Elara Vance had always believed she suffered from a rare, emotional form of migraine.
It was her secret, and her cage. The "illness" struck without warning. Sometimes it happened when she entered an old house, other times when she touched an old object. An extreme, groundless emotion would sweep over her like a storm, bringing with it a splitting headache and sensory confusion. Doctors were useless, attributing it to "excessive stress" or "sensitive nerves."
Her parents had disappeared when she was sixteen, leaving her with only a shop named "The Heart of Edinburgh," a tourist trap on the Royal Mile. Everything inside was new and bright: scarves printed with tartan plaid, shelves stacked with cute Loch Ness Monster plushies, and the air thick with the sweet scent of shortbread.
Every item here was an emotionally blank canvas, carrying at most the fleeting, shallow joy of a tourist. For Elara, this environment was like soft white noise, just enough to drown out the terrifying, screeching cacophony that came from ancient things.
"Elara! Look what I found!"
Her friend, Chloe, burst into the shop like a gust of wind, shattering the carefully maintained peace. Her very presence carried the vibrant, chaotic energy of the outside world. Worse, she was holding something up.
It was a Victorian-era garnet brooch, its gold base carved into a coiled serpent.
It was an antique.
The artifact was utterly out of place in the shop, a ghost in mourning attire crashing a lively party. The moment Chloe held it out to Elara, a cold, almost tangible grief seized her heart.
The omen had arrived.
"Don't…" she tried to say, but it was too late.
A bone-deep despair that did not belong to her flooded her consciousness. It was the sorrow of a mother who had lost her beloved son on a snowy winter day a century ago. It was an emotional bomb, and it had just detonated in the middle of Elara's safe house.
"Elara? What's wrong? Your face…" Chloe's worried voice became distant and distorted.
Elara's vision blurred, the edges shrouded in a gray fog. She stumbled backward in agony, knocking over a rack of postcards. She could see the woman she'd never met, see her cradling an empty bassinet, and feel her endless, time-freezing grief.
The "illness" had never been this bad.
"God, it's happening again!" Chloe was terrified. Finally realizing the severity of the situation, she fumbled to shove the brooch back into her pocket and steadied the swaying Elara. "We have to go to the hospital! Now!"
An hour later, Elara sat weakly in the examination room of a private clinic. Chloe stood beside her, anxiously describing the incident to an elderly, white-haired doctor.
Dr. MacGregor put down his stethoscope, adjusted his glasses, and frowned at the report in his hand. Heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation… all normal. He had been a general practitioner for forty years and had seen all manner of strange afflictions, but Elara's case left him with a long-forgotten sense of bewilderment.
"Miss Vance," he said in a gentle but helpless Scottish accent, "physiologically speaking, you are in perfect health. I can find no evidence of any organic lesion. This presents more like… a particularly violent case of acute stress disorder."
"But she just looked at the brooch!" Chloe couldn't help but argue.
"Sometimes, a minuscule trigger is enough to cause a psychological avalanche," the doctor explained. "I recommend a systematic psychological evaluation and therapy. However…" He hesitated, as if weighing his words.
"However what?" Elara finally found her voice, though it was still faint.
Dr. MacGregor sighed and took a note pad from his drawer, writing down a name and address. "In all my years of practice, one hears… strange tales. In Edinburgh's Old Town, there is a place. Very… untraditional. It's not part of any medical system, more of a private institution for psychological research."
He pushed the note across the desk. On it was a peculiar name: "The Alchemist's Archive."
"I've never recommended it to a patient before, because it sounds too much like quackery," the doctor confessed. "But I've also heard that some patients I was helpless to treat, those suffering from hallucinations and emotional distress, found… peace there in the end. Given the unique nature of your situation, perhaps… you could try it as a last resort."
Leaving the clinic, Elara clutched the piece of paper, her heart a tangle of emotions. Even the most professional doctor couldn't explain her pain, yet he was pinning his hopes on a place that sounded like a medieval joke.
"Are you going to go?" Chloe looked at her, her eyes full of worry.
Elara looked up at the lead-gray sky. The residual, icy grief still clung to her heart like a stubborn parasite. She was done with this life of being manipulated by unknown forces. Be it science or snake oil, if it could offer her even a moment of peace, she was willing to try.
"Yes," she said, her voice quiet but firm with the finality of someone with nothing left to lose.