The first thing Shisan noticed was the ceiling.
Smooth. Clean. Dimly lacquered in the faint hue of a nearby wall lamp. Familiar in the way a remembered dream sometimes is—only after you wake.
The second thing was that he was still himself.
No numbness in the limbs. No displacement behind the eyes. No strange cadence in his breath. He bolted upright, heart hammering, hands clawing instinctively at the sheets before running up his arms, over his chest, his face, his ribs.
His skin was bruised. Ached in old places.
And the wound just beneath his collarbone—the one from the priest-woman's ice blade—was still there. Half-healed. It throbbed gently with every breath, as if whispering: yes, you're here.
His breath caught in his throat.
"Not Claudius. Not someone else. Me."
He sat there, motionless for a beat longer, afraid to move in case the moment cracked apart like a poorly drawn illusion.
Then he exhaled—slow, raw. Like something kept caged inside had finally collapsed in on itself.
The sheets beneath him were soft. Too soft. And sterile.
The air in the room was still. It didn't press against him. It didn't breathe with him. It didn't judge. It simply… existed.
He turned his head slowly, scanning the walls.
Bookshelves lined the right-hand wall, filled with orderly, unused tomes bound in crest-stamped leather. A brass-accented lamp sat atop a blackwood desk. Its glow was warm but distant—too artificial to comfort. A wardrobe stood tall and pristine in the far corner, its handles shaped like gilded snakes biting their own tails.
It was identical to Claudius's room.
The same floorplan. The same curtains, drawn just enough to show the outline of iron-latticed glass. The same carpet—immaculate, gray, too silent underfoot.
"Am I still in the trial?"
The thought came with a stab of nausea.
But no.
The air wasn't thick with anticipation.
There was no illusion here.
Only the Clock Tower's curated indifference.
He pulled the blanket aside and swung his legs off the bed. His muscles groaned in protest. Every part of him ached in a way that didn't belong to dreams.
His feet touched cold wood.
It grounded him. Reminded him that this—whatever this was—was real.
Outside the window, the courtyard loomed in moonlit stillness. The Tower itself, a silhouette of sharp edges and spires, rose like a god watching itself sleep. Mist curled through its arches like ribbon through bone.
He shivered once. Then moved.
The desk was clean. Too clean.
He noticed the note before he saw the pen that pinned it down.
Folded precisely, like a blade tucked into paper.
He unfolded it.
The handwriting was elegant. Slanted, looping with the confidence of someone who knew they had never once written a word they didn't mean.
Congratulations, Shisan.
Consider this your official confirmation: you passed.
Your new uniform is folded in the wardrobe.
Training resumes tomorrow at first light.
Do not be late.
–Rin Tohsaka
He stared at her name.
There was no warmth in the ink. No smile. Just finality. Clinical and efficient.
It wasn't congratulation.
It was instruction dressed as kindness.
He set the note down slowly.
Turned to the wardrobe.
When he opened it, the fabric practically stared back at him. Deep navy and coal-black robes. The silver trim glinted like it had been polished just for him. The insignia on the shoulder was the Clock Tower's—neither invitation nor promise.
A declaration.
You are one of us now.
Shisan held the uniform for a moment.
It was beautiful.
It was perfect.
It was not for him.
He tossed it back into the wardrobe like it had burned his hands.
And then sat back down on the edge of the bed, his hands pressing against his thighs, his eyes unfocused. The lamplight flickered. Or maybe his vision did.
The silence began to stretch—thin and long. Like a tightrope wound through thought.
His fingers twitched.
The memory returned like a cut reopening.
Blue-gold fire.
The crying child.
A voice that hadn't been a voice, whispering please.
Ash. So much ash.
And then that feeling—the ache between his ribs when the fire had answered him. Not out of command. But out of need.
He pressed a palm against his chest, just above his heart.
It was still.
"What was that feeling?"
He closed his eyes.
Tried to summon it.
The warmth.
The pressure.
The presence.
Tried to replay the scene in his mind like an incantation.
But magic didn't work that way.
And neither did grief.
The harder he chased it, the more it retreated. It slipped between thoughts like water through clenched fingers.
"Will it come back?"
No answer.
He sat there for minutes. Or hours. The time refused to be measured.
Until finally, the weight in his body won.
It wasn't rest.
It wasn't surrender.
His body simply gave out, folding into sleep the way an overrun soldier collapses on the battlefield—not in peace, but in permission.
