Then, without warning, he shoved the large glowing jar into her arms.

"Boy, carry this and follow me," he said briskly before turning around again as though the matter had already been decided.

The sheer audacity of it made Aveline gape.

She stared down at the enormous glass jar pressed against her chest.

Honestly... This man truly was not seeing very well after all.

"How long are you going to stand there?" he asked without turning around. "Move."

Aveline blinked slowly in disbelief.

This old man was asking for help, yet somehow, he sounded personally offended that she had not immediately devoted her life to carrying his absurdly heavy jar.

Her arms already hurt.

The thing weighed like a boulder disguised as glass.

She looked around instinctively, expecting at least one person to laugh at this ridiculous situation, but instead, the other students were fleeing.

Not running openly, no.

That would have drawn attention.

But one by one, students who noticed the crimson-robed man immediately lowered their heads and hurried away with stiff shoulders and pale faces, as though simply being seen near him might shorten their lifespan.

Even the arrogant noble boys who usually strutted through the halls like princes suddenly looked terrified of breathing too loudly.

Aveline’s brows furrowed.

Just who was this man?

Then, in the distance, she spotted Aelion.

He stood at the end of the corridor staring at her with wide eyes filled with something between horror and disbelief. The moment their gazes met, he immediately began gesturing frantically at her to come away. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

No.

More specifically...

Run.

His expression practically screamed it.

Aveline looked between Aelion and the strange man in front of her.

Well...

That was not suspicious at all.

Still, the crimson-robed man was standing right in front of her, already muttering ominous things about "seeing" her. Running now felt far more dangerous than simply following him.

Aveline let out a deep sigh of surrender before adjusting the heavy jar against her chest.

The weight nearly dragged her downward.

Her shoulders strained instantly.

This old man was heartless.

"If you drop that jar, boy," the man said flatly, "I’ll drop your head."

Aveline rolled her eyes so hard it physically hurt.

Still, considering the way everyone else behaved around him, she decided it might be wise to cooperate for now.

At least until she figured out whether he was merely eccentric... or genuinely insane.

So she followed after him through the winding corridors of the Arcanum, half stumbling beneath the weight of the jar while the man walked ahead at a pace entirely unreasonable for someone his age.

Naturally, curiosity refused to leave her alone.

After a few minutes, Aveline carefully loosened the lid just enough to peek inside.

And her breath caught.

Aetherstones.

The jar was full of them.

Dozens upon dozens of stones were inside, each radiating different colors and frequencies of light. Some shimmered pale blue like moonlight beneath water. Others glowed gold, crimson, violet, or silver-white. Some pulsed softly like sleeping hearts.

And the moment she looked at them... The shadows around them moved.

Aveline slowed slightly, her gaze sharpening.

Each stone carried a different "shape" to its shadow. Some were calm. Some unstable. Some flickered violently as though containing barely restrained storms inside them.

The sensation was strange.

Like hearing whispers without sound.

Aveline followed him in silence this time.

Eventually, he led her through an enormous pair of iron doors engraved with intricate runes. The moment they opened, warmth rushed outward along with the scent of smoke, metal, parchment, and something faintly electrical lingering in the air.

Aveline stepped inside and immediately slowed.

The room was enormous.

No... it was less a room and more a chaotic workshop belonging to a mad genius.

Shelves towered toward the ceiling, overflowing with books, bones, strange devices, glowing crystals, dried herbs, and mechanical pieces Aveline could not even begin to identify. Half-finished runes covered the walls. Strange metallic structures floated near the ceiling. Several tables had clearly exploded at some point and simply... remained that way.

And everywhere... Aetherstones. Hundreds of them.

Some sat in containment circles. Others floated inside glass chambers. Some pulsed quietly in darkness while others crackled with light powerful enough to sting her eyes.

The entire room felt alive.

Dangerously alive.

Aveline slowly placed the heavy jar onto the nearest table with an exhausted groan before immediately wandering away without ceremony, curiosity overpowering caution as she stared openly at everything around her.

The deeper Aveline wandered into the room, the more she realized this was not merely a laboratory.

It was also a study.

Or perhaps the remains of a mind that had once been brilliant enough to frighten the world.

A large desk sat near the far wall beneath towering shelves crammed with thick records and loose parchment stacked so carelessly that they looked moments away from collapse. Strange diagrams covered half the papers. Some pages had burn marks through them. Others looked as though someone had angrily scribbled over entire sections in frustration.

There were plants too.

Or what had once been plants.

Dry, lifeless stems drooped from ceramic pots near the windows, their leaves long withered away. Dust coated them thickly, as though nobody had cared enough to throw them out yet.

Natural sunlight filtered weakly through the tall windows, but the old man immediately moved toward them with visible irritation.

"Too bright," he muttered under his breath while yanking the heavy drapes shut one after another. "Too noisy... too intrusive..."

The room dimmed almost instantly until only the glow of the Aetherstones illuminated the space in shifting colors.

Aveline quietly looked around again.

It seemed he was in the middle of sorting the stones according to their colors and resonance. Different piles covered nearly every available surface. Golden stones. Blue stones. Crimson stones. Pale silver stones humming softly with unstable energy.

And unlike her, the others needed runes, instruments, and measurements just to understand what she could see at a glance.

Aveline tilted her head thoughtfully. She could separate every single one of these stones correctly within five minutes.

Maybe less.

To her, the differences felt obvious now. The shadows around each stone moved differently, whispered differently, breathed differently.

Yet somehow this strange old man worked entirely alone without any assistants, servants, or even apprentices.

Honestly, the place was so disastrously messy that if a grown man tripped in here and died beneath a pile of books, nobody would find the body for weeks.

And because Aveline had recently begun feeling oddly proud of herself for surviving the Arcanum without crying every day, she decided helping herself to a couple of the cheap golden stones was perfectly reasonable compensation for carrying that unbearable jar.

After all, Theron had bought her one before.

Surely this man would not miss two tiny pieces from a mountain of glowing rocks.

Carefully, Aveline reached toward the pile of golden stones...

And suddenly froze.

A looming presence stood directly behind her.

Aveline gasped and spun around.

The old man towered over her silently.

She had not heard him approach at all.

"What," he asked slowly, "are you doing here, thief?"

Before she could answer, his hand snapped around her wrist.

Pain shot through Aveline instantly.

"Ow—!"

His grip was iron.

"You asked me to—"

"Haven’t I told you, Leveret?" he snapped, bending closer as his amber eyes gleamed unnaturally in the dim light. "I do not like others sneaking into my laboratory!"

The shout thundered directly into her face.

The shadows around him twisted violently now, flaring with agitation and something deeper that was not just anger. It was fear. Old fear. The kind that had lived too long inside someone.

Aveline stared at him in shock.

Leveret?

Her heartbeat skipped strangely.

Only Theron called her hare.

And this man...

This strange, terrifying old man...

Was calling her a leveret?

Why?

For one disorienting moment, it felt as though he was not truly seeing her at all.

As though he was staring through her... at someone else... Someone buried somewhere deep in his memories.

The realization unsettled her more than his anger did.