The world began to fray at the edges.
Elya stood staring into the mouth of that dark alley, his heart hammering against his ribs, but the gold in his eyes was flickering like a dying candle. The voice—that familiar, impossible voice—echoed in his mind, but as he stepped forward to demand a face, the grey dawn suddenly turned to pitch. The sounds of the moving crowd and the lapping waves muffled into a low, underwater hum.
The last thing he felt was the grit of the sand as his knees gave out.
Before his head could hit the stone, a blur of motion swept through the street. Ban caught him mid-fall, hooking an arm under Elya's shoulder.
"Time to go," Ban muttered, his face grim.
He didn't look at the alley or the villagers. He caught Lin and Alexia's eyes, gave a sharp nod to Nana, and then the air itself seemed to buckle. There was no sound of footsteps, no trail of dust—just a sudden, violent displacement of Arcanum. In the blink of an eye, the ruins of Fishman Island were gone, replaced by the sterile, quiet scent of the Ghost Corporation's Castle.
They appeared in the center of the living room, the sudden shift in pressure rattling the windows. Ban didn't waste a second, carrying Elya's limp form down the hall and laying him across the bed in the primary suite.
In the living room, Mira froze.
She had been pacing, her hands trembling, sensing the distant tremors of the night's end. But the sudden surge of Arcanum—Ban's golden heat, the sharp tang of Alexia's temporal residue, and the fading, cold ember of Elya's—hit her like a physical blow.
She sprinted down the hallway, her breath hitching in her throat. She burst into the room just as Ban was pulling a blanket over Elya's blood-stained coat.
"Elya!"
The name broke in the air. Mira was at the bedside in an instant, her hands hovering over his pale face, afraid to touch him and find him cold. Her eyes were wide, brimming with a desperate, crushing sadness. "What happened? Ban, why isn't he waking up? Is he—is he..."
"He's exhausted, Mira," Ban said, his voice unusually soft as he moved her gently aside to check Elya's pulse. "He pushed past the limit. And then he pushed again."
Mira sank into the chair by the bed, clutching Elya's limp hand against her cheek, her shoulders shaking. The "Ghost" the world feared was gone; in this room, he was just a boy who looked far too small for the war he was fighting.
Nana stood in the doorway, watching the scene.
She stayed in the shadows of the hall, her eyes moving from Mira's tears to the way Ban handled his friend with practiced, brotherly care. She thought of the legends she had been raised on—the stories of the witches as a pack of heartless, soulless beings who wanted to see the world burn.
They are not as bad as the legends say, she thought. They're just... broken.
The realization felt like treason. She turned to walk away, her boots silent on the carpet, but she didn't get five steps before a hand caught her shoulder.
"Not so fast," Ban said. He had stepped out of the room, leaving Alexia and Lin to watch over Mira and Elya. His face was tired, his golden hair matted with soot and blood, but his eyes were sharp. "Follow me."
He led her into a small, mahogany-lined study. The room smelled of old paper and tobacco. He pointed to a chair. "Sit."
Nana sat, her back straight, her ruined white dress a sharp contrast to the dark leather of the chair.
Ban reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a heavy, black telephone. He slid it across the desk until it bumped against her hands. Then, he sat opposite her and pulled a first-aid kit onto the table.
"Call him," Ban said, his voice flat as he began to unwrap a bandage to tend to the deep gashes on his own arms.
Nana looked at the phone, then at Ban. "My father?"
"King Ashveil," Ban corrected, his eyes meeting hers through the steam of the antiseptic he was opening. "Tell him his son-in-law is hanging from a house in the outer district. Tell him the Ghost is alive. And tell him we need to talk."
He didn't wait for her answer. He simply started cleaning his wounds, the silence in the room heavy with the weight of the war that was only just beginning.
Nana looked at the heavy device, her fingers trembling. It wasn't the sleek Arcanum-links used by the military; it was a heavy, iron-clad rotary telephone. She reached for the dial, the mechanical whirr-click of the returning wheel sounding like a countdown in the quiet room.
Six... Two... Nine...
She finished the sequence and pressed the receiver to her ear. It crackled with static, the long-distance line struggling to bridge the gap between the safe house and the capital.
"Hello?" Nana's voice was small.
On the other end, a sharp gasp followed by a clatter. "Princess? Is that... Guards! Inform the King! Princess Nana is on the line!" The servant's voice was hysterical with relief, shouting for the King.
A moment later, the line thudded as if the handset had been snatched away.
"Nana? Nana, answer me!" King Ashveil's voice boomed through the receiver, stripped of its royal composure. "How are you? Where are you? Are you hurt? If they've touched a hair on your head, I will level every island in the sector—"
Ban didn't let him finish. He reached across the desk with a blood-smeared hand and snatched the telephone away from Nana.
"Nice reunion, King, but we aren't here for the waterworks," Ban said. He leaned back in the leather chair, crossing his boots on the desk, looking entirely too relaxed for a man covered in his own blood.
"Who is this?" Ashveil's voice turned to molten lead. "Where is Vaelcrest?"
"Let me cut to the chase," Ban ignored the question, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "You've heard of the term barter trade, right? A life for a life. A prize for a prize."
"What do you want?" Ashveil hissed.
"That's more like it. Straight to the point." Ban's grin didn't reach his eyes. "Go find the Gem of SFERA. Bring it to the designated coordinates, and you get your daughter back in one piece."
Silence.
Then, a roar of pure fury erupted from the speaker so loud Nana could hear it from where she sat.
"Are you insane?!" Ashveil yelled. "That is impossible! SFERA is a death trap—no one returns from that region. How do you expect me to pull a relic from a place that dangerous?"
Ban let the King's rage echo through the room for a second before responding. He picked up a pair of tweezers from his first-aid kit and began plucking a shard of stone from his forearm without flinching.
"You humans always had a term for this," Ban said, his voice dropping to a cold, mocking silk. "'Everything is fair in war and love.' Am I right?"
"I will kill you myself," the King whispered. "I will hunt you to the ends of the earth."
"Do what you want. But if you want the Princess, bring the Gem. And one more thing..." Ban looked at Nana, then back to the phone. "Your future son-in-law?He's currently hugging thin air helplessly on Fishman Island. By the time your scouts find him, the villagers will likely have finished what the Ghost started."
Ban slammed the receiver back onto the hook, cutting off the King's scream.
The silence that followed was deafening. Nana stared at the black phone, her face ghostly pale. Ban didn't look at her; he just went back to his wounds, the sharp scent of antiseptic filling the room.
"He'll do it," Ban said to the quiet room. "Because a King without an heir is just a man waiting to be forgotten."