The archmage rolled his shoulders, and the last traces of the wound vanished beneath. No blood. No scar. Just smooth, unmarked skin that had never been touched by anything sharper than silk.

"That ended faster than I would have liked," he admitted. "I wanted to see how three demons would have fared against me."

"You’re the one who agreed to give us preparation time," I replied. "That’s your fault."

"I suppose. But I do have to say..."

The archmage turned to look at Evelina, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his ancient features. Then he let out a small, almost admiring chuckle.

"That woman’s imagination is certainly something. To think she’d be able to fluster the mind of a centuries-old mage."

"Thank Cael for corrupting my mind with those thoughts," Evelina replied, her voice dry.

The archmage’s chuckle deepened into something richer, almost warm.

"Corrupted," he repeated, rolling the word around like a stone worn smooth by a river. "An interesting choice of words. I would have said ’expanded.’ But perhaps that’s the same thing, in the end."

He turned away from us, walking toward the shattered remnants of what had once been a bookshelf. Kevin still lay among the wreckage, Vivianne’s wind barrier flickering protectively around him, though the archmage made no move to approach.

"Your friend will be fine," he said without looking back. "I was careful. More careful than I needed to be."

"You were careful?" Vivianne’s voice was sharp with disbelief. "You threw him through a bookshelf."

"A bookshelf I created specifically to catch him." The archmage glanced over his shoulder, one pale eyebrow raised. "Did you think I just conjured random furniture? The shelf was padded. Magically. He’ll have bruises, nothing more."

Kevin groaned from the wreckage, pushing himself up on trembling arms. His face was pale, but his eyes were focused, tracking the archmage’s movements with the wariness of someone who’d learned not to trust anything in this place.

"See?" The archmage spread his hands. "Perfectly fine."

"You have a strange definition of ’fine,’" Kevin muttered. "And why did you even bother to catch me with a bookshelf?"

"That’s a story for another day, child."

I took a step forward, and the hydra’s minds stirred in response, sluggish but present. The burning sensation had faded to a dull ache, manageable now that the spell circle had crumbled and the compressed beam was gone.

"You said we passed," I said. "What does that mean?"

The archmage turned to face us fully, his royal cloak settling around his shoulders like folded wings. The torches along the walls had begun to brighten again, their flames rising from embers to steady gold.

"It means," he said, "that you’ve earned the right to claim what you came for."

"The reward," Vivianne said.

"Among other things."

He snapped his fingers.

The chamber shifted.

Not the gradual, creeping change of before, not the subtle reconfiguration that had led us from forest to garden to throne room. This was instant, like someone had flipped a page in a book and revealed an entirely new illustration.

We stood in a circular hall, smaller than the others, more intimate. The walls were lined with books, but these weren’t the chained, glass-cased volumes from before. These were free, their spines unmarked, their pages uncut. Waiting.

At the center of the hall, four pedestals stood in a ring. Each one held something different.

"Don’t be disappointed that you don’t get to choose your own treasure. These are from my personal inventory, far better than the treasure you would’ve received from the original trial."

"What made you so generous?" I asked.

"Entertainment. Did I really need to repeat myself?"

"It doesn’t hurt to confirm. Information is important, after all."

The archmage’s smile widened, and for a moment, he looked almost boyish. Almost human.

"Information," he repeated, savoring the word. "You sound like me, centuries ago. Back when I still thought knowledge would fill the empty spaces."

"Did it?"

"No." He turned to face the four pedestals, his cloak settling around him like a second skin. "But it made the emptiness more interesting."

The objects on the pedestals seemed to glow faintly in the torchlight, each one radiating a different kind of energy. Power, certainly. But something else too. The weight of centuries pressed into physical form.

Kevin had climbed out of the shattered bookshelf, Vivianne’s wind barrier dissipating now that the immediate danger had passed. He moved stiffly, favoring his left side, but his eyes were fixed on the pedestals with an intensity that burned through the exhaustion.

Vivianne stood close to him, supporting and helping him walk. Her wind magic still flickered at her fingertips, reluctant to fully retreat.

Evelina had recovered her composure, her white hair smooth, her crimson eyes clear. The succubus’s glow had faded to a faint pulse at her throat, barely visible.

"Go on," the archmage said, gesturing toward the pedestals. "They won’t bite. Well, most of them won’t."

"Most?" Vivianne’s eyebrow twitched.

"The silver one might. It’s temperamental."

He was joking. I was fairly certain he was joking.

The four pedestals stood in a loose circle, each one carved from a different material. Stone, wood, obsidian, and what looked like bone. The objects resting on them were equally distinct.

On the stone pedestal: a ring. Simple, unadorned, made of what looked like grey iron. But the longer I stared at it, the more it seemed to shift, patterns emerging from the metal’s surface only to fade before I could identify them.

On the wooden pedestal: a dagger. Curved, single-edged, its handle wrapped in dark leather. No jewels, no inscriptions, nothing to mark it as special beyond the way it seemed to drink the light around it.

On the obsidian pedestal: a key. Long and thin, with a head shaped like a crescent moon. It glowed faintly from within, a soft silver light that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.

On the bone pedestal: a book. Smaller than the others, bound in what looked like pale leather. Its cover was blank, its pages uncut, but I could feel something emanating from it. A whisper. A memory. A name I almost recognized.

"The ring," the archmage said, pointing with his cane, "belonged to the first mage who ever managed to hurt me. Not kill, obviously. But hurt. I kept it as a souvenir. It allows the wearer to bypass any magical barrier, provided they have enough strength to push through."

"The dagger," he continued, moving his cane to the wooden pedestal, "was forged from a tooth of a lich. It kills anything it cuts. Anything. No exceptions."

"And the key?" Evelina asked.

"The key opens any lock. Physical, magical, you name it. If something is closed, that key can open it."

"What’s the book?" Kevin’s voice was hoarse, but steady.

The archmage’s smile faded.

"The book," he said quietly, "is my journal. The first hundred years of my immortality. Everything I learned, everything I tried, everyone I lost."

Silence settled over the circular hall, the torchlight flickering across the four pedestals and the four objects resting on them.

"That last one’s kind of worthless," I said.

The archmage laughed. "Perhaps. But it has a few spells that could make it worthwhile. Would take a genius to decipher them, though."

I grabbed the book without hesitation and tossed it toward Kevin. If there was anyone here capable of deciphering advanced spells, it was Evelina and Kevin. But Evelina didn’t really need more spells—I was sure she much preferred the ring.

"Am I right?" I asked, glancing at her.

"Correct."

"For such a grand victory, the looting’s fairly anticlimactic," Vivianne muttered.

"If you wanted explosions, girl, you’d have to kill me for them," the archmage replied, his blind eyes glittering with amusement.