“I feel like a dummy,” Van said. “Sheeharu… Rue… I should have connected the dots a long time ago. Even so, why didn’t you tell us?”

  Raven stood in the doorway of the newly discovered passage. White marble steps led up to some unknown destination. He held up the two pandora, staring hard at each of them. The words whispering in his ears, once sorrowful, were now a haunting dirge saturated with poison.

  “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

  Raven’s brow furrowed. Valius Shrale… what did you do?

  “Raven?”

  Valentine’s voice brought him back to the present.

  “Are you ok?” she asked, coming beside him.

  After a moment, he nodded.

  Van placed a hand on the arching stone frame of the new doorway, marveling at Shrale’s impressive manipulation of the Rail’s artifact to form such places. “So, again, I have to ask…” he said. “Why did you never tell us Rue is the Sleeping Devil?”

  “You never asked,” Raven answered.

  Van folded his arms. “Very funny.”

  “I suppose I should have said something. It has become practice to guard Rue’s identify for most of my life. It’s one thing for the Titan to know I possess a Class Eight pandora, which I desire him to know. It’s another for him to understand who she really is. The Titan cannot break open the cocoon in which her body sleeps, though he has tried. And I would postulate that it frightens him. If there’s something even his Remnant Aria cannot destroy, what else exists in this world that can deny him?”

  “I see.” He didn’t seem pacified by the answer but did not inquire further.

  Raven turned his attention back to the doorway. “Let’s proceed.”

  They climbed the stairway in silence. A chill filled the air suddenly, dry and heavy.

  “Raven… I know this place,” Rue whispered fearfully. “I can feel it.”

  He nodded.

  At the top of the staircase, a spectacle awaited them. What Raven had first expected when they entered the doorway into the Tetrapolis he now found: a wizard’s laboratory. Shrale’s true study was a wonder matched only by the stark contrast of what they left behind. Light replaced the dull darkness, filling a wide circular space. Sheer glass made up half the curved walls and ceiling, somehow shimmering from blue and gold beyond, as if the room sat directly in the sun’s light, instead of underground.

  Another desk sat on one side, large and bulky. The soft wood and worn spots on its open surfaces suggested actual use, unlike the decoy within the Tetrapolis. Raven could imagine Shrale spent many an hour seated at that desk, poring over his research and documents. Curiosities littered the rest of the laboratory. Models and statues, maps and globes, tubes and chambers, push-pin boards and bookshelves aplenty. Shrale must have spent all his time here, and Raven couldn’t blame him.

  “Wow, look at this!” Van exclaimed, looking through the glass wall near the desk.

  They joined him in looking out. A full quarter of the study wall looked down on Panka’s very sanctuary. The flowing waterfall carried no noise, and the guardian of Roespeye was not present.

  “Incredible,” Raven said. “Shrale was secretly able to observe Panka within his own domicile. Panka obviously never knew.”

  “But the entire place is stone, right?” Van rubbed a hand over the glass. “How can he not see this?”

  “I believe Shrale drew power from the artifact in the Rail to build this lab and the Tetrapolis.”

  “That sphere in the main hall of the Rail?” Valentine asked.

  He nodded. “Panka used it to create the Rail long ago. It contains vast power unrelated to Hydra and might perhaps be older than the guardians themselves. I’m convinced Shrale was able to tap into its power without him knowing.”

  Just then, Panka drifted into sight, coming down the waterfall from near the source of his pool. A wicked grin splayed across his watery face, as if he just finished playing another prank. He drifted to and fro, oblivious to his three observers in Shrale’s study.

  “Uhhh… Raven you better come look at this,” Van said.

  Raven and Valentine turned to find Van had wandered off. He now stood on the opposite side of the room, partially cordoned off by planters and tables and serving as a makeshift lounge. They joined him where he stood, gazing up at a wall filled with myriad papers affixed to the surface or chalk notes composed directly onto the surface of the wall.

  Valentine gasped. A ghastly silence permeated the three of them as they took it all in.

  The entirety of the mass group of research posted onto the wall centered on Sheeharu. Statistics on her growth, eating habits, study habits; sketches of her body in various poses of drawn examination; family genealogy; and so much more.

  It was the collection of an obsession, plastered over the wall like a madman. It became immediately evident that Rue was no apprentice to Shrale, as had been speculated. The child had been an experiment, poked and prodded, and no doubt hidden from her parents. And over and over, one phrase permeated the many notes and exhibits: Soul Decoupling.

  Soul Decoupling.

  Soul Decoupling.

  The phrase could only have one meaning.

  The nauseating truth sank deep into Raven’s heart as he scowled at the display. He reached back and punched the wall in anger, leaving his fist sunk into an especially heinous sketch of Rue lying on an observation table.