And the fire, wherever it now slept, offered him no comfort.
The walls of Lord Zelretch's office did not echo.
Sound in this place was devoured—not dulled, not muffled, but absorbed completely, as if the very air had long ago made a pact with silence.
No fabric rustled.
Words, when spoken, felt smaller. Weighted. As though they were being measured by something older than language.
Dr. Mireille Lysithea Garnet entered with poise—a folder of carefully organized documents cradled beneath her arm, heels whispering against the obsidian floor. Her long coat trailed behind her in measured elegance, its high collar lined with alchemical embroidery that shimmered faintly under the artificial starlight. Her skin was pale but not fragile, her cheekbones sculpted in the way noble bloodlines often tried to replicate with rituals. Her eyes—soft gray, tinged with lilac—were precise, analytical, like a scalpel that had learned patience.
Floating just over her right shoulder, her Lacrima Lucida mirror drifted silently. Oval-shaped and framed in etched silver, the surface shimmered like moonlight caught in still water. Runes flickered around its rim, pulsing faintly in response to her movements, as if the mirror were not simply a tool—but a familiar. An extension of her perception.
The floating crystal orrery in the center of the room ticked in starlight, orbiting like a galaxy trapped in dream logic. Zelretch did not look up immediately. He didn't need to.
As Dr. Garnet came to a graceful halt before the obsidian desk, Zelretch opened his eyes.
There was no suddenness to the motion—no dramatic flutter. It was as though his eyes had always been open somewhere else and had merely arrived here.
"I take it they've been chosen," he said.
His voice was like chalk dragged across old slate—abrasive, ancient—but gilded in something smoother, like honey poured over a rusted blade. It clung to the air long after the sentence ended.
Dr. Garnet nodded with practiced composure. "The Grail has selected two."
Zelretch made a slight motion with two fingers—neither command nor permission. A gesture born of ages, soft and absolute.
Proceed.
She unfolded the folder with precise intent.
The vellum paper rustled faintly—a sound swallowed almost instantly by the room. She withdrew the first page and placed it before him as one might place an offering atop a sacrificial altar.
"Both have prior affiliations with the Clock Tower," she began, her tone clipped yet weighted, "though... let's say their relationships with us differ considerably in tone."
The first document was immaculate.
Embossed in golden ink. Printed in noble cursive with letters that curled like the edges of a royal decree. The upper-right corner bore the silver seal of House Eisenwald—wax-poured and imprinted with the heraldic sunburst that signified authority through blood.
Zelretch's gaze flicked toward the attached photo.
The woman in the image looked almost painted.
Her pale blonde hair was pulled into a sculpted half-braid, loose strands artfully framing a face designed by breeding and warfare both. Eyes like polished sapphire stared ahead—not with defiance, but entitlement. Her uniform was pristine, collar drawn high, shoulders set straight. She did not appear to inhabit the image so much as reign within it.
"Princess Eirene Vulpen von Eisenwald," Dr. Garnet said.
Zelretch lifted a brow, his interest piqued—not dramatically, just enough to crease the skin at the corners of his eyes.
"The war scholar's granddaughter."
"Yes," Dr. Garnet confirmed. "She's already completed her summoning."
A flicker of acknowledgment passed through his gaze.
"What class?"
"Servant class, Archer," she replied, with the subtle nod.
Zelretch hummed—not as assent, but more like the turning of a great internal gear. A response filed without urgency.
He gestured again, and she continued.
The second file was… different.
Thinner.
The parchment was a shade darker, the ink less ornate. Smudges lined the margins, as if it had been folded and unfolded too many times. No wax seal. No house emblem.
Just facts.
And clipped to the top with a silver pin: a photograph.
Black and white. Slightly grainy.
The woman in this one didn't face the camera head-on. She looked off to the side, chin tilted as though the very act of being photographed was beneath her. Her black hair was cut short—functional, uneven in places, like it had been trimmed with impatience rather than aesthetics. Her Clock Tower uniform was unbuttoned at the collar. The sleeves were rolled to the elbows. A slight ink stain marked the hem.
Her expression was unreadable.
Not guarded. Not angry.
Just disinterested.
"Talia Grimm," Dr. Garnet said, placing the second file down with deliberate care. "Former ward of the Thaumaturgy Department. Blacklisted at seventeen—not for misconduct, but for something far more complicated."
Zelretch raised an eyebrow, his fingers now hovering just above the corner of the page.
