The Lost Library was no longer quiet.
Where once ancient tomes whispered only in dust and silence, the air now pulsed with energy—magic unspooling like threads from the tapestry of time itself. Evelyne stood in its heart, hands trembling as glowing script hovered mid-air around her. Words she hadn't spoken, scenes she'd never lived flickered before her eyes—alternate selves, alternate ends. All converging in a storm she had unwittingly unleashed.
Alaira placed a steady hand on Evelyne's back. "You're shaking."
"I feel everything," Evelyne murmured, eyes wide. "Every version of me that should've died by now. They're… bleeding through."
Anchoring had saved her—but it had tethered more than her soul. By declaring Alaira her constant, she'd pulled their fates together across unstable timelines. Now echoes—ghosts of possibilities—whispered through the walls. Some were benign. Others were not.
One appeared before them now.
A version of Alaira stepped from a shadowed archway, dressed in deep crimson and silver armor, eyes colder than the real one beside her.
"She shouldn't be here," Evelyne whispered.
The phantom Alaira tilted her head. "And yet here I am. Evelyne in my world didn't anchor to me. She ran." Her voice was hollow, venomous. "She died."
Alaira drew her blade in an instant, but the echo laughed. "What are you going to do? Cut through a memory?"
Evelyne closed her eyes and reached out with her anchor. Not physically—but metaphysically. She felt Alaira's presence, the real one, her heartbeat a steady pulse in the chaos. That steadiness banished the apparition in a blink of light.
But it left a lingering question in its wake.
"Are you afraid," Evelyne asked softly, "that I chose you not because I trust you, but because I was desperate?"
Alaira lowered her sword. Her silence was heavy.
"I'm not," she finally said. "But I wonder what that desperation will cost you. Or me."
They moved deeper into the Library. The map Chron had given her had altered—rooms shifting, corridors warping. The building was no longer just a repository of knowledge. It had become a reflection of Evelyne's splintering soul. Every book she touched showed a different life: Evelyne as tyrant, as martyr, as forgotten.
A thick tome cracked open on its own.
Inside: a vision of the future.
She saw herself standing in a throne room of glass, her crown broken, her face unreadable. At her feet: a battlefield soaked in magic. The world had fractured. And behind her, Alaira... holding a blade.
Not at her side. But at her back. Like a choice yet to be made.
Evelyne flinched and snapped the book shut.
"That's not our future," Alaira said quickly, stepping closer. "That's a future."
"But every version of me seems to die," Evelyne replied. "Why does this world want me gone so badly?"
"Because you weren't meant to change it."
The voice came from a new figure—a young man in scholar's robes, his eyes star-bright and unblinking. His presence exuded eerie calm.
"Who are you?" Alaira asked.
"I'm Echo," he said. "One of the custodians. The Library let me through because your presence has rewritten enough threads that the guardians are… curious."
"Curious?" Evelyne asked.
"You broke the loop. This world is built on repeating cycles, Evelyne. Villainess rises, villainess falls. It creates stability. You—anchored to another soul—are not part of the system anymore. You are a paradox."
Alaira instinctively stepped between him and Evelyne. "And paradoxes get… deleted?"
"Not always." Echo smiled faintly. "Sometimes, they become catalysts."
He handed Evelyne a scroll bound in red thread. "You're not done rewriting. But be warned—each truth you uncover here will come at a cost. One of memory. One of love."
Evelyne didn't hesitate. She took the scroll.
When they unsealed it later, safely away from Echo's haunting gaze, the message inside wasn't a warning. It was a map. Not of space, but of time—specifically, the moments she'd influenced and their ripple effects. Cities she'd never visited now bore her name. People who should have died now lived. Others… had vanished.
"I didn't mean to…" Evelyne whispered.
"I know," Alaira said. She touched Evelyne's hand. "But we can't stop now."
From deep within the Library, the foundations trembled again—this time not with memory, but with something approaching them. Something ancient, aware of Evelyne's rewriting of fate.
The door to the next chapter creaked open.
They stepped through—together.