Kevin and Vivianne finally reached where we were standing, looking worse for wear but unmistakably closer than before. This time, Vivianne was even carrying Kevin on her back, while he looked deathly exhausted.

"Cael? Is that you!?"

Vivianne narrowed her eyes, and then she saw me and Evelina. No longer Trish—just Evelina now.

"Oh, and Lady Evelina’s back..."

Kevin muttered from behind her. "She’s back...?"

"Stop staring and start moving," I called, my hands in my pockets as Evelina rested her head on my shoulder.

Honestly, that short break was worth it. It didn’t solve everything, but it helped clear my head for a while.

"I had fun. Being cheerful like that was nice."

"You can’t do that while you’re in that form?"

"It’s just a matter of appearance, Cael. I don’t want Illinalta and Crestwood to see me like that while I’m in my original body."

"Good point."

Kevin’s feet hit the floor as Vivianne let him down, and he immediately slumped against a nearby bookshelf, chest heaving. His face was pale beneath the sweat, dark circles carved deep under his eyes.

"She carried you the whole way?" I asked.

"He passed out," Vivianne said, brushing hair from her face. "After his trial. He was... different when he came out. Quieter."

I looked at Kevin. He didn’t meet my eyes.

"Kevin?"

"Later, Master." His voice was hoarse. "I’ll tell you later."

Evelina lifted her head from my shoulder, her white hair spilling across her back. Her crimson eyes swept over both of them with clinical precision, cataloging injuries and exhaustion levels the way she’d been trained since childhood.

"You’re both in no condition for another trial," she said. "The archmage will have to wait."

"He doesn’t seem the patient type," Vivianne muttered.

"He’ll wait," Evelina said, and there was something in her tone that suggested she’d make him wait even if he didn’t want to.

Vivianne glanced between us, her sharp eyes catching the way Evelina’s hand rested on my arm, the way my shoulder still had dents from where her head had been pressing.

"Something happened while we were gone."

"We talked," I said.

"That’s it?"

"That’s it."

Vivianne didn’t look convinced, but she was too tired to push. She found her own spot against the bookshelf, sliding down until she sat on the floor, her borrowed coat pooling around her.

The chamber had changed again while we weren’t paying attention.

The pedestal with the white book had vanished, replaced by something that looked almost like a campfire, though no flames burned in it. Just a circle of stones and a pile of ash that still held warmth. A ring of cushions surrounded it, soft and inviting.

"The archmage’s idea of hospitality," Evelina observed.

"Or his idea of keeping us comfortable while he decides what to throw at us next."

"Same thing."

Kevin had already crawled toward one of the cushions, not bothering with dignity. He flopped onto his stomach and let out a long, muffled groan into the fabric.

Vivianne joined him more slowly, lowering herself onto a cushion with the care of someone whose body had stopped trusting sudden movements.

I sat down across from them, Evelina settling beside me, close enough that our thighs touched.

"I hope whatever he plans next is the last trial so we can finally get our reward. I think I’ve had enough character development for one day."

"Character development? Is that really how you would describe our moment?" Evelina asked teasingly.

"It’s the best way I can describe it without wasting any more words, really."

Kevin’s groan into the cushion evolved into something almost like words. Almost.

"Character development," he mumbled, face still pressed into the fabric. "He calls nearly dying ’character development.’"

"Better than calling it a waste of time," Vivianne said, stretching her legs out in front of her. Her borrowed coat had fallen open, revealing the ruined shirt beneath, but she didn’t seem to care. "At least we got something out of it."

"What did you get?" I asked.

She was quiet for a moment, her eyes fixed on the cold campfire between us. The ash in the center still glowed faintly, warm despite the absence of flame.

"Clarity," she finally said. "About what I want."

"And what’s that?"

"Not dying, for starters."

Evelina’s fingers traced idle patterns on my arm, her touch light enough to be almost unconscious. Her crimson eyes watched the two younger mages with something that might have been approval, or maybe just recognition.

"Old men really are sentimental; all of our trials had something to do with personal stuff," Evelina said, amused.

"I just hope this sentimentality is worth it... If I get a simple wooden wand from this, I’m definitely going to go insane."

"When we first met, I didn’t take you for much of a complainer, Vivianne."

"Shut up, Cael... Everyone shows their true self eventually when they get close enough."

Vivianne said that, but then she remembered who I was sitting with—Evelina, whose eyes had already narrowed at the mere mention of her getting close to me.

"Platonically, of course."

"You didn’t need to specify that, Lady Crestwood," Evelina replied.

"Y-Yes, Lady D’Arclight."

Vivianne nodded, clearly still remembering the other side of Evelina. Even now, she hadn’t forgotten the time Evelina had nearly killed her after catching her inside my estate, training with me.

She definitely didn’t want that to happen again, especially in a library where no one knew her location.

Kevin finally lifted his face from the cushion, his expression somewhere between exhausted and haunted. The fireless campfire cast no shadows, but the circles under his eyes looked dark enough to have their own gravity.

"Mine showed me my mother," he said quietly.

The chamber went still.

I watched him carefully, measuring the weight of those words with what I knew of Kevin’s past. He’d never spoken about his family before. Not once, in all the months I’d known him.

But I knew everything about him. At least, everything the novel had revealed to me.

This was one of them.

"She was sick," he continued, his voice flat. "Dying. And I just... stood there. Couldn’t do anything. Didn’t have the magic, didn’t have the knowledge, didn’t have anything except the ability to watch."

"The illusion," Vivianne said softly.

"I know it was an illusion." His hands clenched against the cushion. "That’s what made it worse. Because even knowing it wasn’t real, I still couldn’t save her."

Evelina’s fingers had stopped their tracing on my arm. Her crimson eyes were fixed on Kevin with an intensity that made the air feel heavier.

"The archmage pulls from memory," she said. "Not imagination. Whatever you saw, it happened. Or something close to it did."

"Thanks for the clarification," Kevin muttered. "That helps."

She didn’t rise to the sarcasm. If anything, her expression softened almost imperceptibly.

"I wasn’t trying to help. I was telling you the truth."

Kevin looked at her for a long moment, then nodded once and looked away.

The ash in the center of the campfire glowed brighter for a moment, casting faint warmth across our faces. Somewhere above, beyond the dome and the false stars and the impossible architecture, I could feel the archmage watching.

Always watching.

"Your turn," Vivianne said, looking at me. "What did your trial show you?"

"Myself."

"That’s it?"

"That’s not nearly as simple as you’re making it sound."

Evelina’s hand found mine, her fingers interlacing with practiced ease. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.

"The other me," I said, "wanted to take my body. Make a deal with the archmage. Live the life I should have lived."

"What stopped him?" Kevin asked.

"He wasn’t strong enough." I paused, then added, "Or I was. Depends on how you look at it."

Vivianne studied me with those sharp eyes of hers, the ones that missed nothing. "You’re not going to explain that, are you?"

"Not tonight."