Dr. Garnet continued, her voice measured but edged with memory. "The incident occurred during a sanctioned group summoning. She was only meant to observe. But the moment her foot touched the boundary circle, her latent volatility spiked."
Zelretch's gaze narrowed, attention sharpening.
"The ritual collapsed within seconds," Garnet went on. "Three noble houses had their sigils ruptured mid-chant. Mana circuits overloaded. The casting chamber imploded. No casualties—but the fallout..."
She paused, letting the weight of it settle.
"Reputations don't mend easily in the Tower. Especially not when ancient bloodlines are involved."
Zelretch didn't speak.
Dr. Garnet's eyes flicked briefly toward the photo again—Talia's defiant profile, frozen mid-glance. "The nobles lobbied to have her blacklisted from the Association. Called her a walking thaumaturgical plague."
Zelretch leaned back slowly, fingers steepling beneath his chin.
"A girl whose very presence destabilizes ritual logic... and yet, the Grail still chose her."
"It did," Garnet said. "And now she's ours to manage."
Then he leaned forward slightly—just enough to let the candlelight catch in his pale eyes. They fixed on the photo with a kind of academic curiosity, as if he were deciphering a forgotten rune etched into stone.
His fingers hovered above the paper.
Not touching. Not yet.
Like a man warming his hands over a very dangerous fire.
He tapped the edge of the page once, thoughtfully.
"Has she summoned?"
"Not yet," she said. "Only the Princess has completed her ritual."
There was a pause.
Not an awkward one.
A considered one.
Like air being held before the plunge.
"I was going to contact her," Dr. Garnet continued, a touch more cautious. "Instruct her to summon under binding terms. We don't know what she'll call."
Zelretch raised a hand—not sharply, but decisively.
"No."
She blinked. "Why?"
"Because it would be safer for her to summon here," he said, his voice now tinged with something more personal. "Under supervision. That girl is walking her own edge. Let's not be the ones to push her."
Another silence fell.
This one heavier.
Something lingered in the air between them. A thought neither had voiced. A question that hung like smoke beneath the ceiling's distant stars.
Dr. Garnet hesitated.
Her lips parted—
But before the moment could fully form, the Lacrima Lucida floating beside her flared softly.
A pale blue light pulsed through the silver-framed crystal—once, twice—like a heartbeat sensing someone else's.
She reached toward it reflexively, checking the edge of the rune-etched mirror.
"Apologies, my lord," she said. "Incoming projection."
Zelretch gave a slow, almost amused wave of his fingers. "Who?"
She tilted her head as the mirror shimmered and displayed the identifying signature.
"The Princess," she replied.
Zelretch leaned back, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"How charming," he murmured. "I suppose it's time we spoke to one of our chosen children."
She activated the mirror.
The call stabilized after a moment of shimmering distortion.
The Lacrima Lucida's crystalline surface pulsed once, then projected a flickering pale-blue illusion midair. The angle was wrong at first—tilted, slightly upside-down, with a background of chaotic noise: rotor blades whirring, metallic clanging, and a voice swearing in formal but breathless French.
"—Merde, this thing's not syncing—where's the orientation rune—oh, no no no—"
A quick shuffle of gloves against metal. Then finally, the projection spun and corrected itself.
Eirene Vulpen von Eisenwald appeared onscreen—only half her face in frame, the other still obscured by a gloved hand adjusting the crystal's lens. Her braid was wind-mussed. A fine line of sweat glinted along her brow. Despite the disarray, her posture remained aristocratically straight—every movement deliberate, if rushed.
She froze mid-tinker.
"Ah. Connected." Her tone sharpened as she straightened. "Professor Garnet. Lord Zelretch."
Dr. Garnet's clearing of the throat was surgical.
"Princess," she said coolly, tone hovering between discipline and disdain. "You are four days ahead of deployment schedule."
Zelretch leaned forward slightly, fingers interlaced. Amusement flickered faintly at the edge of his eyes.
"It's... rather noisy where you are," he murmured.
Eirene exhaled, adjusting the silver fastener at her collar. "Yes. We're currently mid-air. Unofficial aerial surveillance over Sector Twelve."
"Helicopter?" Zelretch asked, arching one brow.
"Correct," Eirene replied, brushing wind-blown strands from her face. "Old tech, but useful for brief-range flyovers when mana distortion renders scrying unreliable."
Zelretch made a low sound of interest but said nothing further.
