Chapter 601: At least now we have oversight.
Amelia activated the crystal right there in the middle of the corridor.
It was not the most appropriate place for a conversation with the Queen of Witches, but no one there had patience for etiquette either. Violet moved the guards a few steps away, Liza stood with her arms crossed near the sealed door, Sylphie kept holding Kael’s arm, and Umbra remained leaning against the wall, far too quiet.
Kael looked at her.
"Everything all right over there?"
Umbra looked at her own shadow.
"No."
"Great. Very reassuring."
"You asked."
"I wanted a comforting lie."
"Ask someone else."
Sylphie tightened her grip on his arm.
"Stop joking and stay still."
Kael looked at her.
"You know this will not spread faster if I move, right?"
"I do not know. And neither do you."
"...fair."
The crystal crackled. Eleonor’s image appeared right after, but not alone. Elion stood beside her, as if she had already been waiting for a technical tragedy to analyze. Yggdrasil appeared behind them, sitting in a chair too high for her size, with the expression of someone who had been dragged out of a good rest.
Eleonor looked at Kael.
"Are you injured?"
"A little."
Elion leaned forward.
"Show me."
Kael raised the marked arm.
Elion’s expression changed immediately. The curiosity did not disappear, but it became more serious. Coming from her, that was almost alarming.
Yggdrasil looked at the mark and closed her eyes.
"I knew it."
Kael frowned.
"Knew what?"
"That you people would touch something."
"I did not touch it willingly."
Sylphie looked at him.
"You punched the basin."
"After it grabbed me."
"So you touched it."
"That is not fair."
Eleonor interrupted:
"Kael."
He went quiet.
She observed the mark for a few seconds.
"Explain."
Liza took the lead. Her voice was controlled, but drier than before. She told everything without embellishment. The hidden door. The tapestry erased from history. The staircase. The basin. The names. The phrase about the crown being the mouth of the first blood. The drop that fell before she noticed the cut. The red shadow. The voices. The figures.
When she finished, no one spoke for a moment.
Elion was the first.
"This is worse than I thought."
Kael looked at her.
"You know that sentence does not help."
"I am not trying to help emotionally. I am assessing."
"Worse."
Yggdrasil climbed down from the chair and moved closer to the projection.
"That mark on your arm is not just residue. It is an attempt at reading."
Sylphie grew more rigid.
"Reading?"
"It tried to understand Kael. Not dominate yet. First it observes. Then it tries to attach itself to something useful."
Kael looked at his arm.
"It will not find much useful there."
Elion raised her hand.
"Actually, it will. You are a pile of absurd connections. Blood, mana, Celestial Sun, witch lineage, contracts with entities, bond with Sylphie, contact with Yggdrasil, relationship with Umbra, Inari..."
Kael looked at her.
"Thank you for listing my problems like inventory."
"You are welcome."
Eleonor was serious.
"Can it use that to track you?"
Umbra answered before anyone else:
"It can try."
Everyone looked at her.
Umbra continued:
"But the part that caught him is not whole. I pulled a lot of it into my shadow."
Yggdrasil looked at Umbra with impatience.
"You stored an ancient parasitic memory fragment in your shadow?"
Umbra held her gaze.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"It was loose."
"And your solution was to take it home?"
"My shadow is not home."
Kael murmured:
"Sometimes it seems like it."
Sylphie poked him.
Yggdrasil rubbed her face.
"I do not get paid enough for this."
Eleonor looked at her.
"You do not get paid."
"Exactly."
Elion seemed far too interested in Umbra.
"Can you keep it contained?"
Umbra answered:
"For now."
"How long is ’for now’?"
"Depends on how much it tries to scream."
Kael looked at the shadow on the floor.
"Is it screaming?"
"Low."
"That is a horrible answer."
"It is the real answer."
Liza breathed slowly.
"What do we do with the underground wing?"
Eleonor answered without hesitation:
"Absolute isolation. No one enters. No one touches anything. No one tries to study it without a prepared team."
Elion raised one finger.
"I am a prepared team."
Eleonor looked at her.
"You are half the reason the rule exists."
Elion lowered her finger.
Kael smiled a little.
"That one hurt even me."
"Be quiet," Eleonor said. "You are marked by an ancestral parasite."
"Right."
Yggdrasil looked at Sylphie.
"Did you hold the memory?"
Sylphie nodded.
"A little. Not for long. The structure was dirty. It was not like a sick tree. It was more like a habit shoved into blood."
Yggdrasil seemed satisfied with the answer, but did not say so.
"Good. Then you felt the difference."
"Yes."
Liza looked at Sylphie.
"The difference between what?"
Sylphie took a little while to answer.
"Between natural hunger and taught hunger."
The sentence left the corridor quiet.
Liza stared at her.
