[Volume 1 Epilogue | Chapter 43: Song of Swans (II)]

A week passed like water through cupped hands—impossible to hold, yet leaving traces of its passing. The sterile halls of Windsor Medical Center had become almost familiar to Acacia, though the thought still unsettled him. Dr. Amherst had gradually loosened the restrictions on his movement, allowing him to venture beyond his room as long as he stayed within the hospital grounds. It was a calculated risk, the doctor had explained with characteristic dry humor, between keeping Acacia from going stir-crazy and preventing another escape attempt.

Which was how he found himself in the visitor's lounge, late spring sunlight painting geometric patterns across a chessboard while Sirius Trafalgar studied their game uncharacteristically focused. The inventor's usual manic energy had settled into something more contemplative, though his eyes still held that familiar gleam of curiosity.

"Fascinating, you saw that combination five moves ago, didn't you?" Sirius murmured as Acacia's knight claimed his bishop.

"It was there to see." Acacia shrugged, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

"Was it?" Sirius leaned back, fingers steepled beneath his chin. "Most people would need time to calculate those possibilities—to work through each potential outcome step by step. But you...you just see them, don't you? The patterns, the connections, the inevitable conclusions."

"You're overthinking it. Chess is just geometry with consequences," Acacia deflected, moving his pawn to set up another chain of possibilities.

"Ha! 'Just geometry,' he says." Sirius's laugh carried a sense of delight. "Do you know what Leila told me about the confrontation with Nemesis? How you deduced the mechanics of his Ars Magna in minutes, when it took others years to even glimpse its workings?"

The memory of that night sent phantom pain through Acacia's healing ribs.

"That was different. I had to understand it or we would have died."

"But that's exactly my point!" Sirius leaned forward, nearly upsetting the board with his enthusiasm. "Your mind doesn't distinguish between chess strategies and life-or-death analysis. It's all patterns to you! Where others see discrete pieces, you see the whole board at once. Where they must take time, you simply... know."

"Mr. Trafalgar—"

"Most human brains have a delay," Sirius excitedly interrupted. "There's a gap between observation and understanding—a necessary pause while our neurons process sensory input and construct logical frameworks. But you? Your mind eliminates that gap entirely. You perceive and comprehend in the same instant, as if—"

"As if what?" Acacia asked when Sirius fell silent.

The inventor's eyes had taken on that distant look that usually preceded his most outlandish theories.

"As if you're not actually calculating at all. As if your brain somehow skips the processing steps entirely and arrives directly at understanding."

He moved his queen, seemingly at random.

"Check."

Acacia countered without hesitation, his fingers finding the exact piece needed to unravel Sirius's trap.

"Are you trying to prove a point or something?"

"Am I? Or am I just moving pieces while you play in a higher dimension I can barely perceive? You know, most people would consider this ability a gift."

"And most people can use Thaumaturgy." Acacia snorted.

"Tell me something, Acacia. When you look at this board, what do you see?"

Acacia frowned, thrown by the apparent non-sequitur.

"Pieces. Positions. Possibilities."

"And beyond that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Sirius gestured at the game before them, "what story does this configuration tell you? What truths hide in these patterns?"

Acacia started to dismiss the question, but something in Sirius's expression made him pause. He looked at the board again, really looked, letting his mind expand beyond mere tactical analysis.

"Balance?" he started, uncertain. "White pieces, black pieces, each moving according to their nature. Every piece influences every other piece."

He touched his pawn, feeling the smooth contours of the piece beneath his fingers.

"In Thaumaturgy, you use prana to rewrite reality and create new possibilities. Here, the game is possibility, where every movement creates new ones. They diverge... converge... endlessly.."

Sirius's smile widened.

"And they say you're not a Thaumaturge."

"I'm not. I can't—"

"Can't manipulate prana? Perhaps not. But you naturally understand concepts in a way that transcends normal human understanding. You see connections that others miss, grasp complexities that would take them hours to unravel." Sirius captured Acacia's last pawn with deliberate care. "Maybe that's not Thaumaturgy as we define it, but it's certainly not nothing."

Acacia stared at the board, seeing now how Sirius had been subtly maneuvering him into this conversation.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Sirius shrugged while sticking out his tongue. Acacia couldn't really say he didn't expect that.

Instead of reaching for a piece, Acacia kept his hands in his lap.

"You've been talking to Pandora, I assume."

"Ah, so you did notice her absence this past week." Sirius didn't bother denying it. "She's been... occupied with the aftermath of recent events."

"So she's been avoiding me."