  “I knew it,” he rasped. “I just… KNEW IT. They called him a hero! They called him a damn HERO!”

  “Shrale is the one who extracted Rue’s soul all along?” Van said, aghast in disbelief. “He was… researching her for this! He obviously intended to do it for a while!”

  “I’m okay, Raven,” Rue said. “I don’t have any memory of anything he did. I’m okay, I promise.”

  “Soul Decoupling, he calls it,” Raven said, sneering. “Cold words for a cold monster.”

  “But…” Van scratched his head, bewildered. “If he did this, why on earth did he sacrifice his life to save the city from Rue’s attack afterward?”

  “It’s obvious now,” Raven said. “He didn’t understand the consequences of his so-called ‘Soul Decoupling.’ Remember what Panka said? When the image of the Holy One is stripped of its spiritual nature, the body’s Hydra is released without control. Shrale must have been ignorant of this until it was too late.”

  “I thought Rue had no Hydra?”

  “All people have Hydra. Each soul produces its own distinct energy, which is how pandora are formed in the first place. The vitality you gain drinking from your pool is a replenishment of your own spirit. But no outside Hydra could touch Rue. She is a well unto herself.”

  “Raven, what other purposes could Shrale have used the artifact for besides building this place?” Valentine asked.

  He looked at her. She was thinking exactly what he was. He nodded, thankful for her level-headedness. Now was not the time to mourn what happened.

  “That’s what we’re here to find out,” he replied. “Shrale would have brought her here to conduct his experiments away from Panka’s protection. Rue was special as a human being because she was unaffected by Hydra in every way. It couldn’t touch her. There must be a reason this special trait of hers was important to his experiments.”

  “And if he couldn’t use Hydra, he must have used the artifact’s power to extract Rue’s soul,” Valentine said. “Which means, there must be a conduit in this study where he could draw from its power.”

  Raven exhaled in despondency. “The power Shrale used to extract Rue’s soul must have been tremendous. She would have suffered greatly.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Van said, lifting up papers on the wall to look at others underneath. “If he used the artifact’s power to pull Rue’s soul out, then we’re gonna have to use it to put her soul back in.”

  “Exactly. But the only way we can is to find his completed research. We reverse engineer the method. At the very least, Shrale’s evil aids our cause in one way. Finding Shrale’s study was originally supposed to serve the purpose of discovering how to free her from the amber cocoon he constructed. The method to actually restore her soul once the cocoon was broken was a separate obstacle. Now the two missions are one and the same.”

  “You’re thinking he wrote down his method of Soul Decoupling?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I read thousands of Shrale’s painstaking notebooks,” Valentine said. “Records of the most mundane research that he nonetheless found necessary to document. He definitely would have scribed his far more important discoveries.”

  “And we must find it,” Raven said. “The fate of everything we hold dear in this world lies within those texts. Freeing Rue… and restoring her soul. Let’s spread out. Look for anything else related to Rue or Shrale’s research. I will start with this wall. Valentine, go through the contents of his desk. Van, you look everywhere else.”

  They immediately set to work, energized by newfound motivation to overcome the villainy of Valius Shrale. Raven’s anger grew as Shrale’s voice emanated from his own pandora, now pathetic and hollow.

  I’m sorry… I’m so… sorry.

  They searched for hours. In every drawer and cubby. On every shelf and under every piece of furniture. They read every book, every page littering the walls, every scribbled note on every scrap of paper to be found. Much of it told the despicable story of the lengths Shrale went to in preparation for snatching Rue’s soul. They learned he selected her because he speculated her resistance to Hydra indicated a high-level soul.

  “Look here,” Valentine alerted the boys.

  Near Shrale’s desk, she pulled down a large painting from one of the non-see-through walls. An immense seal had been drawn in pandora ink.

  “That has to be the power conductor,” Raven said in awe. “What a complex seal within a seal! Look at these criss-cross patterns here near the lower inner seal. It resembles the Seal of Draw, but it’s much more elaborate. These are dangerous composites.”

  Valentine pointed. “But Shrale erased the inner runes. Look. All of them are missing. How will we know which ones to use?”

  “I should be able to figure it out. It will take time, but now that I have the design, the rest will be elementary.”

  They continued to search Shrale’s study but there wasn’t a trace of his actual methods. No information on Soul Decoupling, and not an iota referring to the amber cocoon in which Rue’s body lay trapped.

  Raven finally sat at Shrale’s desk, frustrated. Their path to Rue’s salvation couldn’t come to a dead end. Not now. Not when they had come so far. He slammed his fist on the desk.

  His eyebrows rose. “Did you hear that?”

  Van and Valentine drew near. Raven rapped his knuckles on the desk.

  “It’s hollow!” Van exclaimed.

