The world writhed.

  Frid collapsed to his knees, his breath jagged, his vision flickering between reality and something else—something wrong. His fingers twitched, convulsing as raw energy surged through his body, twisting his veins into burning pathways of power.

  It hurt.

  Not like a wound. Not like fire.

  It was deeper. A wrongness in his bones, in his very thoughts.

  The fragment of Old Magic had fused with him. His skin burned where he had pressed it into his chest, but there was no wound—only a lingering pulse, a heartbeat that did not belong to him.

  His body shook.

  His mind screamed.

  And then—

  Agatha laughed.

  Frid's breath hitched.

  He looked up, eyes wide, wild—searching.

  There.

  She stood just a few steps away, bathed in silver moonlight. Her smile was gentle, soft. The same as always. As if her throat had never been slit, as if her blood hadn’t soaked his hands.

  “You look terrible,” she teased.

  Frid opened his mouth. No words came.

  He tried to stand, but his legs didn’t listen. His entire body refused him, still caught in the aftershocks of the Old Magic’s corruption.

  Agatha tilted her head. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

  Her voice was warm. Familiar. Safe.

  But something was off.

  Her eyes.

  Too deep. Too hollow.

  Like something that had looked too long into the abyss and let it crawl inside.

  Frid swallowed hard. "You're—"

  "Dead?" Agatha finished for him. She chuckled, stepping closer. "Yes, I suppose I am."

  He shuddered. His hands clenched against the dirt, nails carving deep furrows into the ground.

  "You're not real," he whispered.

  Agatha knelt beside him, her fingers trailing across his cheek. Warm. Real.

  "Does it matter?" she murmured.

  Frid's breath came in short, frantic bursts. His mind felt like glass, cracked and splintering. He wanted to believe.

  But he knew better.

  The Old Magic was twisting him, warping his thoughts, showing him what he wanted to see.

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  And yet—

  A part of him wanted to reach out. To hold her. To beg her not to leave.

  Something inside him fractured further.

  The Illusion Grimoire at his side pulsed.

  His head jerked toward it, pupils constricting. The pages shifted, warped, rewrote themselves. The once-incomplete incantations filled themselves in, guided by something beyond logic—beyond sanity.

  Words bled onto the parchment, not from ink, but from his own mind. His own madness.

  He understood now.

  Illusion was not just tricks of the mind.

  It was perception. It was belief. It was the power to twist the world so thoroughly that even reality itself began to doubt.

  The missing pieces—they had never been missing.

  They had been trapped.

  Inside him.

  Locked behind chains of sanity, of hesitation, of weakness.

  But those chains were gone now.

  Frid's lips curled into a grin—wild, sharp, wrong.

  Agatha watched him, her expression unreadable. "You're changing," she whispered.

  He laughed. A broken, hollow sound. "I know."

  The Grimoire snapped shut. The ground beneath him breathed, shifting in waves of illusion so deep they no longer felt like tricks.

  They felt real.

  They were real.

  The Old Magic inside him shuddered, restless, hungry.

  And deep within his mind, a single, consuming thought took root—

  Resurrection.

  Agatha had died.

  But if reality itself could be rewritten...

  Why couldn't death?

  Frid stared at her, at the figment of his broken mind, and whispered:

  "I’ll bring you back."

  She smiled.

  And the world laughed with her.

  ---

  Aelith led them through the abandoned pathways near the academy’s ruins, her steps light against the cracked stone, barely making a sound. The night air was thick with the scent of damp earth, and mist curled around their feet like grasping fingers.

  Thorne exhaled sharply, adjusting the sword strapped to his back. “This better not be a waste of time, Aelith,” he muttered. “You promised us power. Real power.”

  Aelith didn’t look back. “And I will deliver,” she said smoothly. Her golden eyes gleamed under the moonlight. “But don’t expect greatness to come without a price.”

  Caelum, quieter than usual, clenched his fists. He didn’t voice his doubts, but Thorne could see the tension in his shoulders. Whatever power Aelith had promised, it had to be something immense to make him agree so easily.

  They walked in silence as Aelith led them past the broken gates of the academy and into the ruins beneath. The stone corridors were lined with the remains of old enchantments—worn glyphs flickered faintly before fizzling out. The deeper they went, the more the air thickened, as if something unseen was pressing down on them.

  “How do you even know this place exists?” Thorne finally asked, breaking the silence.

  Aelith chuckled, but it was an empty sound. “Some secrets reveal themselves only to those willing to listen.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  She glanced at him, amused. “No, it isn’t.”

  The tunnel twisted downward into an ancient passage, the walls narrowing around them. The torches they carried flickered erratically, their flames reacting to something unseen. Caelum ran his fingers along the carvings on the walls—ancient symbols, unlike anything used in modern magic.

  Then, they reached it.

  A stone door, massive and covered in engravings that pulsed with a sickly glow. It bore no handle, no keyhole. Just an unnatural stillness.

  Aelith stepped forward, pressing a hand against it. “This is where the Old Magic lingers.”

  The moment she made contact, the stone groaned, shifting inward as if exhaling after centuries of stillness. The air beyond was dense, humming with something neither alive nor dead.

  They stepped inside.

  The chamber stretched before them, an eerie expanse of jagged pillars and shifting darkness. The walls pulsed like a living thing, veins of magic running through them in chaotic patterns. And at the center—

  A lone figure.

  He stood with his back to them, his posture unnatural, shoulders rising and falling with slow, uneven breaths. The dim light cast long shadows, and though they couldn’t see his face, something about him sent a chill through Thorne’s spine.

  Something was wrong.

  Caelum’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Who is that?”

  Aelith didn’t answer.

  The figure tilted his head slightly, just enough to show awareness of their presence.

  Then, he spoke.

  “…More seekers of power?”

  His voice was hoarse, frayed at the edges—like a man who had forgotten how to speak.

  Thorne reached for his sword, but something in the air made his movements sluggish.

  The chamber trembled.

  And the figure…

  He laughed.