"I mean she's been giving you space to process…and perhaps herself as well." Sirius's correction was gentle but firm.

Acacia's fingers clenched involuntarily.

"There's nothing to process. She used me as a pawn in her game. End of story."

"Is that what you truly believe, or is it just the easiest idea to accept?"

The question hung between them like smoke, heavy with implications Acacia wasn't ready to face. Outside, clouds temporarily passed over the sun, sending shadows dancing across their unfinished game.

"Your move," Sirius reminded him softly.

Acacia stared at the board, seeing now how every piece's position carried echoes of choices made and unmade. Like his life these past weeks—each decision, each relationship, each moment of trust or doubt creating ripples that reformed the very shape of his existence.

He reached for his queen.

"She's here, isn't she?"

Sirius's eyes crinkled at the corners.

"In the garden. She's been there every afternoon this week, waiting."

Acacia moved his piece, creating a new constellation of possibilities.

"Mate in three."

"I know." Sirius began resetting the board. "Perhaps it's time for a different game."

Understanding passed between them, silent but profound. Acacia stood, his injuries protesting the movement less than they had a week ago.

"Mr. Trafalgar?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you. For..." His eyes were vaguely at the chess board, at the conversation, at everything left unsaid.

Sirius smiled. A picture could tell a thousand words.

Acacia nodded and turned toward the door, toward the garden, toward the conversation he'd been avoiding since that night of mercury and steam. Each step felt like moving a piece on a board whose dimensions he was only beginning to understand.

The game wasn't over.

It was just changing shape.

The hospital garden was an exercise in controlling the wilderness—carefully cultivated flowers and shrubs arranged to create the illusion of natural growth. Late spring winds swept through the space, carrying the mingled scents of medicinal herbs and blooming jasmine. The gusts made the leaves dance as the shadows played across stone paths like morse code written in light and shade.

Pandora stood near a weathered bench, her silver hair catching the afternoon light. She wore simple clothes—jeans and a white blouse—that made her look younger, more human somehow.

But it was the cigarette between her fingers that gave Acacia pause.

Thin wisps of smoke curled around her like mercury in slow motion, dissipating into the restless air.

"I didn't know you smoke," he said, stopping a few feet away.

She took another drag before answering, the ember briefly illuminating her features. "There's a lot you don't know about me."

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"Like how you'll get wrinkles if you keep that up?"

That earned him the ghost of a smile. "I'll take my chances." She offered him the cigarette. "Want one?"

Acacia eyed the smoldering stick suspiciously. "I'll pass, thanks."

"Wise choice. They're terrible for you." Despite her words, Pandora took another slow pull, holding the smoke for a long moment before exhaling. "You speak boldly from someone who broke out of a hospital to fight assassins."

"At least I'm not destroying my lungs."

"No, you just let Nemesis do that for you. Though, time will tell with how Cagliostro will act now." But there was something almost fond in her tone, a warmth that didn't quite match her usual frost.

The wind picked up, sending leaves skittering between them like nervous messengers. Acacia watched the smoke from her cigarette twist and disperse, finding patterns even in its chaos.

"The cologne in your guest bathroom. Men's deodorant in the cabinet. You had them there before I ever arrived."

Pandora didn't react, taking another slow drag.

"The way you arranged my 'escape' from Ocarina—making sure the IPA would be too demoralized to pursue, that Cagliostro would turn to the Bloodhounds. Even my registration as a Wallachian refugee...you had it all planned."

"Is that what you think?" She still wouldn't look at him directly.

"The telecommunications warehouse was perfect for their needs—almost too perfect. As if someone had deliberately weakened its security, created the exact conditions Nemesis would need for his grand performance." His voice grew harder. "You knew he'd send his lackeys that day. That's why you let me explore Windsor alone, let me map the city. You needed me to play my part. You also knew I would escape from the hospital too…you also knew I would figure out where they're located."

The cigarette burned lower between her fingers, ash falling like snow.

"Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me this wasn't all just an elaborate setup to manipulate the Bloodhounds into position. Turning them into your personal attack dogs against... who was it? Helen Vessalius?"

Finally, she turned to face him fully.

"Is that all?"

"All? You used me as bait! You let Leila get hurt, let Elias nearly die, all for your precious schemes! Was any of it real? Were we just pieces on your board, waiting to be sacrificed for your endgame?!"

"So what?"

The words fell between them like stones in still water. Pandora's golden eyes held neither warmth nor malice—just an emptiness vast enough to swallow light.

"...What?" Acacia's voice caught, the single syllable strangling in his throat.

