"Are you okay, my love?" Pippa's mother rushed forward, hands patting down the girl's arms and shoulders. The puppet shifted aside—Mirae followed a step behind, maintaining distance while keeping Pippa in sight.

"Well, I'll be." Brom's voice carried that peculiar mixture of amusement and calculation. "I actually picked the wrong coin. That is strange." His frown settled on Pippa, then his gaze dropped to his raised wrist. The bead there pulsed with faint light, projecting something Mirae, like always, couldn't see.

"It appears I've lost this one." His eyes darkened—not with anger, Mirae noted, but with something closer to intrigue. The expression lingered on Pippa long enough to set Mirae's instincts humming. Then the smile returned to his lips. "No matter, I—"

Before he could get a word out, white light consumed everything.

Grass crushed beneath Mirae's sandals. Forest air filled her lungs instead of the stale underground atmosphere from a heartbeat before. She spun, cataloguing positions: Pippa safe, Mrs Strongmail and Harry disoriented, Brom already composed. All the while, her puppets took up a careful circular formation.

Teleportation. Again. Some unknown magic had yanked them from a sealed cave into open air without warning or control.

The others gawked at their surroundings, confusion plain on their faces. Mirae's mind churned through possibilities. They'd escaped the underground chamber, true, but where had they landed? Still not back in the trial realm proper—wrong quality to the air, wrong pressure against her skin. Another pocket space. Another unknown.

Hector would lose his mind soon. He'd tear through every path trying to track where she'd last entered, hunting her trail with that single-minded intensity he brought to everything concerning his friends and family.

"Well, I must say." Brom's voice cut through her thoughts. The noble had already recovered, grace intact, while confusion still clouded the others. "It isn't often you find yourself in a forest such as this."

He stroked his chin, thick sleeves sliding down to his elbows. "I suppose you don't know where we are?" The question directed itself at Pippa.

The girl frowned, glanced at Mirae—that look that asked for guidance without words—then turned back to Brom. She tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear. "I can't say I do." Her tone carried genuine bewilderment, the voice of someone wondering why they'd become the focus during a crisis.

"Shame. I figured since you'd received an inheritance, it would come with some information about what it is, and or where you are. At the very least."

Pippa's eyes dropped to the grass. Trees rustled around them. The absence of other sounds, like usual, grated against Mirae's nerves—too quiet, too controlled. Not natural forest sounds at all.

"No, I don't." Pippa shook her head and moved closer to Mirae. "It didn't give me anything like that. But I also don't think it was an inheritance. Not a full one anyway, more like part of one. Or a key."

Brom nodded, thoughts locked behind a mask of intrigue. Not wanting to be caught off guard, Mirae opened her mouth to suggest their next steps.

But then a stick cracked behind them, and the bushes began rustling.

Two figures emerged from the foliage, blue battle robes snapping in the wind. Iron chest plates caught sunlight and threw it back in gleaming arcs. The front one—a woman with blonde hair and sharp blue eyes—stopped mid-stride. As if taken aback, grey eyes widened. Her arms snapped up into what seemed to be a family salute.

"It is good to see that you are well, Master Brom." The woman's blonde hair lifted in the subtle breeze.

Brom's smile split wide across his face. "It's good to see you, Esmeralda, and I'm quite happy to find that some random animal has not skewered you yet. When was it again that I last saw you? Wasn't it in the Abandoned Town? Ah, yes, it was." The conversation flowed entirely in one direction. "If I remember correctly, I left you with Emela. Where is my dear sister? Is she with you?"

Esmeralda's face fell as a hesitant smile tried and failed to maintain itself. "She's not with me, sir. Um, in fact, she could be with Lord Drion, but I'm not sure. We all got separated, you see."

"Separated? How? What happened?" Brom stepped forward, robes dragging over the grass behind him.