  They immediately pored over the surface of the desk, looking for some hidden drawer or switch. Finally, Raven found something. A knob near his knees where he sat. He gave it a twist and the top of the desk popped, leaving a thin opening. He grasped it and flung the false desktop away.

  As the heavy wooden board broke free from its hinges and clattered onto the floor, the trio drew closer. A dagger was embedded into the hidden surface of the desk, holding a hand-written letter in place. Raven immediately ripped the page free.

  If you are reading this, I commend you. I expect this letter shall never be found, but on the small chance some intrepid intellect should understand what I left behind, my hope is that this same intellect will pardon my terrible deeds, as they were performed in pursuit of knowledge.

  I am dying.

  Sheeharu Rendan’s power was beyond my understanding. If the person reading this must know one thing, know this: I was a fool. Through my Soul Decoupling method, I extracted the young girl’s soul from her body, forming the pandora. The experiment was a success, and yet… I now regret everything. Not because of my looming death, which is certain. It was Sheeharu. Her face. Her expression when she finally realized I had used her. That I cared nothing for her. As she faded into the monster unconsciousness of her soulless body, it was only then that I realized what I had become.

  This small child… she trusted me. One could say that I woke up in that moment.

  In my pride, I firmly believed I would quickly and easily restore her soul back. It was simply an experiment. Never had I intended to keep the pandora for myself. Even as I held an unimaginable Class Eight soul in my hands, which hers proved to be, I was confident such a prize would never sway me to forgo restoring her spirit and making her whole again.

  But something happened. Something I cannot explain and now will never have the opportunity to understand. Unrestrained power consumed Sheeharu’s body and then unleashed upon the mountain. Terrible Hydra poured out from her, black and toxic. Before I could flee, the power touched me, and now it lingers like a poison on my body. I can feel its deathly fingers seeping into me, and there is nothing I can do. I would postulate that I have mere hours to live.

  I grow weak. The terror of my doom approaches.

  My only solace is that I was able to contain Sheeharu before she could destroy Nine Star. She lies dormant within the Chevron Chrysalis, and must never awaken, for the sake of my home. And now, my shame is complete, and I will die with this disgrace, for I can never let anyone else know what I have done.

  I commit now, this last selfish act. I will send Sheeharu’s soul away to my benefactor, where she can be stored away in hiding until her release to the heavens, if that can ever come. I will close up my Tetrapolis. And I will scatter my Star Tome, lest anyone should desire to repeat my folly.

  I should destroy it. I should burn it. But I cannot. It is my life. My life’s work in this place and in my beloved Star Tome. And so, I cast my wish to the fates: that one worthy of this knowledge should be the one to find it. If the intellect who now reads this letter was able to discover all I left behind, perhaps by some miracle, he will also pity my arrogance and find some measure of appreciation in my pursuit of the unknown.

  I go now to my sons. To die in regret. And to wish I had never met Sheeharu Rendan.

  Forgive me. Valius Shrale

  “What a piece of trash,” Van said, folding his arms.

  Rue chuckled sadly. “Thank you, Van,” she said, even though he couldn’t hear her. “I’m so glad I don’t remember anything he did to me.”

  “The Star Tome,” Valentine reread. “Raven…”

  “Yes,” Raven said, crumpling up the letter. “Master Bastille’s challenge. To restore the Star Tome.”

  “Which means he knows something about it.”

  “What do you think he means when he says, “he scattered” it?” Van asked. “Maybe his tome is multiple volumes, like his journals in the Tetrapolis?”

  “Or maybe he split it up into sections?”

  Raven placed Shrale’s pandora on the desk and stared hard at it.

  “Talk to me,” he said to the pandora. “Where is your tome?”

  The pandora grew quiet for the first time in months.

  He slammed his fist on the desk. “Talk to me, Shrale!”

  A voiced suddenly shrieked from the pandora. “NOOOOOOO!” A desperate cry of misery.

  The card then burst into flame, engulfing the desk in white hot fire. Van and Valentine backed away in shock, but Raven stood, staring angrily at the card. Fire licked up his robes and threatened to consume him.

  “You pathetic coward!” he shouted.

  He slammed his fist on the pandora violently. The flames expelled and all became quiet again. Raven patted his robes down angrily.

  “I need time to think,” he said, and he stormed out.

  Van and Valentine watched him go in surprise. It was several moments before they both realized they were alone.

  “Well…” Valentine said, blushing. “I guess I understand his reaction, but now what?”

  “Hmm,” Van replied, holding his chin. Then he smiled, reached for the small of her back, and kissed her.

  “Wait!” she said several kisses later, laughing. “Not here, and not now. It’s too weird. Not when we know what happened in this place.”

  “Then where and when?”