"So what if I used you?" She took another drag from her cigarette, the ember briefly illuminating features carved from winter frost. "Did you expect something else? Some grand narrative of redemption where the cold-hearted High Inquisitor learns to care?"

Her laugh carried no mirth.

"How disappointingly naive."

"You—"

"Let me tell you something about sacrifice, Acacia Belmont." She stepped forward, and despite himself, he retreated. "Every piece that falls, every pawn that bleeds—they serve a purpose far greater than their individual worth. Leila's injuries? Elias's brush with death? Necessary steps toward an inevitable conclusion."

The wind died completely, as if even nature held its breath.

"You're lying," Acacia managed, but the words sounded hollow even to his ears.

"Am I? Or are you just desperate to believe that someone finally saw worth in the worthless?" Mercury seemed to dance in her eyes as she continued. "Did you know that Viceroy Bismarck had me inspect the Dead Sea Scrolls? Such fascinating documents...speaking of Ein Sof Ohr—the One True Magic, purest emanation of the Convergence itself."

"The red light..."

"Ah, so you do remember." Her smile was sharp enough to cut. "That moment in the warehouse, when Nemesis was about to end you. That spark of crimson that denied his Ars Magna. Tell me, what did it feel like to touch divinity?"

The memory surfaced with painful clarity—that instant when reality seemed to bend around his denial, when something ancient and terrible had answered his desperate rejection of fate.

"The «Red Key» is an Aeterna Armamenta that denies the red string of fate. You, Acacia Belmont, were meant to be its wielder."

She exhaled smoke that caught moonlight like liquid silver.

"You failed with all the opportunities I've given you. Again and again, even in moments of absolute crisis, you couldn't fully awaken it. Do you know how many people were hurt because of your inadequacy?"

Her words struck deeper than any punch.

"Stop—"

"If you had awakened it properly, I wouldn't have needed to intervene. Leila wouldn't have had to drain herself. Elias wouldn't have faced Malleus alone. Their pain, their sacrifices—all because you couldn't grasp what was inside you."

"I never asked for this! I never wanted—"

"What you want is irrelevant." She crushed her cigarette beneath her heel. "My mission was simple: bring the potential vessel of the «Red Key» to Bismarck. Everything else—the rescue, the training, the 'bonds' you thought you were forming—was merely context for awakening your potential." A shrug that carried years of indifference. "You have a week, then I deliver you to the Viceroy, successful awakening or not."

Acacia stared at her, seeing now how every interaction, every moment of perceived kindness, had been calibrated for this purpose.

That shopping spree, the freedom to explore Windsor, even his confrontations with the Bloodhounds—all of it orchestrated to push him toward awakening this power he never knew he carried.

But…

Something caught his attention. A discordant note in her perfect performance.

Her tone when speaking of bonds—it carried an edge too sharp, too deliberate. The way she emphasized his failures—almost as if she were trying to make him hate her. And her eyes…

For just an instant, when she spoke of delivering him to Bismarck, something flickered in those golden depths. Something that didn't match the cruel calculation of her words.

Understanding struck him like lightning, rearranging patterns he thought he'd grasped into an entirely new configuration. Because he knew that look, that careful construction of coldness. He'd worn it himself, countless times, whenever someone threatened to get too close.

She wasn't revealing her true nature.

She was trying to save him from it.

"The wardrobe," Acacia said softly.

Pandora's expression didn't change, but something minute shifted in her posture—a tension so subtle most would have missed it.

"What about it?"

The words emerged cold, practiced, perfect—and in their very perfection lay their flaw. Like a masterwork painting that revealed its artifice through too-precise brushstrokes, her control had become its own tell.

"You said to think about those clothes. Their style, their fit..." He took a step forward, and for once, the great Mercutio did not advance. "But it wasn't just that, was it? The cologne you chose... sandalwood and jasmine. Gentle scents that wouldn't trigger headaches or sensory overload. The deodorant was unscented, because you noticed how I'd wrinkle my nose at strong chemical smells back in Ocarina."

Her fingers twitched for another cigarette, but she kept them still.

"The clothes…cotton blends that wouldn't irritate healing wounds. Darker colors to hide bloodstains if I reopened them. They were all arranged for easy access because you knew I'd try to rush even while injured."

Pandora was a statue, a sculpture of ice and steel.

"My room had extra pillows, softer mattresses, even blackout curtains for when I couldn't sleep. All of it was to help me heal, to help me rest, because you knew that's what I needed most of all."

