"You were frustrated," Mabel said.

Liam’s gaze did not move.

"You still are," Mabel continued. "Not as much as before, perhaps, but it is still there. And before you decide that I am accusing you of weakness, I am not. You have every right to feel frustrated."

That made Liam’s eyes narrow slightly, not in anger, but in attention.

Mabel took one quiet breath before continuing.

"You were dragged into matters far above you before the war against Sylvathar. Then that war led to you falling into a slumber for six months, and during that time, you were forced to endure memories that were not your own. Your parents’ memories. Aesmirius’s memories, the memories of someone who is closer to a god than any living person should have to understand."

Liam’s fingers tightened slightly around the towel.

Mabel noticed, but she did not stop.

"Then you woke," she said, "and instead of being allowed to adjust properly, you were thrown back into challenge after challenge. Your existence as a dark mage became a political problem. Crescent’s hatred did not disappear. You had to deal with Princess Sheila, Prince Percy, the academy’s attention, your peers watching you, fearing you, hating you, or expecting things from you, and higher authorities studying what you might become."

Her voice remained even, but each word carried weight because none of them were exaggerated.

"That is enough to make many people break," she said. "Not stumble. Break. Yet you kept it under control, at least to some extent. You continued moving. You continued training. You continued thinking. But in doing so, you also forced yourself to overlook what was building inside you because you did not have a proper way to deal with it."

Liam remained silent, but the look in his eyes had changed.

Mabel stepped slightly away from the door, though she did not crowd him. "Then Nalim gave you what looked like a way."

The room grew quieter.

"You found something strong enough to take it," she said. "Something brutal enough that you could pour a piece of that frustration into the fight without needing to explain it to anyone. The Berserker became more than a target. It became a place to release something."

Liam’s expression hardened faintly.

Mabel continued before he could reject it. "I am not saying you planned it that way from the beginning. I am not saying you were careless in every moment. You still thought. You still analyzed. You still fought brilliantly. But part of you wanted that fight because it gave you something nothing else had given you recently."

Liam’s voice came low. "And what is that?"

"Relief," Mabel said simply.

He did not answer.

Mabel studied him for a moment, then continued with the same calm firmness.

"It helped. Not completely. Not cleanly. But it helped. Even now, while you are trapped in this state of punishing yourself for every mistake, I can see it on your face. The stress and frustration that were seeping from you weeks ago are not the same anymore. They have reduced. Not significantly enough for you to be fine, but enough that you should recognize it instead of treating the entire outcome as failure."

Liam looked away for the first time.

It was a small movement, but Mabel saw it for what it was.

Her words had reached somewhere.

"You are aware of what it cost you," she said. "So am I. Your frustration affected your planning. It affected how you handled your supplies. It affected your decisions in Nalim, especially when you chose to seek the Berserker. And yes, perhaps most importantly, it made you dance directly in Headmaster Thion’s hands by showing the academy far more than you ever intended to show."

Liam’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

Mabel did not soften the statement. "Those were mistakes. Serious ones."

He looked back at her.

"But those mistakes should not make you ignore the fact that, despite everything, you earned some sense of relief from what you had been carrying," Mabel said. "It is not wrong to acknowledge that. It is not wrong to admit that part of you needed something to give."

Liam’s gaze stayed on her face, and for once, the guardedness did not fully hide the conflict beneath it.

Mabel stepped a little closer, her mask still held in one hand. "You are not wrong for wanting to make sure those mistakes do not repeat themselves. That part of you is right. You should learn from Nalim. You should correct what led you there. But the way you are approaching it now will not help you. If anything, it will destroy you in the long run."

Liam’s lips parted slightly, as though he was about to respond, but he did not.

Mabel continued. "Training until your body gives out will not teach you why you wanted that fight. Replaying every mistake until you hate yourself for making it will not prevent you from making another one. It will only make you better at hiding the next fracture until it has already influenced your decisions."

As she spoke, Liam found himself absorbing every word despite his earlier desire to dismiss the conversation. Something inside him shifted, but he could not name it. It was not comfort exactly. It was not agreement, though part of him knew she was right. It felt more like pressure being placed on a wound he had refused to acknowledge, not enough to break him open, but enough to make him aware of how deep it went.

Mabel’s voice lowered slightly, not softer in a sentimental way, but more personal. "It is acceptable to feel frustrated, Liam. It does not make you weak. It does not make you less capable. It does not make you unreliable. It means you are human, just like everyone else."

The word caught him.

Human.

Liam had been called many things. Dark mage. Problem. Weapon. Threat. Asset. Monster, sometimes without the courage for people to say it directly. Even when people cared about him, they often spoke around what he could do, what he represented, what he had survived, or what he might become.

