star in fog.

Sound took time to reach her, like a long-distance call sent from south to north across winter fields.

Hedi accidentally breathed in dust and coughed, a moth’s beat; then the silence turned uncanny, cold as a still lake.

Silence.

Silence.

Still silence.

After an age, Selina’s voice rose in the hush, young yet tottering like a newborn fawn: "Mm."