Chapter 457: Episode 455: There has to be a way.

The next two weeks dragged by in an agonizing, sterile blur of white walls, tasteless cafeteria food, and the relentless, indifferent ticking of the wall clock.

Roxy’s body, resilient and stubborn, slowly knit itself back together. The heavy bleeding stopped, the agonizing cramps dulled into a manageable ache, and her legs finally regained the strength to support her weight.

The doctors proudly declared her physical recovery a success. They unhooked her from the IVs, handed her a stack of discharge papers, and offered her tight, pitying smiles.

But mentally, Roxy was nothing more than a ghost haunting her own flesh.

She walked down to the billing department on the first floor. She stood at the linoleum counter, completely numb, and handed over her bank card. The massive, crippling sum of a two-week terrestrial hospital stay completely drained her savings, but she didn’t care.

Money meant absolutely nothing.

In the Beastworld, Torian would have casually wagered an entire mountain of gold just to see her smile. Here, she was just another transaction.

The automatic sliding doors hissed open, and Roxy was finally discharged into the bustling, indifferent city.

The sensory overload of Earth immediately assaulted her. The air tasted like car exhaust and damp concrete. Horns blared from the gridlocked streets, and hundreds of commuters rushed past her on the sidewalk, their eyes glued to their phones, completely unaware that a Queen was walking among them.

She wrapped her thin coat tighter around her shoulders, shivering in the mild autumn wind.

She had promised the doctors she would go straight to her apartment. She had promised to rest, to drink fluids, and to seek counseling.

But the absolute first place her feet carried her was back to the towering stone columns of the downtown public library.

The desperation was a living, breathing thing inside her chest. It was eating her alive, gnawing at her ribs every single time she closed her eyes and saw her newborn daughter’s face. She could not rest. If she stopped moving, the suffocating reality of her permanent exile would completely crush her.

Roxy pushed through the heavy glass doors, bypassing the reading rooms and walking directly toward the main circulation desk.

The head librarian, an older woman with sharp spectacles and a perfectly pinned bun, looked up from her computer monitor. Her polite, customer-service smile instantly faltered as Roxy approached.

Roxy looked wild. Her dark curls were a messy, unbrushed halo around her pale face. Dark, bruised circles framed her brilliant green eyes, which were darting frantically around the room. She looked exactly like a woman entirely consumed by madness.

Roxy slapped her hands flat onto the wooden desk, leaning forward.

"Excuse me," Roxy said, her voice trembling, hoarse from disuse. "I need help finding a specific record. It might be cataloged under ancient mythology, theoretical dimensional physics, or obscure historical anomalies."

The librarian adjusted her glasses, leaning slightly backward in her chair. "Alright. What is the subject you are researching, miss?"

Roxy swallowed hard, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"The Beastworld," Roxy breathed, staring directly into the librarian’s eyes. "I need to know if there is any historical or mythological record of a place called the Beastworld. A continent ruled by shifter Warlords. Dragons, massive felines, elemental magic. A dimensional plane that intersects with Earth."

The librarian stared at her for a long, heavy moment. The confusion on the older woman’s face slowly morphed into deep, uncomfortable alarm.

"I... I am sorry, miss," the librarian stammered, glancing nervously toward the security desk near the entrance. "This is a non-fiction reference desk. If you are looking for fantasy novels, the young adult section is on the second floor."

"It is not a fantasy!" Roxy slammed her hand against the desk again, the sudden, violent noise echoing loudly across the quiet lobby. Several patrons looked up from their books.

"Miss, please lower your voice," the librarian warned, her tone growing sharp.

"You don’t understand," Roxy pleaded, the desperation completely overriding her dignity. Tears instantly sprang to her eyes, spilling hot and fast down her pale cheeks. "It is real. I was there. I need access to the restricted archives. There has to be a map, a theory, a recorded rift in the tectonic plates—something! Please, you have to let me look at the restricted texts!"

"I am going to have to ask you to step away from the desk," the librarian said firmly, her hand reaching beneath the counter.

"Please!" Roxy cried, the tears completely blinding her as she leaned over the wood, her voice cracking with pure, agonizing heartbreak. "My family is there! My Kings are looking for me! I left my baby! I just need to find the door!"

The librarian didn’t answer. She picked up the phone.

Within seconds, the heavy, thudding footsteps of two large security guards echoed across the marble floor.

"Ma’am, you need to come with us," a gruff voice demanded.

Roxy felt large, heavy hands grab her upper arms. The touch was entirely wrong. It wasn’t Kaelen’s protective grip or Zarek’s blistering, possessive warmth. It was rough, clinical, and completely unforgiving.

"No! Let me go!" Roxy shrieked, struggling weakly against their grip. Her physically depleted body had absolutely no strength to fight off two grown men. Her feet dragged across the polished marble as they pulled her backward toward the exit. "I just need to look! There has to be a record!"

"Keep moving," the guard grunted, hauling her through the lobby.

The patrons stared at her with a mixture of shock and pity. To them, she was just another tragic, unhinged vagrant having a psychotic break in a public building. To Roxy, she was a Matriarch being forcibly dragged away from the only sliver of hope she had left.

They hauled her through the front vestibule and violently shoved her out the front doors.

Roxy stumbled, her weak knees buckling as she was thrown roughly onto the cold, hard concrete steps of the library.

"Do not come back here," the security guard ordered harshly. "You are permanently banned from this building. If we see you on the premises again, we will call the police."

The heavy glass doors slammed shut. The locking mechanism clicked loudly into place.

Roxy lay on the harsh concrete, her palms scraped and stinging from the fall. She stared at the locked doors, the finality of the sound echoing in her hollow chest. The library was gone. The research was gone. There was no secret archive. There was no magical backdoor.

As if the universe had decided she had not suffered enough, the sky above the city suddenly cracked open with a loud peal of thunder.

It started to rain.

It was not a gentle autumn shower. It was a heavy, freezing, and utterly relentless downpour. The icy drops pelted against her skin like tiny stones, instantly soaking through her thin coat and chilling her completely to the bone.

Roxy didn’t even try to get up.

She lacked the physical strength to push herself off the concrete, and she entirely lacked the emotional strength to care. The fire that had driven her for the past two weeks completely burned out, extinguished by the freezing rain and the crushing, absolute realization that she was permanently trapped.

She pulled her knees tightly to her chest right there on the middle of the library steps. She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking violently as she sobbed.

She cried for Zarek. She cried for Torian, Syris, Kaelen, and Caspian. She cried for Drax, Tanith, Iris, Axel, Onyx, Zale, Tyara, and Fedor. She cried for the beautiful newborn daughter she would never get to name. She let the freezing rain wash over her, entirely surrendering to the void. She was broken. It was over.

But then, the deafening sound of the rain hitting the concrete steps continued all around her, but the freezing water suddenly stopped hitting her head.

The icy assault on her back and shoulders ceased. A heavy, dark shadow fell over her shivering form, entirely blocking out the gray, weeping sky.

Roxy’s breath hitched. She kept her face buried in her hands for a long moment, completely afraid that her fractured mind was finally playing tricks on her.

Slowly, with her entire body trembling from the cold and the exhaustion, Roxy pulled her hands away from her face.

Directly above her, shielding her entirely from the violent storm, was a sleek, perfectly pristine black umbrella.

Roxy slowly raised her tear-streaked, devastated face to look at whoever was holding it.