After the hospital the two were taken to a manor Marrie, Allan's mother claimed was hers was theirs. Claimed Cassodie the Asian woman's parents died she was now responsible for her.
Time passed and the manor had grown quieter.
Not the kind of quiet that soothed, but the kind that unsettled. Allan had begun to notice how silence clung to the walls, stretching between rooms like cobwebs. Even the ticking of the grandfather clock in the east hall felt intrusive, like a heartbeat that didn't belong.
Cassodie had changed too. Or maybe she hadn't. Maybe Allan was only now realizing how little she gave away. She moved through the manor like a shadow—present, but never quite part of the light. Her words were sparse, her expressions unreadable. She didn't ask questions. She didn't offer opinions. She simply existed, and somehow that made Allan feel more alone than if she weren't there at all.
And yet, he was drawn to her.
Not in the way he'd been drawn to people before. It wasn't desire. It wasn't affection. It was gravity. Like something in his bones recognized something in hers. He hated it. He needed it.
They had both passed the G.E.D. Marrie had insisted, and Esmeralda had orchestrated the entire process with her usual precision. Tutors came and went. Schedules were drawn, revised, enforced. Allan had protested at first, but Marrie's insistence was unwavering.
"You need to move forward," she had said. "You've lost enough time."
And so they studied. They tested. They passed.
Five months later, they were accepted into university.
Allan didn't know how Marrie had done it. The wealth she now wielded was baffling. He remembered growing up in a modest home, where bills were tight and dinners were quiet. Now they lived in a manor with staff, imported furniture, and a wine cellar that no one used. Marrie claimed the money had always been there—investments, inheritances, things she hadn't wanted to touch until now.
But Allan didn't believe her.
Esmeralda, the head maid, had become their reluctant guide to the modern world. She was thirty, sharp, and quietly skeptical. She taught them how to use smartphones, how to navigate social media, how to dress without looking like relics. She corrected their speech, their posture, their assumptions. But she never asked about the coma. She never asked what they remembered.
And Allan never offered.
Mostly because he was afraid of connecting with something he did not see as real non of the things felt real to him not even close to earning that simple accolade
He didn't know why he was there but It was nearly midnight when Allan found himself in the study again. The fire crackled softly, casting long shadows across the bookshelves. Cassodie sat across from him it seemed that she was always there although not responsive she followed he often wondered if she also felt that mystical attraction he felt, her posture rigid, her eyes fixed on the flames. She hadn't spoken in hours.
Allan closed his book. He hadn't read a single word.
"Cassodie," he said, voice low. "Do you feel it?"
She blinked slowly. "Feel what?"
He hesitated. "The house. It's… humming."
She tilted her head slightly, as if considering the question. "No."
Of course she didn't he was running mad at this point.
He stood and walked to the window. The garden was bathed in moonlight, still and perfect. Too perfect but it didn't really matter to him the view was paramount to all else. He pressed his palm to the glass. It was cold. Not the kind of cold that came from weather—but the kind that came from absence of reality or maybe he was the one who was detached from a reality so real.
Behind him, Cassodie shifted. "You're restless." first words in a while he had to answer.
"I'm scared," he said.
She didn't respond.
He turned to face her. "Do you ever wonder why we're here? Why We don't look a day older than when we fell? Why we were in a coma for twenty years and woke up like nothing happened?"
Cassodie's expression didn't change. "No."
Allan laughed bitterly. "Of course not."
She stood. "I'm going to bed."
But she didn't make it to the door, neither did the door last long enough to be a destination.
The room blinked.
Not the lights—reality itself. The fire vanished. The bookshelves melted. The walls stretched into a void of endless gray.
Allan stood alone.
Then came the voice.
"Name?"
He turned. A figure stood in the distance, faceless, feminine, familiar.
"Name?" it repeated a tone too fierce to confuse for negotiative
"Allan," he said.
"Wrong."
The floor dropped. He fell—through memories, through time, through himself. Weirdly this abstract falling wasn't foreign to him but neither was it familiar.
He landed in a hospital bed. Machines beeped. A nurse leaned over him, but her face was a mirror. He saw himself screaming while he felt calm too calm for the situation he wanted so badly to scream like the image on the mirror but his attention elsewhere a realm that felt like nirvana.
"Why did you wake up?" the voice asked the same one that asked for his name bolder a bit anxious.
"I don't know."
"Why do you lie?"
"I'm not—"
Pain. Not physical. Existential. His thoughts unraveled. His memories turned to ash.
He was a child again. Then a soldier. Then a monster. Then nothing.
"Who are you?"
"I don't know."
"Then you are not human."
"I am!"
"Prove it."
Time passed. Centuries. Or seconds. He wept. He screamed. He begged. He resisted.
And then—
Silence.
The void cracked.
He woke on the floor of the study, gasping. The fire had returned. The bookshelves were whole. Cassodie sat in her chair, pale and still.
He crawled toward her. "Cassodie?"
She blinked.
Alive.
But something in her eyes was gone.
She didn't speak. She didn't move.
He sat beside her, trembling.
Then he felt it.
A presence.
Not in the room—but behind it. Like someone watching through the walls.
He turned slowly.
A girl stood in the doorway.
She didn't burst in. She didn't shout. She simply stood there, as if she'd always been part of the house.
Young. Pale. Eyes like cracked glass. Her clothes were simple, but wrong—stitched in places that didn't need stitching. Her hair hung like wet thread.
She smiled.
"Well," she said, "that was dramatic." the same interrogative voice in his nightmare
Allan stared fear numbing every logical reaction his mind was screaming for his body to follow.
She walked in, hands behind her back, rocking on her heels. "You didn't break. That's rare. Most people scream themselves into puddles."
"Who are you?"
"Melody," she said brightly. "And you are… interesting."
Cassodie blinked. "You did this." she pointed at her skull limply
Melody shrugged. "Guilty. But not maliciously. Think of it as… a pop quiz."
Allan stood slowly. "Why?"
"Because I was curious," she said. "You two are strange. You don't fit. You are um different."
"I was not sent by the anyone but I would like you two to join it how about it you learn magic for free if you have the talents for it. Please join the Order or I will have to eliminate you two" Melody said.
"You weren't sent by that Order thing or whatever how and why should you belive you after what you did to me." Allan said tightly clutching at the air.
Melody grinned. "Oh, heavens no. They're so boring. All rules and robes. I freelance."
She pulled a black envelope from her coat and tossed it onto the table.
"Anyway, I like you. You're weird. You're stubborn. You're… human. Mostly you are a bit special."
"What is this?" Allan asked.
"An invitation," she said. "To something bigger. Or worse. Depends on your taste."
She turned to leave, then paused. "Three days. Or don't. I'm not your mom but I am you excursioner."
She vanished.
No sound. No footsteps. Just absence.
Allan stared at the envelope.
Cassodie stared at the fire.
Outside, the manor whispered again.
And this time, it said both their names.