Chapter 86: The Pearl Beneath Still Waters
{ZEPHYROS}
Days before.
"What’s she doing?"
The words left me in a mutter as I hovered near the chandelier, translucent fingers folded behind my back.
From above, the library unfolded like a living organism—rows upon rows of towering shelves, shadows pooling between them, candlelight flickering like wary eyes.
No one noticed me.
They never did.
But I noticed everything.
The quiet rustle of pages. The way the air shifted when someone trespassed where they shouldn’t. The subtle hum of wards responding to curiosity or fear.
Including her.
Iris
I watched as she slipped into the forbidden section, her steps hesitant but determined, hands clutching a tome she had no right to touch.
The wards whispered, recognizing her presence, trembling at the edge of activation.
Usually, no student would dare.
They knew better.
They all knew what would happen the moment they crossed that threshold—how the air would turn cold, how dread would coil around their spine, how something unseen would breathe down their neck until terror drove them back into obedience.
I made sure of it.
No one trespassed because no one forgot the consequences.
"Didn’t she learn her lesson the first time she was here?" I muttered, drifting closer, irritation curling through my voice like smoke.
The first time, she had fled in tears.
The second, pale and shaking.
This time... she didn’t run.
As a ghost bound by arcane law and centuries of ritual, invisibility was a choice, not a limitation. I could manifest when I wished, vanish when it suited me.
Telekinesis hummed at my disposal like an extension of thought itself.
I intended to warn her.
To send a chill through the shelves, scatter a few books, remind her that this place did not welcome the desperate.
But then I saw her face.
Her hands trembled as she stared down at the tome, fingers white-knuckled around its spine. Her lips moved silently as she read, eyes darting across the page with a hunger that had nothing to do with ambition.
Desperation.
The kind that hollowed a person out.
"With this..." she whispered, voice fragile yet stubborn, "...I think I could manifest my arcane."
Ah.
So that was it.
She couldn’t manifest.
The realization struck with unexpected weight.
She did told me that before.
In an academy where magic was as fundamental as breath, being arcane-less was a quiet cruelty—a sentence passed without ceremony.
She must have been drowning in whispers, in sideways glances, in the thinly veiled pity of instructors who had already written her off.
I hovered there, unseen, watching her shoulders tighten as if bracing against an invisible storm.
She must be having a hard time at school because of it, I thought.
I didn’t know why the thought lingered.
I should have intervened. I should have driven her away like I always did. That book wouldn’t help her—would never help her.
Its promises were hollow, its rituals flawed, written by someone who had misunderstood the nature of arcane manifestation entirely.
And yet...
I let her go.
I watched as she slipped away with the tome, the wards sighing as she passed, unsettled but untriggered.
A mistake.
Perhaps.
But being the guardian of the library for many years—far more than any mortal lifespan—I knew exactly what she needed.
I had read every tome in this accursed place. Every failed theory. Every forbidden ritual. Every footnote scribbled by desperate scholars who had reached too far and paid the price.
I almost knew alchemy by heart from how many years I was here on earth.
Brewing that potion wouldn’t be hard.
The problem... was the main ingredient.
I drifted back, folding my arms, my gaze following the horizon outside.
I thought to myself, then nodded slowly.
"Right," I murmured. "That monster has what could help me."
I did not bother announcing myself when I arrived at the reception of the library.
One moment, the air beyond the shelves trembled; the next, I was already there—boots touching down upon cold marble as if gravity itself had remembered me at the last second.
The staff woman behind the counter shrieked before she could stop herself.
I chuckled though my face remained lethargic.
Considering how rarely I showed my face in this place, her reaction was understandable. Encouraging, even.
Several students glanced up from their desks. Their curiosity lasted only a breath. The instant recognition struck, chairs scraped harshly against the floor as they fled, whispering frantically to one another as though my presence alone was dangerous.
I had long since grown accustomed to it.
"Hey. You."
The words left my mouth without ceremony. I stared at the trembling old librarian, trying—and failing—to recall her name. It hardly mattered.
"M-me?" she stammered, pointing at her own chest as though there were any doubt.
"Yes. You." I folded my arms. "Guard the library for two days. I’ll be away."
"H-huh?"
I didn’t wait for permission, explanation, or protest. The air warped around me as I vanished.
"W-wait! Sir Zephyros!"
Her voice chased me for half a second before it was swallowed by distance.
I reappeared above the lake.
The water below was still, unnaturally so, its surface dark as polished obsidian. Sirene would be restrained deep beneath it—sealed for her near-fatal attack on Iris.
That alone made this the perfect time to descend.
Without hesitation, I let myself fall.
The world inverted as I slipped through the surface without a ripple, the water parting around me as though reluctant but obedient.
Pressure closed in, the light dimming rapidly, until I reappeared far below—inside the lake’s depths, where silence ruled like a living thing.
A cavern opened before me.
There she was.
Sirene slept at the cavern’s heart, suspended as if cradled by the water itself. Strange markings glowed faintly across her pale skin—sigils of restraint etched into flesh and soul alike.
A punishment meant to bind her power and remind her of her transgression.
Perfect.
I moved quietly, circling behind her.
Ordinarily, Sirene would never allow anyone to enter this place. Not even me.
Pearls lay scattered across the cavern floor—dozens of them, luminous and translucent, each formed from her tears.
But her tears were no ordinary sorrow, they were magical.
