The child moved first.
One second he was standing at the foot of the violin-tree, smiling with his head tilted like a curious bird.The next, he was everywhere—fractured images spiralling across the plaza, each step a ripple through the glassy world.
Cassiel lunged forward instinctively, blade flashing out in a precise arc meant to catch the closest figure.
It passed through harmless air.
"Illusions!" Bastion barked, already moving to cover Elior's back.
Mirae muttered a curse under her breath and flung a handful of salt from her pouch. The salt arced through the false children——and clung to one of them.
"There!" she shouted, voice clear and sharp.
Cassiel pivoted instantly, closing the distance with terrifying speed.His sword struck——and for a moment, it felt like slicing through smoke layered over steel.
The child reeled back, a wound blooming bright silver across his ribs.Yet he did not bleed.
He giggled.
"You remembered me wrong," he said.
Reality around them shifted violently.
The ground cracked like broken mirrors. Buildings folded inward, turning into impossible geometric nightmares. Statues wept streams of tar.
The child lifted his hands—and the air sang.
Not music.Not words.
Pure memory.
It struck like a hammer against Cassiel's mind.
He staggered, visions clawing up from deep places he had long buried——a hand slipping from his grasp into raging waters——a battle cry cut short by a blade he couldn't see——a warm voice calling his name from a place he could no longer reach.
"Stay with me!" Mirae screamed, grabbing his arm and yanking him back into the present.
Bastion threw a knife, blade whistling through the air—only to watch it twist mid-flight, reversing course as if betraying him.
Elior planted his staff into the ground.
A low thrumming spread outward—an anchor against the warping world.
"Focus!" Elior gritted out, sweat dripping down his temple. "He's not real! None of this is real unless we believe it is!"
The child clapped his hands.
The violin tree split open, releasing a flood of ghostly figures—memories coalesced into snarling beasts, half-formed regrets with too many teeth.
Cassiel gritted his teeth.
There was only one way forward.
He sheathed his blade and stepped directly into the oncoming flood.
Mirae shouted, reaching for him—but Bastion caught her arm.
"Trust him."
Cassiel's voice rose above the chaos—not with a shout, but with a song.
A raw, broken melody.The same song he had offered the door.
"The rivers run silentwhere names are stones.The fields rememberthe footprints of bones..."
The flood hesitated.
The child's smile faltered, small shoulders tensing.
Cassiel pressed forward, each step grounding the twisting reality.
The beasts howled—but their forms blurred, flickering like candlelight in a storm.
Mirae joined him, voice steady but soft, layering her own memory-song atop his.
Then Bastion. Rough but strong, carrying old griefs like banners.
Then Elior, voice breaking but true.
Their songs wove together—a tapestry of pain and remembrance, raw and imperfect but real.
The child screamed.
Not in rage.
In heartbreak.
Shards of light exploded from his body, fracturing the false city around them.
He stumbled back toward the tree, black eyes wide and uncomprehending.
"You forgot me," he said, voice trembling.
"No," Cassiel said quietly, stepping closer. "We carried you."
He knelt before the child, setting his blade aside.
The boy looked up at him, lip trembling.
"...It hurts," he whispered.
"I know," Cassiel said.
He opened his arms.
The child hesitated—
—and then collapsed into him, sobbing quietly against his chest.
The plaza calmed.
The sky settled into a soft bruised violet.
The grass turned green.
The figures with mirrored faces bowed once—slow, solemn—and faded into motes of gold.
The tree of violins withered away, strings snapping in a final whisper.
When Cassiel rose, the boy was gone.
Only a small, cracked locket remained in the grass, humming faintly with warm magic.
He picked it up carefully, tucking it away.
The others gathered around him, silent but steady.
"We keep moving," Cassiel said after a moment, voice hoarse but sure.
He looked up at the cathedral's next gate, now open.
Beyond it—deeper into Ashreign.
And fate waiting with open hands.