The first cracks appeared in her mask—a tiny narrowing of eyes, a minute twitch at the corners of her mouth.

Because she knew that care revealed itself not in grand gestures or declarations, but in the thousand tiny considerations that made up a life shared.

"Those weren't preparations for a pawn, Pandora. They were preparations for someone you were terrified of losing."

"You don't understand what you're saying—"

But her voice wavered, the winter's edge dulled by something dangerously close to desperation. For a moment, she looked almost young, not the legendary Mercutio or the calculating High Inquisitor, but simply a woman trying to hold back a tide she'd never meant to let rise.

"The medical supplies in the bathroom cabinet. The exact painkillers I'd need, carefully measured doses laid out in weekly containers. The way you arranged everything so I wouldn't have to stretch or bend with broken ribs."

He stepped closer, close enough to see the faint tremors she couldn't quite suppress.

"Tell me those were just for show. Tell me that was all part of your grand design."

"A vessel for the «Red Key» needed—"

"Stop lying." The words cut through her deflection. "You're pushing me away now for the same reason you prepared everything so carefully then. You're trying to protect me."

Something cracked in her perfect mask.

"You're going to war with Helen Vessalius," he pressed, seeing now how each piece fit together. "That's what Nemesis meant by 'surgery.' You're planning to excise corruption from the Empire itself, starting with her. But it's a path you don't expect to survive."

"Acacia, please—"

The plea escaped before she could catch it, and for just a moment, her walls crumbled enough to reveal the depth of what lay beneath.

"So you're trying to make me hate you, and to ensure I won't follow when you walk into that darkness. Because that's easier than admitting that somewhere between seeing the mission and preparing my wardrobe, that you began to care."

"No!"

The force of her rejection shocked them both. It was raw, uncontrolled, and real in a way that transcended all her careful manipulations.

"I won't let you throw your life away on my crusade. The «Red Key», Bismarck, all of it—it was supposed to be your way out. A chance for you to..."

She caught herself, but not before he glimpsed the truth that she'd been hiding even from herself.

"A chance for me to what, Pandora? To be safe and live the life you think I deserve?" He shook his head, something between a laugh and a sob catching in his throat. "Did you ever consider that maybe I should have a say in that?"

"You don't understand what you're asking. The things I'll have to do, the lines I'll have to cross—"

"I understand better than you think." He met her gaze steadily. "So, I have a proposition for you."

"What?" She stilled completely, mercury in winter.

"So, from what you told me, the «Red Key» responds to denial—rejecting fate, pretty much. That's why it flickered when Nemesis was about to kill me. However, denial doesn't mean just saying 'no' to death."

He smirked.

"It's rejecting the very premises that bind us."

"W-What are you suggesting?" Pandora stuttered.

"A contract, written in chances rather than words."

Her eyes narrowed.

"I'll master the «Red Key» not because Bismarck demands it and not because something or someone requires it, but because I choose to. And in return..."

"In return?"

"You stop trying to protect me from yourself. No more lies about using me, no more pushing me away for my own good. Because I reject the premise that your path must be walked alone."

She stared at him, and for the first time since he'd known her, Pandora Kircheisen was truly shaken externally.

"This isn't a game, Acacia! The forces we're dealing with—"

"Exactly. They're not playing games, so why should we? Let them plot their machinations and plan their schemes. We'll deny their very assumptions! They think they understand power? Let's show them what that really means! You're not just their perfect Inquisitor, and I'm not just an Irregular. We're the ones who get to decide what we become."

The late spring wind returned, carrying the scent of jasmine and distant rain. Overhead, clouds shifted, letting late afternoon light paint the garden in shades of gold and shadow. For a long moment, they simply stood there, two pieces on a board that had suddenly transformed into something entirely new.

Then, with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of centuries, Pandora's shoulders slumped. Not in defeat, but in something closer to acceptance—perhaps even liberation.

"You are impossible," she said, but the words carried none of their usual frost.

"I learned from the best."

She gestured to the weathered bench beside them, the movement somehow both imperious and hesitant like she was unsure if she wanted him to sit.

Regardless, she made room for him, shifting over just enough to make space.

Acacia felt something warm unfurl in his chest. Together, they settled onto the bench as the sun painted the world in farewell colors. In the distance, a pair of swans took flight from the hospital pond, their wings catching light like mercury as they rose into the evening sky.

They watched them ascend in comfortable silence, no longer predator and prey, mentor and student, or even Inquisitor and Irregular. Just two people who had finally stopped pretending they didn't care.

The game wasn't over.

But at least now they were rewriting its rules together.

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