Sylphie continued:
"Vampires have hunger. That is real. It is part of you. But that thing down there was not your hunger. It was a voice repeating to the hunger what it should want."
Kael looked at Liza.
"Like I said. Rotten root. Not the whole tree."
Yggdrasil grumbled:
"That metaphor is mine by extension."
"I live with you," Kael said.
"Unfortunately."
Eleonor took a deep breath.
"Liza, this changes the research. Before, we were talking about satisfying a need. Now we also need to separate need from conditioning."
Amelia, who had been quiet until then, spoke:
"Then the neutral substance cannot merely feed. It needs to not respond to the old command."
Elion smiled faintly.
"Exactly."
Kael pointed at her.
"Do not make that face."
"What face?"
"The face of someone excited to test something dangerous."
"That is my normal face."
"That is the problem."
Irelia crossed her arms.
"We also need to think about the leak. The shadow in the maid was connected to this system. If there are two more, one in the cellar and another in Cassian’s delegation, perhaps they are connected to the same mouth or to others."
Umbra nodded.
"There is more than one mouth."
Liza closed her eyes for a second.
"Of course there is."
Kael looked at her.
"You are accepting this quickly."
"I am not accepting it. I am delaying the reaction for later."
"Good strategy."
"I learned from dead queens and successive crises."
"Fair."
Violet returned nearby.
"Your Majesty, the internal routes have been closed. Cassian is under discreet surveillance. The delegation has not noticed the full isolation yet."
Liza nodded.
"Do not let them notice until we have their shadow."
Umbra straightened.
"I can go."
Kael looked at her.
"With that inside your shadow?"
"Yes."
"That does not seem like a good idea."
"I did not ask."
Sylphie looked at Umbra.
"Kael is right."
Umbra went quiet.
That drew more attention than if she had argued.
Sylphie continued:
"If the fragment tries to communicate with the others while you approach, it could alert the network."
Umbra looked at her own shadow.
"It could."
Kael raised his eyebrows.
"You knew that?"
"Suspected it."
"And you were going anyway?"
"Yes."
"You know, sometimes I understand why you all complain about me."
Amelia murmured:
"Emotional progress."
"Do not write that down."
"I already wrote it down mentally."
Elion brought her face closer to the projection.
"We need to stabilize both problems. The mark on Kael and the fragment in Umbra."
Yggdrasil pointed at Sylphie.
"You can create a temporary living containment."
Sylphie frowned.
"Inside the palace?"
"Small. No deep root. Just a layer between the parasitic memory and the host."
"Kael is not a host."
"He has a thing trying to read his arm. For practical purposes, he is."
Kael raised his arm.
"I am listening."
"Great," Yggdrasil said. "Then learn not to punch ancient basins."
"It grabbed me first."
"You were close enough to be grabbed."
Liza looked at Kael.
"She has a teaching method similar to mine."
"Do not encourage her."
Sylphie placed both hands around Kael’s arm. The green light appeared slowly, lower than before. It was not battle magic. It was precise, calm. Small threads of natural energy wrapped around the mark, without trying to tear it out.
Kael took a deep breath.
"It itches."
"Good," Yggdrasil said.
"What do you mean, good?"
"If it itches, it is reacting. If it did not react, I would be worried."
"I love these criteria."
Sylphie ignored the complaint and continued. The red mark did not disappear, but it stopped pulsing. The line became more faded, like ink trapped under the skin.
"Temporary," Sylphie said.
"How long?"
"I do not know. A few hours. Maybe less if you do something idiotic."
Kael looked at her.
"You left that very open."
"On purpose."
Elion looked at Umbra.
"Now you."
Umbra did not look pleased.
"I do not need it."
Kael turned to her.
"You do."
"No."
"Umbra."
She held his gaze for a few seconds. Then turned her face away, irritated.
"Quickly."
Sylphie approached her carefully. That was strange enough for everyone to pay attention. Sylphie and Umbra still had that silent tension, half jealousy, half forced coexistence. But in that moment, Sylphie simply extended her hand.
"I will not touch you. Only the edge."
Umbra stayed still.
"If it hurts, I will tell you."
"Will you tell me or pretend everything is fine like Kael?"
Umbra looked at Kael.
"He is a bad influence."
"I agree," Sylphie said.
Kael pointed at the two of them.
"This is an improper alliance."
Sylphie touched Umbra’s shadow. The green light almost went out at once, but she insisted. She did not invade. She merely formed a thin film around the point where the fragment was stored.
Umbra closed her hand.
"It did not like that."
Yggdrasil answered:
"Excellent."
"You people have a strange concept of good news," Kael said.
Amelia watched everything carefully.
"If this prevents communication between fragments, we can use the same method before searching for the other shadows."
Eleonor nodded.
