Eloise's laboratory lay three levels beneath Saint Astra Polytechnic, its official plaque declaring it the Special Materials Stress Testing Room. The true entrance, however, hid behind a bank of storage lockers. It had taken her a full week to crack the Academy's security protocols and carve out this clandestine sanctum for herself.
The chamber measured scarcely ten square meters. Its walls were layered with soundproofing and soul-energy shielding. Upon the workbench rested an unfinished prototype of a mechanical arm-guard; gears, copper wire, and luminous runes lay scattered like the bones of some half-born automaton. In the corner, shelves held dozens of glass jars filled with preserved biological samples—classified in official records as biomimetic materials research.
She locked the door, removed the Card of Light from her pack, and placed it beneath the scanner.
The instrument hummed. A holographic projection bloomed into the air and began its slow rotation. Eloise magnified the architectural details: Gothic spires carved with entwined human and mechanical figures; windows shaped like staring eyes; and upon the lintel, a line of Latin:
"Miracula belong to those who dare to behold."
"The Collector," she murmured, opening the Academy's architectural archive.Search query: Old Harbor District, Black Brick Alley No. 13.
The result appeared:
Museum of World Wonders. Built 1847. Founder: Sebastian Mohl.Sealed in 1899 for violation of the Supernatural Artifacts Control Act.Property status: Asset under Royal Society of Thaumatology supervision.Current state: Permanently closed.
Below was a photograph of Sebastian Mohl: a man of about forty, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes, dressed in Victorian black formalwear, one hand resting upon a ruby-topped cane.
Caption: Naturalist, collector, suspected practitioner of black magic. Disappeared in 1899. Presumed deceased.
Eloise enlarged the image. Mohl's eyes shone unnaturally bright—not with reflected light, but with something inward. She fed the image into her soul-energy analysis program and adjusted the spectral filters.
In the background, within a glass display case behind him, faint floating orbs became visible. Inside each orb writhed a tiny, distorted human form.
Imprisoned spirits.
Her pocket watch began to vibrate again. This time not in alarm, but in rhythmic pulses—like a heartbeat.
She drew it out. It was her grandmother's relic: a worn silver case engraved with roses and gears.
When she opened it, there were no clockworks inside.
Instead, a deep crimson gem floated at its center, slowly revolving, radiating gentle warmth. Around it orbited twelve miniature runes, each representing a distinct temporal function.
Her grandmother had never explained it. Only once had she said, "When the moment arrives, it will guide you."
Now the gem's rotation accelerated. Its crimson glow pulsed in harmony with the watch's trembling. Eloise brought it close to the Card of Light.
A hair-thin beam of red radiance shot forth and pierced the card.
The hologram shattered—then reassembled into moving imagery.
A dark chamber: walls of glass, beyond which hovered preserved spirit specimens. At the center, upon a dissection table, lay a young girl—golden-haired, dressed in a Victorian maid's uniform. Three crystal conduits pierced her chest, connected to a complex brass apparatus.
Her eyes were open, filled with agony. Her lips moved.
Eloise increased the volume.
"…starlight… torn apart… lies of the court…""…save me… Eleanor… sister…"
The image shifted.
The same room, much later. The table was empty. The machine lay smashed. Crystal shards and dried dark fluid littered the floor. Upon the wall, written in glowing substance:
"The true wonder is not collection, but understanding."
The vision vanished.The Card of Light burned into silver ash and drifted away.
Eloise stood rigid, breath ragged.
That girl—was Viretta. Or a fragment of her.
The gem in the watch returned to its steady orbit. Yet within its core, a new rune was forming: a tangled symbol like interwoven branches. She had never seen it before, yet knew its meaning at once.
"Covenant."
At sunset, she returned to the apartment.
Zoe was waiting at the door, backpack bulging, tablet and sensors in hand.
"Data logger, thermal camera, soul-wave detector, and a first-aid kit," Zoe announced. "I also hacked the municipal energy grid. If this place spikes, I'll know instantly."
They entered.
Viretta sat in a high-backed chair by the fireplace—this time a real chair, dragged from some unseen room. She was "reading" a book made entirely of light.
"Brought a friend?" she said without looking up.
"Zoe Chen. Computer science."
"Welcome." Viretta turned a luminous page. "Sit. Lesson one is simple: stop resisting your spirit-sight."
"If I don't suppress it, I'll drown in information—"
"That is because you use your brain to see," Viretta said, lifting her gaze, starlight circling her eyes. "Spirit-sight is not vision. It is perception. You must not look. You must feel. Close your eyes."