  She lightly pecked his lips again, smiling. “I’m thirsty. Let’s go to Chavana’s.”

  He smirked. “Again?”

  “It’s my favorite.”

  She took his hands and led him out of the Rail. Van was now familiar with the short walk from the school to Valentine’s favorite café in the city. They had already frequented the bakery and coffee shop in the residential district several times during their brief time dating, and he loved every minute they spent there.

  The proprietor, Mr. Chavana, smiled as they strolled into the warm store, pink-faced from the cold. White flowers decorated yellow wallpapered walls, and whitewashed tables further brightened the pleasant escape from the chill.

  “Back again so soon, Ms. Chessex?” he asked, eyes twinkling behind spectacles.

  “Another long day of… schoolwork,” she replied, winking at Van. “Can I get my usual coffee with cream and sugar, Mr. Chavana?”

  “Coming right up. Same black coffee for you, young sir?” he said, looking at Van.

  He nodded, and they sat at a table by a wide window overlooking the street. The coffee shop was normally much busier, but today, there was only one other customer in a nearby corner, a man hidden from view by an open newspaper.

  “I guess the news about Rapshuron is keeping people home,” Van said.

  Valentine took his hands into hers. The warmth of her skin made him melt. Everything he ever wanted was now sitting across from him, looking at him with love in her eyes. Her beauty was beyond anything he could ever imagine, and he knew without a doubt that he would never be able to thank Raven enough for what he did to make this happen.

  Raven.

  Van immediately felt guilty. His friend was currently in the depths of gloom after their long day, but Van could barely focus on him. But then again… something did bother him about what transpired.

  “Knock, knock,” Valentine said. “Is anyone home?”

  Van shook his head. “Sorry Val. I got distracted.”

  “What were you thinking about?” she asked as Mr. Chavana placed their coffees on their table. “Talk to me.”

  “Does it bother you that Raven didn’t tell us about Rue? That he held the soul of the Sleeping Devil this whole time and we never knew?”

  “No.”

  “Not at all?”

  “I’m actually a little embarrassed I didn’t figure it out sooner.” She blew on her coffee before taking a sip of the golden drink. “How was Raven going to restore Rue’s soul if he didn’t have it to begin with? Like he said, we never asked.”

  He frowned. “Even so… it feels like he didn’t trust us.”

  “Should he?”

  “I think so. Have we given him any reason not to? And then I have to wonder what other secrets he’s hiding.”

  “If you need to discover all Raven’s secrets, I think you’re going to be disappointed the rest of your life.”

  He nodded. “You’ve got me there.”

  “I believe that Raven intends to use Sheeharu to kill the Titan.”

  Van spluttered into his coffee, and coughed. “Shhh!” he said, wiping his chin while looking around. Mr. Chavana did not look up from behind his counter, and the man reading the newspaper didn’t seem to hear what she said.

  Valentine sipped her coffee primly. “Was it something I said?”

  “But… Raven said he wants to save Rue!” he whispered.

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she replied, lowering her voice. “Raven says he will save Rue and restore her soul, and I believe he will. But does that mean he can’t use her to kill the Titan before he does that? When she is this untamable ‘monster?’ Think about it. Maybe this incurable, poisonous attack that killed Valius Shrale can also somehow get through the Titan’s supposedly unbreakable defense. Or maybe the reason her cocoon can’t be cracked leads Raven to believe she’s strong enough to counter Remnant Aria!”

  “Holy Wild… I didn’t even think about that.”

  “Look, I’ve come to accept one thing. Raven is here to end this world of pandora, and he’s the only one equipped to do it. And I believe he will use any and all means to see the Titan dead, even if it means doing things others might find questionable or even abhorrent. No means are beyond the end for him. I’ve come to accept it, and I’m not going to question him, because I want the same thing. I would do anything to see the end of pandora. Even give my life.”

  She squeezed his hands sincerely.

  Van squeezed back. He shook his head ruefully before smiling. “I’ll die before I ever let you die.”

  She smiled and leaned in over the table to kiss him.

  A throat clearing interrupted their reverie, and they looked up in shock.

  Master Cooley stood right beside their table, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere. A rolled-up newspaper sat snug under his arm.

  “May I give you two students of mine a piece of friendly advice?” he said, placing a nice top hat on his head.

  “Um… yes, sir,” Van managed to reply.

  The Economics teacher leaned in. “If you’re going to have conversations about the destruction of pandora and the murder of the Titan, perhaps you should hold them… in more private settings?”

  They gulped in unison. “Yes, sir,” they said together.

  Master Cooley made to leave, but then he stopped and backed up to look at them again. “Of course, I’m not saying don’t have them.”

  Van and Valentine looked at each other in shock before looking back up at him.

  He smiled a bit, nodded, and strode out the door.