Julian's command hung in the dead air like a cold verdict.
The moment he finished speaking, the man named Marcus moved. His tall frame radiated an unarguable pressure as he walked directly toward Chloe, who was still clinging tightly to Elara.
"Wait!" Chloe's reaction was pure instinct. She pulled the weakened Elara more forcefully behind her, like a mother animal shielding her cub, and demanded sharply, "Who are you people? What do you mean, isolation? What interrogation? Isn't this a therapy center? What are you going to do to her?"
Her voice, sharp with terror, fired the questions like bullets. In her world, strange men in black uniforms trying to forcibly separate her from her sick friend meant one thing: kidnapping. An attack.
Marcus stopped, his face impassive. He regarded her with the kind of look one gives a hysterical child. "Ma'am, please cooperate. Your friend requires an immediate evaluation, and we need to understand how you found this location." His voice was steady but carried a procedural coldness, as if he were reciting from an operations manual.
"I'm not handing her over to you!" Chloe's panic peaked, and she tried to drag Elara backward.
But in Julian's eyes, her fierce resistance was meaningless. He didn't even glance at Chloe again. His entire attention was focused on Elara, assessing her, the way a scientist observes a novel and dangerously unstable specimen.
Elara's mind was a vortex of conflict. The sweet, life-saving silence that enveloped her stood in stark contrast to the violent emotions radiating from her friend. She could feel Chloe's fear and righteous anger, but it was like watching a blizzard rage from behind the safety of a glass window in a warm shelter. She wanted to tell Chloe not to worry, but the weakness of her body and her desperate craving for this newfound peace left her paralyzed.
For the first time in her life, she could so clearly separate her own feelings from someone else's.
Marcus wasted no more time. He moved with a speed Chloe couldn't possibly react to. One hand, strong as an iron clamp, closed precisely around Chloe's wrist. His other arm moved to securely support Elara's slipping body. His actions contained no excessive violence, only an irresistible, practiced efficiency.
"Let me go! Help!" Chloe shrieked, but her struggles were utterly futile against him.
"Chloe…" Elara finally managed to squeeze out a sound, but it was barely a whisper.
The last physical link between the two friends was broken.
"Take her to Interrogation Room Three," Julian issued his second command to Marcus, then turned his attention to Elara. His gaze remained cold, but for the first time, he spoke directly to her. "You. With me."
Elara watched as Chloe was half-forced, half-led by Marcus down a long, dark corridor. Chloe kept looking back, shouting something, but her voice was quickly swallowed by a corner. A wave of immense fear washed over Elara, but strangely, it was a clean, pure fear. It was hers, untainted by any outside emotional pollution.
She had no choice.
She obediently followed Julian, stepping into the building known as the Alchemist's Archive.
The interior was more like an ancient library or museum than she had imagined. A high, vaulted ceiling arched overhead, the black stone floors polished smooth by centuries of use. The air smelled of old paper and something clean and cool, like medicinal herbs. Most importantly, it was unbelievably quiet. It was as if the very walls of the building were designed to absorb all emotional noise.
They walked past rows of towering shelves. They weren't filled with books, but with metal boxes of various sizes, each bearing a label. Elara could sense that the same frantic, violent emotions that had broken her at the door were now silently caged within these containers, like defanged snakes.
Julian explained nothing. He led her through several corridors, finally stopping at a plain wooden door. He opened it and gestured for her to enter.
It was a small room, furnished so simply it was almost spartan. A bed, a table, a chair. The walls were made of grayish-white stone. There were no windows, only a small observation slit in the door that could be opened from the outside. It didn't feel like a patient's room. It felt like a high-class prison cell.
"You will remain here for the time being," Julian said from the doorway, showing no intention of stepping inside. "Do not attempt to leave until your danger level has been assessed."
Elara opened her mouth, a thousand questions on her tongue. What about my friend? Where am I? Who are you people?
But in the end, all her questions coalesced into the one she most desperately needed an answer to. She looked at the man who had brought her this unprecedented peace and asked weakly, "My… my illness. Did you cure it?"
Julian paused his movement to close the door. A crack seemed to appear in his cold mask, but what lay beneath wasn't sympathy. It was something she couldn't understand—a mixture of annoyance and wary vigilance. He studied her as if looking at a dangerous and completely oblivious source of trouble.
"I didn't cure anything," he corrected her coolly, each word a tiny shard of ice.
"The noise in you… has stopped for now."
With that, he gave her no chance to process or question him further.
The heavy wooden door swung shut before her, closing with a soft but decisive click. The sound of a lock sliding into place.
Elara was left alone in the absolute silence of her cell.
She slid down the cold stone wall to the floor, Julian's words echoing in her mind.
The noise in you…