"It really is good for just one person," Lucian commented as he looked around Merry's home. She rolled her eyes and laughed. "Of course. I didn't expect anyone would learn from me. There were dozens of other morticians to run after."
As she said so, however, her hands were already summoning a slightly shorter redwood tree. He watched in awe as she plucked her own Grimoire out of thin air. It looked like a magazine with a smooth leather cover, and as she thumbed through the book, it stretched.
"Yours is quiet," he observed.
Merry shook her head. "The theory is all our Grimoires are noisy, but only we can hear 'em. Mine is currently pissed off because I forgot about her again."
He recalled how his own Grimoire chattered within its pages, and grinned. "We must look insane to other people."
"We definitely do."
She carved out a room in the redwood tree and attached it to her own home. "You can't leave yet—I still have some things to teach you. Plus, the Spymaster managed to come in here. I need to know how."
That was how Lucian ended up staying in Houndsberry Hollow for a little while longer.
+
He woke up in the middle of the night with dirt under his fingernails. It wasn't fresh, and not from last night.
No, this felt older and drier, like he'd been digging in the wrong place for too long.
Alice wasn't beside him.
The sky had dimmed, though the sun was still present. Somewhere.
He stood slowly. His Grimoire hovered nearby, dim but alert.
[Current Status]
Spiritual saturation rising.
Residual threads active. Emotional imprint: unstable.
Anchor requested.
Lucian reached for his cane, the runes glowing in quiet comfort. "I'm still here," he muttered. "I'm still—"
But the words stopped.
Something had entered the garden…it walked like it belonged.
It wasn't a shadow, and unfortunately, it wasn't a ghost.
+
The trees didn't bend for it.
The dirt didn't react.
But every stone Lucian passed felt lighter, as if a weight had been lifted—no, stolen—from them.
He followed the pressure to the center grove. To a marker he didn't recognize.
And then he heard it:
"Lucian?"
A voice that wasn't real anymore.
A voice that came from the space Rosa once occupied in his memory.
+
She stood across the glade, hands clasped in front of her, expression unreadable.
She looked like Rosa.
But not exactly.
Her eyes shimmered faintly—not with tears, but with borrowed clarity. Her outline shimmered, like too many memories stacked atop one another, unable to agree.
"You left me," she said.
Lucian felt the words like roots winding into his lungs.
"You died," he said softly.
"Did I?"
She tilted her head.
"Or did I fade? Piece by piece. You wrote new rites, and I became ash. You carved memory into the soil, and I became vapor."
Lucian stepped forward, but the Grimoire opened suddenly.
Caution: Spiritual imprint exceeds anchor threshold.
This entity may not belong to one soul.
Alice appeared in the trees but did not step forward.
She knew what this was.
Lucian steadied his breath.
"You're not Rosa."
"No," the spirit said. "But I am what you couldn't carry."
"You're an echo."
"I am the name you tried to bury."
+
The grove shifted. Grave markers bloomed and broke like breath. Every guilt, every moment Lucian regretted—Rosa's voice on the mountain, Mei and Niko fading from memory, Alaric's exhaustion—they wove together into the figure.
The spirit flickered—and took his shape.
Same height. Same eyes. Same shame.
It was him. Worn down. Hollow.
"What do you want?" Lucian asked.
The echo replied:
"To be remembered. Or to be burned. Either way, I want you to stop pretending you're not afraid."
Lucian's cane pulsed faintly.
He stepped forward, slow.
"You were made by my hesitation."
"I was made by everything you didn't finish."
"Then I'll finish this."
He dropped into a ritual stance, not from memory—but from instinct.
The Grimoire flared and spun behind him.
The echo lunged.
Lucian shouted a grounding glyph and slammed the yew cane into the soil. The roots snapped awake, spiraling upward into a ward-circle.
But the echo cracked through it—fractured, but not stopped.
"You can't wall off guilt," it hissed. "You have to bury it. You have to feel it."
Lucian whispered:
"I did."
He reached into his satchel and pulled the marigold Alice had left him.
And pressed it into the center of the rite.
The glyphs changed shape.
Not warding.
Welcoming.
"You were made from me," Lucian said, "but you don't get to wear my name anymore."
The spirit flinched.
"I loved her," it said.
"So did I," Lucian replied. "That's why I let her go."
+
The soil turned black—then bloomed.
The echo screamed.
Not like pain.
Like air leaving lungs that had never exhaled.
And it began to break apart.
Not into light.
Not into ash.
But into words.
Fragments.
Memories.
"He never said goodbye—"
"I was too tired—"
"She would have lived if I hadn't—"
Each one spiraled upward, into the Grimoire's open pages.
Absorbed.
Stored.
Understood.
New entries archived.
Memory tether neutralized.
Rite stabilized.
The spirit collapsed.
And Lucian stood alone.
For real.
+
Alice came forward slowly.
She placed a hand on his chest.
"You're warm," she whispered. "You weren't, before."
Lucian laughed softly, throat tight.
"Wasn't sure I'd come back from that."
"You didn't."
A pause.
"You moved forward instead."
+
That night, he wrote a new rite—but this time, there was no fear or hesitation behind it. Merry's teachings let him remember which glyphs to use.
I'm not writing this to forget, or to seal. This one is so I remember without drowning.
He remained unaware before walking into the Hollow, but now—now he felt the weight of the spiritual tethers he helped.
It felt like collecting rocks in his stomach, and if he didn't find a way to get them out of his system, Lucian knew he would sink into despair.
Just like Alaric. And I don't want that.
The Grimoire watched him quietly.
No suggestions.
No alerts.
Only one line when he finished:
New Rite Created:
"The Unnamed Farewell"
Function: Guides incomplete grief into soil, allowing memory to compost and seed again.
Warning: May be addictive. Use only when prepared to let go.
Lucian smiled, just a little.
He wouldn't use it tonight.
Tonight, he would rest.