"But without too much improvisation. Kael, you do not chase anything until I arrive."
Kael opened his mouth.
Eleonor raised a finger.
"No."
He closed his mouth.
Liza looked at the projection.
"How long?"
"Not long," Eleonor said. "I will open a stabilized passage with Elion’s support."
Yggdrasil crossed her arms.
"And mine."
Eleonor looked at her.
"You just said you did not want to get involved."
"I do not. But you would do it wrong without me."
Kael smiled.
"You missed me."
"I am going to throw you into a lake."
"That does not deny it."
Sylphie smiled too, but still held his arm.
The projection flickered for an instant. Amelia adjusted the crystal.
Eleonor spoke more firmly:
"Keep Liza away from the chamber. Keep Umbra contained. Keep Kael seated."
Kael frowned.
"Seated?"
"Seated."
"Why?"
"Because you stumbled going up a staircase."
He looked at Sylphie.
"You told her?"
"I did not need to. She knows you."
Eleonor continued:
"I will arrive soon."
The projection went out.
The corridor became quiet again.
Kael looked at everyone around him.
"I am not going to sit."
Sylphie pointed to a stone bench near the wall.
"You are."
"I am the King of Witches."
Liza answered dryly:
"And you are in my palace. Sit."
Kael stared at both of them.
Irelia merely pointed to the bench too.
Amelia raised the quill.
Umbra, still irritated by the containment, said:
"Sit before I knock you down."
Kael stayed silent for a few seconds.
Then sat.
"This is humiliating."
Sylphie sat beside him.
"It is care."
"Humiliating care."
"But care."
Liza turned to Violet.
"Bring Cassian to an isolated room. Not as a prisoner. As a guest prevented from leaving."
Violet nodded.
"Is there a difference?"
"In how he will complain."
"Understood."
Amelia opened the notebook on her lap.
"We need to list priorities before Eleonor arrives."
Kael looked at her.
"Of course. Because apparently my arm has become a meeting."
"First priority," Amelia said, ignoring him. "Prevent communication between fragments."
Irelia completed:
"Second. Identify who brought the shadow into the delegation."
Sylphie looked at Liza.
"Third. Make sure Elizabeth is not exposed to any of this."
Liza went still for half a second.
Then nodded.
"Yes. She does not come near this wing."
Kael became serious.
"And Vlad?"
Everyone looked at him.
Kael continued:
"If this thing used crown, lineage, and hunger for centuries, perhaps Vlad did not merely make a deal with the Order. Perhaps the Order knew exactly which parts of him to press."
Liza pressed her lips together.
"That does not absolve him."
"I did not say it absolves him."
"But it changes the judgment."
"Maybe."
Liza went quiet.
She did not seem happy about it. But she did not reject it either.
Umbra looked toward the darker corridor, in the direction of the cellar.
"The second shadow is moving."
Kael stood immediately.
Sylphie grabbed his shirt and pulled him back to the bench.
"Seated."
"She just said it is moving."
"And you just received an order from your grandmother."
"My grandmother is not here."
A voice behind them answered:
"Now I am."
Kael turned his face.
A circle of purple runes opened in the middle of the corridor, stable enough not to tear the ceiling. Eleonor stepped out first, with an expression both calm and irritated at the same time. Elion came right behind, carrying a bag full of instruments. Yggdrasil appeared last, small, red-haired, and with her arms crossed.
She looked at Kael sitting on the bench.
"Miracle."
Kael sighed.
"The day only gets worse."
Eleonor approached, looked at the mark on his arm, then at Liza.
"Show me the door."
Liza nodded.
"This way."
Kael began to stand.
Eleonor did not even look at him.
"You stay."
He stopped halfway through the movement.
Sylphie smiled.
Kael sat again.
Yggdrasil passed by him and gave his shoulder two little pats.
"Good boy."
Kael looked at her.
"I am throwing you into the lake first."
"Seated, you are not throwing anyone."
Umbra laughed softly.
Kael closed his eyes.
"I hate all of you."
Amelia wrote.
"Emotional state: surrounded."
Irelia smiled.
"That is accurate."
Kael leaned his head against the wall.
While Eleonor, Liza, Elion, and Yggdrasil walked toward the hidden door, he looked at the mark on his arm, then at Umbra, then at Sylphie.
"This is still going to be a lot of work."
Sylphie squeezed his hand.
"Yes."
Umbra looked at her own shadow.
"A lot."
Amelia turned a page.
"At least now we have supervision."
Kael let out a short laugh.
"Is that supposed to reassure me?"
Irelia looked at the portal still glowing in the corridor.
"Considering who just arrived, not much."
From deep in the passage, Elion’s excited voice echoed:
"Ah. This is horrible."
Kael looked at the ceiling.
"I knew it."