And Esmeralda withered under his attention. There was no malice in his gaze, Mirae observed, but the woman reacted as if it were. "Well, we were raiding the temple with Master Drion, and upon the defeat of the ice dogs, crystals emerged from their corpse. When someone injects enough mana into these crystals, a light brings them to this place."

"This place?" Brom raised a brow.

"Yes, Master Brom. It's believed that we are inside the temple that Master Drion had been sieging for the last few days."

Inside a temple. The words settled into Mirae's mind like puzzle pieces clicking into wrong slots. The only temple they'd seen before entering this place was the ruined one. Now they were inside it. The teleportation hadn't just moved them; it had practically changed reality.

Brom cocked his head, frown deepening. The man behind Esmeralda stepped forward, combing his brown hair behind his ear. "Master Brom, if you direct your attention upwards, you'll notice the cog. Several of our more studied family branch members believe it to be a mechanism that governs the entire temple."

Mirae followed the gestured direction. Her breath caught.

A cog loomed in the sky—vast beyond comprehension, covering hundreds of miles. It had to be half the size of Middlec at minimum. The mechanism hung faint against the blue expanse, like an afterimage or a flower bleached pale by time. Clinging to life but barely.

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Was it governing the temple? It would make sense. A mechanism of that scale could control spaces, fold realities, and create the impossible architecture they'd already encountered. But that was if she believed what they were saying.

"My, my." Brom's gaze descended from the sky to his apparent subordinates. "Inside the temple. I didn't think my quest would take me here—quite a feat." He glanced at his bracelet, fingers prodding an invisible interface. His frown returned. "It seems that my quest is yet to be completed."

He spun on his heels, robes sweeping in swift arcs, and turned to Pippa. The smile that emerged carried a weight Mirae couldn't fully figure out. He straightened, gaining height he hadn't possessed before. "I take it your quest has continued, and if so, I would offer that you join us. Surely, more hands would make any burdens you have to worry about much lighter."

Pippa blinked. Shock registered across her features before she turned to Mirae.

Their eyes met. Mirae's mind raced through calculations, weighing variables against probabilities. This noble wanted to work with them, with people he'd consider peasants in any normal circumstance. A kind offer on the surface. Too kind.

What kind of person saw something they wanted and then helped someone else get it?

Mirae stepped back, breaking eye contact to think. Mrs Strongmail and Harry shifted their weight, attention bouncing between Mirae and Pippa. The unspoken question hung in the air: What do we do?

The choice presented itself with a simple clarity. Working with a noble carried too much risk as the potential for betrayal sat obvious and immediate. It would be a surprise if he didn't put a knife between their ribs when they reached whatever prize lay at the end.

Beyond that, they didn't even know where they were. An unknown variable in an already unknown situation. Complications they couldn't afford.

Mirae turned back to Brom and shook her head. "We won't be joining you unfortunately, though we appreciate the offer." There was no point in snubbing the man simply because ulterior motives hung in the air like smoke. She couldn't prove anything. Better to decline with grace than create an enemy through insult.

Brom bowed, elegant as always, before he straightened and patted down the creases in his robe. "Then, I will bid you all adieu. I hope we shall meet again."

Mirae hoped the opposite with quiet intensity.

Brom and his two new companions moved away, walking through the bush until the trees swallowed them whole.

"All right then." Harry's voice broke the silence. "What now?"

"Um, I'm not sure." Pippa hesitated, then her expression shifted. "Though I feel something." She turned, arm rising to point as the nearby bushes shifted in the wind. "That way. I don't know why, but I feel a pull that way."

A pull. Hardly enough to navigate by—little more than instinct dressed as direction. But Pippa didn't act randomly. The girl possessed a careful nature, methodical in her choices. If she claimed something reached out to her, Mirae believed it.

She nodded and gestured forward. The puppet received its order and stepped past her, moving through the forest. The rest filed in behind it, two more puppets bringing up the rear.

They trudged through the undergrowth while the lead puppet cleared their path. It ripped through dangling creeper vines and crushed vegetation flat beneath its weight. Destruction for convenience. The lush foliage fell away, and something in Mirae's chest tightened at the waste of life.

