Milena wasn’t like Selene. She didn’t exude control. She didn’t broadcast superiority.She just felt... detached. Not in the arrogant way. In the broken way.

"I was watching," she said. "But now you’re pushing too far. You’ve frightened the girl." Her gaze slid past Azalea, then landed on me.

It lingered there a moment too long.

I didn’t flinch, but my shoulders tightened. Something primal in me pulled back.

Selene’s eyes narrowed. "Frightened? Or awakened?"

"You blur the difference too often."

Azalea stumbled back, clutching the ring with both hands. "Who... who are you?"

Milena didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped between them—between Azalea and Selene—with a strange finality. Her presence wasn’t commanding, but absolute.

I moved closer to Azalea, my voice low. "Don’t provoke her."

Azalea trembled. "You mean she’s like him?"

"No." I kept watching Milena, reading every micro-movement. "Worse."

Selene exhaled, the barest edge of annoyance creeping in. "Very well," she said. "I’ll withdraw... for now. But you know how much I hate leaving things unfinished."

"You won’t finish this one," Milena replied quietly. "Not the way you want."

Selene stared for a beat, then turned on her heel, coat sweeping as she strode out, Mytheia still clutched in her hand like a dagger disguised as a relic.

As her footsteps faded, Milena turned back to us.

"You should rest," Milena said softly to Azalea.

Then her gaze turned to me.Direct. Still unreadable.

"And you—"

Her smile twitched.

That same awkward, stiff thing. It wasn’t warm. Wasn’t cold. It just... was. A shape she made with her face out of habit more than feeling.

"—should stop trying to classify everything. Some things existed long before categories."

I blinked, mouth half-open.

Then, right on cue, Selene exhaled with a sardonic chuckle.

"Categorization," she said, "is what allows us to even approach perfection. Structure. Pattern. Without it, you’re left with senseless entropy. With nothing but chaos."

She raised her chin slightly, tone growing ever-so-condescending—as if she were about to launch into a full-blown manifesto.

And then—Milena moved.

Not a step. Not a glare. Just a single, deliberate motion.

She raised one finger. Her index.

And pointed it up into the air.

No pressure. No spell. No force.

But it cut Selene off mid-sentence like a switch had been flipped.Her mouth simply closed. Her voice... stopped.

And she said nothing more.

My brain stuttered.What. The. Hell.

Selene Eryndell Veylith didn’t get interrupted. She talked over politicians. She bent examiners around her finger. She once made an archmage excuse himself from a debate.

And yet here she was—silent. Still. Eyes narrowed, lips tight. No retort. No smirk. Nothing.

I glanced at Azalea.

She looked just as stunned as I felt.

My thoughts surged with static. No energy signature, stiff smiling, silencing Selene with a gesture?

Who the f*ck was this random girl?

Milena, for her part, lowered her finger like nothing had happened. Her expression hadn’t changed. That stiff, doll-like smile still lingered faintly on her lips, as though she hadn’t just pulled the single most baller power move I’d ever witnessed in my life.

No flair. No drama. Just silence.

And control.

Real, terrifying control.

And somehow, the room felt heavier—not from power, but from realization.

Selene finally broke the silence.

Her voice was even. But barely.

"Kairi..." she said, not looking at me.

"Remember what I told you? About the ritual?"

My breath hitched.Vaguely, I nodded.

Selene’s lips twitched. Her voice faltered just enough to betray it—Anxiety.

"That someone would eventually come for it."

She exhaled.

"That’s it."

I froze.

My mind clicked into motion like a vault unlocking behind my eyes.

The monster Selene said she’d befriended.The "accident" in the sealed chamber.The way Arthur and Helene interrogated me after like I was a loose variable in an experiment.And now... this girl—Milena—walking in like a ghost in the machine, giving no signature, no readable essence, and silencing Selene with a finger.

I couldn’t breathe.

My spine was ice.Everything inside me recoiled, curled, screamed.

This wasn’t some rare-class Archon. This wasn’t even a mage. This was something outside the known taxonomy of beings.

A void in the shape of a person.

I stepped back, nearly stumbling. My legs weren’t listening. My hands were cold. My eyes kept flicking between Selene and Milena like I was stuck in some kind of cosmic punchline.

That’s when Azalea touched me.

Her hand slipped into mine gently—unshaking. Warm.

I flinched at first, unsure if I was still on this plane.

But she squeezed my fingers once.

"Hey," she said softly, so only I could hear, "it’s okay."

I turned toward her.

She was afraid too—I could see it in her eyes—but she was still standing. Still with me. And somehow... that made it bearable.

I let out a shaky breath. I didn’t believe her.Not really.

But I held on anyway.

Because if Milena was the thing that came for the ritual—

Then we weren’t just out of our depth.

We were in something ancient.

And Selene—Selene—was afraid.

"So," I said, my voice hoarse. "What did you say to her, Selene?"

Selene didn’t answer right away.

Her eyes were still on Milena—but they weren’t sharp or calculating like usual. No.She looked... careful. Like someone navigating a minefield she personally planted.

"I told her," Selene began, slowly, like each word required permission, "that she could come when the seal broke. That I would find someone suitable for the ritual. Someone capable of understanding her existence—without rejecting it."

She paused.

"And I told her she could decide what to do afterward."

Milena smiled again. That same inhuman, mechanical tug of the lips. As if mimicking something she read in a book titled How To Smile Like People Do.

"I appreciate that," she said lightly, like it wasn’t the most horrifying sentence anyone could utter in this moment. "But I never agreed to stay hidden forever."

My mouth felt dry.

"So you knew she’d come here," I said to Selene. "You brought her into the Academy. Into our world. Knowing she—whatever she is—could do this?"

"I didn’t bring her," Selene muttered.

"She was always going to arrive. All I did was delay it."

Her voice cracked on the last word.

Milena tilted her head toward me now, that polite, unreadable curiosity dancing in her dead-gemstone eyes.

"You’re frightened," she said, like she was surprised.

I swallowed. "No shit."

She seemed to consider that. Like she was... filing it away.

"You saw me," she added, turning her head slightly, elegant yet artificial. "With that magic of yours. The transcription. It makes sense now."

Her voice lowered by a thread.

"There’s nothing to see. That’s the point." 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

And I knew she was right.There was nothing.

No magical residue. No structure. No mana pulse.

No pattern to transcribe. No identity.She existed outside the frameworks I used to understand the world.

Like trying to draw a black hole with a pencil.

Azalea’s grip on my hand tightened.

"Selene..." she said quietly, voice thin. "You didn’t tell us the ritual would require something like this."

Selene looked down.

"No," she said. "Because if I did... you would’ve said no."