Eloise hesitated, then obeyed.
Darkness.Then silver points emerged like stars at dusk. She perceived the room—not by light, but by the distribution of soul-energy: the ancient sigil beneath the carpet, the fae runes in the walls, the glowing embers of power in the hearth.
Viretta appeared as a dense lattice of silver threads, hollow at the core, devouring surrounding energy. Black runes bound the void like chains.
In the corner, Clara shimmered as a fragile sphere, fissured with dark cracks that leaked faint soul-light like a slow wound.
"Do not think about what you perceive," Viretta's voice came from afar. "Feel their frequencies. Every spirit, every rune, every memory vibrates uniquely. Find your own frequency… and resonate."
Eloise released conscious analysis. Chaos assaulted her—overlapping vibrations, dissonant and blinding.
Then she found it.
Like a melody emerging from noise: her own soul-field, stable and ordered, centered on the warm pulse of the watch. She focused upon it, letting all else fade into background hum.
The world fell silent.
She now perceived structure: the missing segments in Viretta's matrix, the slow siphoning of Clara's leaking essence into the wall sigils, the living evolution of the fae runes—like vines growing.
"Well done," Viretta said. "Now open your eyes. Keep the frequency."
Eloise did.
Matter and spirit overlapped without chaos. Fire burned with both flame and soul-embers. Viretta was chair and silver lattice at once.
"This…" she whispered.
"This is how a Seer should exist," Viretta replied, closing her light-book into stardust. "Suppression sigils are crutches. They help you walk, but you will never run. Now, you can run."
Zoe stared at her instruments. "The soul-energy field is reorganizing… Eloise, your signature changed. It's more stable. More… harmonious."
"Lesson two," Viretta said, rising. "Every spirit has a true name—not a given name, but the core vibration of its being. Know it, and you may understand it. Even influence it."
She touched Eloise's forehead. A torrent of impressions flowed in:
Song of starlight… broken wings… memory imprisoned in stone… a wanderer longing for home…
"This is a fragment of my true name," Viretta said. "Enough for you to know what I am."
Eloise understood: Viretta was not hunger, but absence. Something had been stolen—memory, power, belonging—and hunger was its shadow.
"You want me to recover your true name," Eloise said.
"Yes. In return, I will teach you more: how to read magic, speak with shadow-beings, and survive." Her voice hardened. "Your suppression sigils will last no more than two months. Then you master your gift—or it devours you."
Eloise told them of the watch and the vision.
Viretta turned away, frost in her tone. "Sebastian Mohl lives. Or what he made does."
"He trapped you?"
"Three centuries ago, I was an envoy of the Faerie Court. Betrayed—not by humans, but by my own kin. They allied with Mohl and divided me, sealing my fragments." She gestured to the walls. "These runes are not punishment. They are barriers—to keep me from myself."
"The girl…"
"My Starlight Core. The part of me that held hope and union."
"Museum of World Wonders," Eloise said.
"My laboratory and his gallery," Viretta replied. "He seeks you because you are of the Sterling line—attuned to time magic. You would be his assistant… or his next exhibit."
"I won't go."
"You must. Your watch—the Time Anchor—can touch corrupted relics safely."
Zoe raised her tablet. "Three students dropped out this week. All visited the Old Harbor District."
"They are being selected," Eloise whispered.
"Collected," Viretta finished.
Silence fell.
"We need a plan," Eloise said. "Zoe, can you get the blueprints?"
"Already downloading. But someone maintains the place. A private foundation." She paused. "Registered owner: Sebastian Mohl."
Eloise and Viretta exchanged a look.
"He is waiting," Viretta said.
That night, alone, Eloise examined the cracked suppression rune. It was breaking—yet healing, evolving.
She wrote in her journal:
Day One: Temporary alliance with astral entity Viretta.Facts:
Sterling bloodline attuned to time magic.
Suppression sigils fail in two months.
Sebastian Mohl holds missing fragment of Viretta.
At least four Seer students marked; three missing.**
Objectives:Learn control. Investigate museum. Find the missing. Understand the watch.
Outside, rain blurred the city lights.Her watch trembled. The new rune—Covenant—slowly turned.
"All right," she whispered. "We begin."
Far away, in Black Brick Alley No. 13, the spire of the Museum of World Wonders stood silent in rain. A single window glimmered like a waiting eye.
The Collector was waiting.And the gift was already on its way.