Human was not a word often placed on him with such simple certainty.

Mabel noticed that too.

She did not point it out.

She simply continued.

"Being human means pressure can build inside you. It means anger can turn quiet. It means grief can disguise itself as discipline. It means frustration can sit beneath calm until something finally gives it a place to go. None of that is weakness. But releasing it carelessly can create more problems than it solves. Your situation now proves that."

Liam’s eyes lowered slightly.

"The better way, most of the time, is not dramatic," Mabel said. "It is not satisfying in the way a fight is satisfying. It is not immediate. It is simply speaking. Expressing what is there before it becomes something you can only release through destruction."

Liam’s answer came after a few seconds. "Talking does not fix things."

"No," Mabel said. "Not by itself."

That answer seemed to catch him more than if she had disagreed.

Mabel held his gaze. "Talking does not erase the past. It does not change what Crescent thinks of you. It does not remove the academy’s attention. It does not take away the memories inside your head. But it can keep those things from becoming pressure with no outlet. It can help you hear your own thoughts before they twist into something else."

Liam remained quiet.

"And not with just anyone," she added. "That would be foolish. You should not hand your vulnerable moments to people who would use them against you later. You need someone you trust enough to hear the truth without turning it into a weapon. Someone who can listen without judging you for it. Someone who will not make your frustration about themselves."

Liam’s eyes returned fully to her.

Mabel’s expression did not change much, but there was something steady and unmistakable in her gaze.

"You do not need many people like that. One is enough to begin."

The implication sat between them.

Liam understood it.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then he said, "You think that should be you."

Mabel did not flinch. "I think I have already been standing close enough to notice when you are not fine."

"That is not the same thing."

"No," she agreed. "It is not. Trust is not something I can claim from you because of my position. I know that."

Liam studied her.

Mabel continued, "But I am asking you to consider that you do not have to carry everything in silence simply because silence has worked before."

Liam’s voice was quiet. "It has."

"Yes," she said. "Until it did not."

That answer struck harder than he expected.

Liam looked away again, this time toward the bed, where the sheets remained untouched despite how badly his body wanted rest. His exhaustion had been waiting beneath the conversation, and now that he was no longer actively moving or resisting, it began to catch him. His shoulders lowered slightly. The towel slipped a little in his hand. His eyes, still sharp, carried a heaviness that had been held back for too long.

Mabel saw it.

She did not press further.

For now, she had said enough.

Liam eventually sat on the edge of the bed, not because he had decided to end the conversation, but because his body seemed to do it before his mind gave permission. He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting near his knees, towel hanging loosely from one hand. For a while, he said nothing.

Then, in a voice lower and rougher with fatigue, he asked, "What exactly do you want me to say?"

Mabel’s expression softened only slightly. "Nothing tonight."

He looked at her.

"You are too tired," she said. "If you speak now, you will do it because I pushed, not because you chose to. I would rather you choose."

Liam stared at her for a few seconds, as if trying to decide whether that answer annoyed him or made sense.

Eventually, his gaze lowered again.

"That’s inconvenient," he muttered.

Mabel’s lips curved faintly. "Most useful things are."

Liam did not respond to that.

His body finally began to give in. The training, the lack of proper rest, the unresolved pain from Nalim, and the weight of everything Mabel had said settled over him at once. He shifted back onto the bed, not fully lying down at first, but close enough that the mattress seemed to drag the last of his resistance from him. His eyes remained half-open, fixed somewhere near the ceiling, though it was clear his focus was beginning to blur.

Mabel remained where she stood, quiet.

After a long moment, Liam spoke again, barely above a murmur.

"I heard you."

It was not an apology.

It was not a confession.

It was not a promise that he would suddenly begin speaking about everything inside him or change the way he handled himself overnight.

But from Liam, it was enough.

Mabel understood that immediately.

A small smirk touched her lips, not teasing in the way Mystica’s might have been, but quietly satisfied. Her words had reached where she wanted them to reach. Not all the way. Not deeply enough to solve anything immediately. But far enough that Liam had chosen not to reject them.

That was a beginning. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

She lifted the half-mask back to her face and secured it with practiced ease, the familiar barrier returning without fully erasing the honesty that had just passed between them. Then she looked at Liam one last time. His eyes were nearly closed now, exhaustion finally claiming what stubbornness had been holding upright.

"Good night, Liam," Mabel said.

He did not answer, but his breathing had already begun to slow.

Mabel turned toward the shadows near the door, her form blurring faintly as space folded around her. A quiet ripple passed through the room, subtle enough that it disturbed nothing, and then she disappeared.