Tristessa's mind palace, the structural basis of her [Divinity of the Dark Room] and the metaphysical and architectural manifestation of her consciousness, was submerged in temperatures close to absolute zero.

The speakers were frozen, allowing silence free reign, its disturbing nature amplified by the reddish illumination and refracted by the ice covering the lamps. The walls, instruments, and photographic development supplies in the main room were covered in a layer of frost. The curtains under the threshold connecting the main room to the other adjacent rooms were static and white from the solidification of humidity. Even the door at the southeast end of the palace, welded to the wall, suffered from this inexplicable freezing.

"Lenore?"

The static black waters of the Negative Altar and the surface of the Black Mirror were the only elements of the mind palace that behaved independently, unfazed by this strange influence, never seen before by Tristessa.

"Lenore! If you can hear me, please say something!"

Tristessa, who had her hands resting on the edge of the table, her fingers just a hair's breadth away from touching the edge of the Altar's waters, was also unaffected by the shallow freeze covering her mind. She was wearing only a thigh-length white nightgown, her breath condensing as it left her mouth, and yet the cold did nothing to her.

What she couldn't do was move. Or rather, she didn't want to. She felt she could if she wanted to, but for some reason, staying still was the best thing she could do at that moment.

"Lenore!"

For the third time, she demanded the presence of the mind palace's assistant, receiving no answer in response. There was no way to reach her. She didn't know if she was in her Office or if she had simply disappeared. For the moment. Or forever.

"Lenore…"

It wasn't the first time the dark room had been affected by a strange influence. The memory of her mother, Selene, was enough at the time to isolate her, affect Lenore, and connect her mind palace to the forbidden memory of the true [Dark Room].

But at that moment, from among the infinite interstices and fractals of the frost, the shadows of the palace rose. Devouring the red light slowly, with pleasure, and taking their sweet time. The strange agent spreading its influence nonstop, magnifying the darkness, expanding in its quest for domination. Covering everything.

"…"

But Tristessa wasn't afraid. Not one bit.

Staring straight into the Black Mirror that offered no reflection, Tristessa felt the invading presence behind her. Like a strange feeling that lodges in the back of one's head when walking in absolute darkness, groping blindly and having that strange feeling of being about to encounter something unexpected.

She heard the voice of the invader, guilty of the black ice dominating her mind. Darker than the cold darkness that enveloped the room. Distorted to the point where she could only make out a couple fragments:

"…■ u ■ ■ ■ n ■ e…"

She repeated the few letters and couldn't make sense of them. Order, timing, pronunciation didn't matter. The meaning never dawned on her in the form of an epiphany or revelation, not even in the last microsecond when the icy darkness of a starless Universe enveloped her and brought her back to the real world.

"Ah?! Fuck!"

CRASH! THUMP!

If there was one thing Tristessa had no doubt about, it was that the cherry-like wood floor was of very good quality. Its color, its freshness, and, most of all, its hardness. Especially its hardness, tested with her own head at that very moment she fell off her chair.

She hadn't realized when she leaned her head against the cold windowpane and closed her eyes for a minute. Not because she wanted to, but because her brain was an amorphous mass, melted by so much sleep deprivation and insomnia, trying to force itself into rest mode. A minute of forced respite that seemed like an eternity inside the ice-dominated mental palace.

Staring up at the ceiling, her head spinning from the impact, she saw the beams that crossed it, the pipes of the heating system, and the power crystals that had lit up when someone knocked on the door and entered the room.

That someone walked toward her and stood near her head. High-heeled leather boots that reached below her knees, narrowly missing her scattered hair.

"Another sleepless night?" asked Astoria Silverthorn, crossing her arms and not offering her help to get up—perhaps not because she didn't want to, but because she was hugging a bundle of black clothing. She didn't comment on it, and her—as usual—ill-disposed gaze held anger directed at her. "You're an idiot."

"And you're a sweetheart…" Tristessa didn't consider what she said, taking in the woman's unarmored attire. Tight dark leather pants: long dark leather gloves that covered most of her forearms; a long, high-collar coat that reached almost to her knees, with a black vest underneath with silver buttons. "You look lovely with your hair up."

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Not only did this less military but aristocratic version of Astoria captivate her but seeing her with her platinum hair tied in a ponytail helped increase her palpitations.

It woke her up, taking away some of the terrible sleepiness that made her eyelids feel as if they were made of lead.

"Your sugar-coated words won't do any favor," the woman hissed, furious. "Look at you! Your face is all greasy...!"

"Nothing a bath can't fix."

"...and those dark circles under your eyes look horrible. You look like a corpse." Shaking her head, the knightess decided to offer her a hand. A mercy that Tristessa gladly accepted, especially because the blow had made her dizzy. "Why don't you sleep for the rest of the day, Tristessa? We could…"

"No way. I can't. Not while the Mercer-Archeos are still out there. I must try again today."

