The morning glow in Grenoble a soft embrace on the mountains struck Giovanni harshly. It revealed much. After his encounter with Siegfried the world seemed intense, not in noise but in feeling. As he moved through the market square clutching a book to his chest like armor each interaction, around him stung his skin.
A fish seller comforting a buyer about the catch: a subtle chilly glint resembling scales on Giovanni's ankle. A traveler negotiating poorly over a scarf: a sudden sharp burn on his wrist. These were the known spirits.. Beneath them a fresh vibration buzzed. It originated from the maze. Its core—that expanding ring of grey like a cloud, on his forearm—vibrated with a subdued consciousness. It no longer merely documented falsehoods. It longed for their form.
He located the others at Ibrahim's place the flat transformed into a command center. Charts, schedules and duplicates of the documents, from the conduit were affixed to all walls. The atmosphere was intense concentrated.
Isabella glanced up from her notes her keen eyes catching every detail. "You appear worse. What did he tell you?"
Giovanni remained standing. He rested against a bookcase burdened by the scholar's statements. "He proposed a partnership. To serve as a curator of truth. A weapon."
Arthur, the healer scowled. "He intends to take advantage of your condition. See you as a spectacle not as an individual."
"It's beyond that " Giovanni murmured his tone subdued. "He called it a… transformation. He mentioned that once the maze's center fully reveals itself I will turn into a truth that will overwhelm me." He at last looked into their eyes. "The sensitivity is growing. It's more, than pain. It's a… tug. I can sense the structure of lies now their form, their heaviness."
Maria got up her instinctive sense highly unsettled. She approached him without seeking approval. Softly rolled up his sleeve. The assembly grew quiet.
The maze was unquestionably transformed. The spirals appeared deeper, more defined resembling lines sketched with India ink. At the core there was no longer a space or just a plain grey disk. Instead the surface was pulled tight and translucent resembling parchment stretched over a light. Underneath it something was shifting. It wasn't a heartbeat. A gradual swirling design, reminiscent of ink dispersing, in water constantly twisting and untwisting.
"It is stirring " Maria whispered, her hands suspended over the surface sensing the strange power emanating from it. "The hidden reality you encountered… it is not lifeless. It is a living, decaying entity, within the falsehood.. It is establishing itself within you."
An icy fear filled the space. It had ceased to be, about cracking a murder or unveiling corruption. Now it concerned a contagion.
"We have to control this " Arthur said, his analytical mind spinning. "From both magical perspectives. We must comprehend the outcome."
"The endpoint appears in Osborne's design " Isabella said, glancing back, at the maps. She indicated the district. "His 'Unified Corridor' was deceitful. Yet every falsehood serves a reason. What was his? Beyond money. Influence? Heritage? We possess the fragments. We must view the final image he was promoting."
Ibrahim, the historian rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "He assured a prototype city. A blend of Grenobles modernity and Valences heritage founded on friendly ideals. A shining example. The falsehood was that it could be realized on that contaminated land.. The vision itself… how might it have appeared? The sketches, the designs."
"Siegfried or Helena would take care of them " Jacques growled from his station near the door the guardian declaring a strategic truth.
"Helena is there nursing her injuries " Isabella remarked. "Siegfried is standing by for Giovanni to… change. He won't reveal his intentions." She snapped her fingers. "Olivia. Our social engineer. If theres a clean-cut master plan circulating within corporate or government underground networks she can get it."
Olivia Marigold provided, for a fee. Not the formal public pamphlets,. A secret digital design, from an architectural company that had been discreetly sidelined. It appeared on Ibrahim's display: a gleaming computer-created paradise. Glass skyscrapers featuring greenery gleaming tram tracks a main square named "Place of Transparency." It was stunning. Empty, yet stunning.
Giovanni gazed at it. Suddenly his arm burst out.
No pain this instance. It was a magnetic force. The spinning core of the maze reached toward the figure on the display. He shouted, clutching his forearm as the see-through skin seared. Visions, vivid, than previously overwhelmed him.
Not of the buried poison, but of the promised future.