Dr. Garnet's eyes narrowed. "This mission was not sanctioned."
"I took the liberty," Eirene replied, voice firm but respectful. "We've recorded new radial ruptures along the outer leyline. If projections hold, Fuyuki's core contamination will reach maximum threshold within four months. Not six."
Garnet's jaw clenched. "That still does not give you clearance to—"
"It was necessary," Eirene interrupted softly.
For a moment, neither woman spoke.
The camera shook slightly as turbulence rocked the craft.
In the background, someone shouted coordinates. Another voice barked something about relays. The helicopter's interior flickered with console light, half-modern, half-runic. And then—
A figure entered the frame.
Dark silhouette. Windswept coat.
She stepped into view without hurry, arms folded. Her boots thudded lightly on metal grating.
Sharp black eyes. Hair tied back with a cloth knot at her nape. Her jaw was sharp, her presence immediate. A curved sabre was belted loosely at her side—not ornamented, but worn smooth at the grip from real use.
She glanced briefly at the projection, expression unreadable.
Then looked away again.
"That's her," Eirene said.
Her tone shifted slightly. Something halfway between pride and exasperation.
"Archer-class. Zheng Yi Sao—also known as Madame Ching."
Zelretch tilted his head. "A pirate queen. Interesting taste."
"She chose me," Eirene replied, her voice softening just a fraction. "Not the other way around."
Madame Ching didn't acknowledge the comment. She was already scanning the terrain beyond the helicopter's open ramp, arms still folded. Watching. Measuring.
Zelretch nodded faintly, gaze lingering on her profile. "She'll be useful—if she doesn't gut someone first."
"She hasn't tried," Eirene said. "Yet."
Dr. Garnet inhaled through her nose—long and composed. "You should not be there. Not now. There is still protocol, even in times like these."
"I'll file the report once we land," Eirene replied smoothly. "With timestamps."
Garnet's lips pressed thin.
Zelretch raised a hand. "That's enough. We've seen what we needed."
Eirene nodded, reaching toward the crystal. "Understood. I'll be back within the hour. I'll upload the leyline overlay before midnight."
Her voice lowered.
"...Thank you for taking the call, Lord Zelretch."
His smile didn't change.
"I look forward to what you do next, Princess."
The connection faded. The crystal dimmed into pale blue silence, and the projection collapsed inward like frost melting in reverse.
The office was quiet again.
And the storm outside, for a time, remained in the sky.
Dr. Garnet exhaled—not with relief, but with the quiet precision of someone sealing thoughts back into boxes.
She stepped back from the desk, collecting the now-dim Lacrima Lucida as it hovered down beside her shoulder like a loyal familiar. The air between her and Zelretch was once again clinical, procedural.
"Orders?" she asked, already expecting dismissal.
Zelretch waved his hand, fingers unfurling with a motion that might've meant anything.
"You may go," he said.
She bowed with practiced grace, turning on her heel—
But before her foot fully left the floor, he spoke again.
"One more thing."
She stopped mid-step.
There was no edge in his voice. Just gravity.
She turned slightly, only enough to glance over her shoulder.
Zelretch's gaze had shifted—not at her, but downward, toward the open file still resting on his desk. Talia Grimm's black-and-white photograph stared up at him, inked into time like a scar in paper.
His tone was slower now. Deliberate.
"Send for Archmagus Caedmon Elginhart."
At that name, something subtle changed in the room.
Not a tremor. Not a sound.
Just pressure.
As if the floor beneath them had remembered a weight it hadn't carried in years.
Dr. Garnet's breath hitched—but only slightly. The flicker of hesitation passed over her face like a shadow too polite to linger.
Then, with the calmness of long habit, she inclined her head.
"Yes, my lord," she said quietly.
She left with silent steps.
The door sealed behind her, disappearing into the wall as if the room had swallowed it whole.
Zelretch sat alone now beneath the slow, arcane ballet of floating mechanisms and false stars—suns that moved in patterns only he understood. The light that glowed in the center of the room cast elongated shapes across the floor: maps of constellations no one had named in centuries.
His right hand rested lightly atop Talia's file.
His left reached outward—not toward anything visible, but into the air itself.
The space shimmered faintly, then pulsed once in response.
A ripple passed through the office.
Something answered.
And though nothing visibly changed, the silence grew heavier.
Like the room was holding its breath.
Waiting for the arrival of a man whose name came only when things began to move in ways that couldn't be undone.