She rejected the idea without thinking. Once up, she picked up her chair and sat back down. To avoid feeling the weight of her visitor's warning red eyes, she shifted her gaze toward the window. Outside, she found herself facing a somewhat different landscape compared to the last two days and remembering why.

"Ah, that's right. Today is the seventh day of the week, that's why there's so little traffic."

That room was on the second floor of the building, and from there she could see one of the main, normally busy streets of Entrana in the mid-morning. Now, the occasional carriage pulled by vilecrosses passed along the cobblestone street, and passersby strolled and enjoyed a clear sky with the spring sun shining. A caress to the soul, after the Evil Dream had fallen upon that region of the End-World a couple days ago.

That calm unnerved Tristessa. It was welcome, of course, but abnormal. Very abnormal. Especially with the torturous thought that kept telling her that the exiled family and the Fireclaw Company were surely escaping the Coven at that very moment.

Of Daiana Mercer-Archeos's devilish smile, stalking them and looking for the perfect opportunity to sink her deadly fangs into them. Just thinking about it made Tristessa feel chills like those in her mind palace currently under attack from that mysterious and inexplicable frost.

"Tristessa..."

"Seriously, Tori, I'm fine. Call me paranoid or whatever, but I won't rest until they're safe."

Astoria sighed but didn't press the issue further. She threw the black bundle onto the bed.

"Whatever, idiot. I'll wait for you downstairs, with Casimir and Malak Drakan. Don't take too long... And next time you go get your clean clothes for the laundry."

"Hehehe, my bad." Tristessa gave her a silent smile that evolved into a hungry grimace when she saw the knightess' nether regions as she turned around. "Thank the Gods for those tight pants…! Huh?!"

Astoria shot her a murderous look out of the corner of her eye, making the panicked girl wonder if she had said what she thought out loud without realizing it. Blushing, she thought the woman was going to turn around and slap her, but Astoria left the room, slamming the door behind her.

"…I wonder if anyone ever gave her a compliment, or an offhand remark that warranted a good punch," she whispered softly. Saddened, thinking of Astoria dominated by the curse of the Demoness in Pain, transformed into one of those Nekromian women resigned to oblivion. "A Virgin of Sorrow…"

Women condemned to loneliness. Without love. Drifting, hopeless, leaving families and friends behind to die as an unseen ghost. Or worse, surrendering to evil and the Shadow Queen, serving in dangerous groups like the Coven that bowed to Moebius.

A syndrome of depression so deep that even angels and devils were attracted to such lost souls who had not yet abandoned their flesh and blood bodies. Making their eyes weep blood and the shadows of Death stain their vision when all that remained was silence…

"I want love."

Astoria's aching desire, echoing in the black-haired girl's head. And to think that gallant woman was so close to plunging into that darkness and no one cared…

Quite the opposite: her peers expected her to fall to her Death.

"Never!" With her scream and a sudden rush of adrenaline, Tristessa shot up from her chair. Smiling with determination, she grabbed the clothes Astoria had left on her bed: her black leather trench coat, once belonging to the Priestess of the Black Eye, and now hers. Clean of grime and blood, ready to return to action. "I'll make Tori the happiest woman on this damn planet! So much so that she'll beg me to be her girlfriend!"

"I told you already to stop yelling, bitch!" Someone next door, very annoyed by the girl's presence as a neighbor, banged on the wall several times, causing Tristessa to cover her mouth with both hands. "One more time and I swear to Kantrus I'll cast a spell to make vocal cords rot off!"

Tristessa pressed her lips together, fearing such a ridiculous end of the loop.

"…that is, as long as Auron doesn't succeed before me," she thought, remembering the kiss the aforementioned gunslinger had given Astoria, which the woman in question didn't remember. Necessary to break the curse and shed a glimmer of hope in her heart. And in contrast, it filled Tristessa's with guilty envy that she couldn't shake, not even with a sigh. "Damn… I'm not just greedy, I'm pathetic."

Silently, so as not to disturb the neighbors, Tristessa dressed in her uniform, which, after so many days, already felt like a second skin. The room where she spent her nights didn't have much more than a bed and a desk, where she had left her trusty hunting knife, given to her by Jin Mercer.

She fastened the holster to her belt and for a moment was distracted by the various children's and educational storybooks scattered throughout, along with ink-stained pages. A quill pen rested on top of the largest stain and several incomplete sentences composed of basic glyphs that Tristessa had tried to memorize for the past two days, without much success.

Her mind was so tired from sleep deprivation, and her brain wouldn't stop begging for mercy.

"No! Don't even close your eyes. If I do...I must save the Mercer-Archeos first!"

Admonishing herself, she slapped her cheeks several times to wake up, before heading for the bedroom door. With that solid and firm idea, the decision was made in advance…

Although, there was also that cold shadow that now stalked her subconscious, covering it with a strange frost…

"Don't think about it! That family is what matters now the most, nothing else!"

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