He noticed the shining plaza—. The plants were drooping the windows streaked with a chemical film visible only to him. He observed the tram tracks—. They crossed earth that throbbed with a faint unhealthy pulse. He perceived digitally created figures—and layered atop their faces were the worried muted expressions of the inspectors the corrupted authorities, the contaminated households, from nearby villages who were excluded from the plan.
He wasn't merely observing the base of the falsehood anymore. He was witnessing the dreadful edifice of what might have been. The flawless, stunning utterly decayed future that Oliver Osborne had sought to construct.
"It's a limb " Giovanni breathed heavily averting his gaze sweat forming on his brow. "The falsehood was immense, entirely fixed in his mind… it has a specter.. That specter is… linked to me."
Maria's complexion was deathly pale. "You aren't a record of the old falsehood. You are turning into a foundation, for its destiny. Your flesh… it's attempting to reveal the design."
Arthur promptly started assessing Giovanni's signs. His pulse was rapid. His temperature was high. "This represents stress at an extraordinary intensity. Your body is responding to a reality."
"This isn't an idea!" Giovanni asserted, his composure cracking. He thrust his arm forward to them. The vortex, in the middle had taken on a small shape: an exact tiny depiction of the "Place of Transparency" square's main fountain. "It's present! It's inscribing the falsehood onto me starting from the core outward!"
Isabella gazed intently her reporter's intellect taking a jump. "The maze… it doesn't chart the offense. It charts the city. The conduit existed here " she indicated a location on the rendering that matched a coil, on his arm. "The contaminated water source would lie beneath this housing area… here." Another coil. "The center…" Her finger lingered above the structure-like spiral, on Giovanni's skin then moved to the screen. "The center is the 'Place of Transparency.' The core of the deception."
A crushing realization overwhelmed them. Giovanni was not being swallowed by emptiness. Instead he was being used as a foundation. His body was turning into the contested territory on which Oliver Osborne's deceptive utopia tried to establish itself.
"We need to take it " Giovanni declared, his tone shaking with a fresh wave of urgency. "Merely revealing it isn't enough. We must obliterate the design, from everyone's memory. We have to destroy the apparition of the falsehood."
"How can you destroy a ghost?" Jacques inquired, his mindset confronting an illogical foe.
"With a voice " Isabella declared, flame reigniting in her gaze. "We possess the documents from the conduit. We hold Moreau's statement. We carry Giovanni's… situation. We reveal everything. Not, through a news report. With an onslaught. We expose the grim core of Osborne's dream so clearly so undeniably that the elegant plan disintegrates entirely in everyone's mind."
It was a gamble. It would place Giovanni in the middle of a tempest much more severe, than mere police doubt. It meant unveiling his secret to everyone.
He gazed at the stunning image, on the display then at the grotesque striking mark it was carving into his skin. He recalled Siegfried, ready to watch the change unfold. He recalled Helena, poised to erase the irregularity.
He wasn't meant to serve as a tool for an academic. He wasn't supposed to stand as a tribute, to a deceiver. He needed to act as his wrecking crew.
"Go ahead " he declared, his tone definitive. "Reveal the truth. All the hidden scandals. Include my testimony. Let them see what his called 'vision' truly demands." He locked eyes with Isabella. "But we hold back this " he gestured at his arm. "For now. It's our option."
The strategy was arranged. Isabella was to craft the evidence into a multimedia investigation. Ibrahim and Olivia were assigned to release corroborating documents at the same time via covert routes. Arthur and Maria were tasked with controlling the mystical expansion of the labyrinth on Giovanni's body.
As everyone went off to their duties Giovanni remained near the window. The sunlight illuminated the Grenoble flawed, vibrant genuine. He leaned his forearm on the chilly glass.
The spectral city etched on his skin throbbed, demanding recognition. He shut his eyes not to conjure images but to find the book-laden stillness of his former days. That was lost. Instead there was a clamor of falsehoods and one piercing truth: he was the arena. The ultimate conflict wouldn't be waged with bullets or magic. Through narrative. They would combat deception, with honesty. And he, the living archive, would have to become the loudest page.