Then logic took over her thoughts—none of this had been real. Not until someone created it. Was it really wrong to let the puppets tear through an artificial forest?

The question dissolved, unanswered.

Minutes passed. They stopped once, with Harry relieving himself behind a tree while the others studied the canopy overhead. Then they resumed their march, pushing forward until the ground sank into shade.

A steep incline dropped into a ravine. Sunlight hit the far wall but left their side in half-shadows, rays providing just enough illumination to navigate. Barely. When the sun fell, that fragile visibility would vanish entirely.

"I guess we're going down again." Harry's voice carried resignation. "Do you think there'll be another puzzle to solve?"

Mrs Strongmail nodded, clutching a stone she'd collected earlier. Her frown deepened. "I think so, though I don't like those edges." She gestured toward the thin path hugging the cliff wall—wide enough for two people side by side, maybe, but that set up would risk someone tumbling over. There were no markers of the path's stability either. The stone could crumble at any moment.

Mrs Strongmail lowered her arm and scooped up a stone off the floor, slipping it into her pocket. "I think we should watch our steps carefully."

"All right." Mirae's mind had already moved through the scenario. This exact situation was why she used her puppets the way she did. Send the construct forward first. Test the ground. Identify weak points before committing people to the path.

She dispatched the first puppet. It marched down the slope, entering the ravine with mechanical certainty.

Mirae waited—counting fifteen steps in her head—then followed. The rest moved in behind her, footsteps careful against uncertain stone. They'd discover what waited down here. Hopefully, it would bring them closer to an exit from this manufactured trek of the ages.

Several minutes of light conversation passed, punctuated by Harry's grumbling about the journey. Then they stopped.

Another door. The door's surface displayed the same puzzle as the previous doors.

Pippa dropped to her knees, using the thin sunlight and puppet-glow to search for the crystal. But the mechanics troubled Mirae. The Sunlight here was too weak. A crystal could only function by amplifying available light. The pale rays filtering into the ravine wouldn't provide enough power.

Mirae's gaze shifted to her puppets, assessing alternative light sources. Again, she realised others, more prepared explorers, would have brought torches. Used flame to trigger the mechanism.

"We really should have brought other equipment, shouldn't we?" Mrs Strongmail's words echoed Mirae's thoughts.

The woman crossed her arms and turned. She stepped to the path's edge, eyes searching the darkness below. Too close. Mirae's awareness flared—they didn't know the stone's integrity. During their descent, she'd sent several rocks skittering into that drop. Small ones, true, but evidence of instability on the path itself.

"What did we bring exactly?" Mrs Strongmail glanced over her shoulder.

Harry shrugged, then arranged himself into a seated position, back against stone. "Not much, just a few healing pills and rations." He pulled a stack of hard, biscuit-like bread from his pocket. "Do you want some?"

The older woman cringed. Shook her head. "If I had known, I would have brought more."

If only they had known. That saying had become a bitter melody. If only Mirae's Talent, which allowed her to glimpse the future, had warned them—stuck in a mirror, launched into a forest devoid of animals, surviving on berries and hard bread. Her Talent had failed them. Or she'd failed to see clearly. Either way, the result remained the same.

Mirae sighed, and Pippa rose, holding a crystal, with a smile blooming across her rosy cheeks. "Found it." She wiped her hand across her forehead, scrunching her nose. Freckles jumped with the motion. "Now, it's not producing that light shaft, but—" She stepped forward to one of Mirae's puppets and held the crystal close. "I think doing this—yes! There we go." She gestured to the thin line of light hitting the stone.

Mirae nodded. "Alright, I guess we'll go with—"

A scream tore through the air.

Mirae's head snapped up. A shadow plummeted from above—human-shaped, falling fast. Her hands rose before conscious thought engaged. Purple vines erupted from the ground beneath her sandals, launching skyward.

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