The golden light of early morning filtered through the narrow slits in the dormitory window, scattering across the dull surface of Claudius Mornveil's desk like motes in a sacrificial prism. As he pulled on his coat and adjusted the collar to its precise angle—twenty-two degrees, no more, no less—his gaze swept across the floor and stopped.
A broken pencil.
Its splintered shaft lay just in front of the corner trapdoor. Claudius narrowed his eyes.
That pencil hadn't been there yesterday.
He stepped forward, crouching, and picked it up. The tip was snapped clean. A faint trace of grime clung to the side, like it had been pressed against the inside of a wall. He looked to the trapdoor—shut. Locked. But something had triggered the false hinge.
"So," Claudius murmured, crushing the pencil in his hand and dropping it into the wastebin with surgical calm, "you found it."
He didn't allow himself to linger. Not now.
There was a schedule to uphold. And deviation was the first crack in a perfect mechanism.
Claudius strode out into the violet-lit hallway of the Somnus Wing, boots echoing like the ticking of a divine metronome against the polished stone. As always, he was early. But not early enough to avoid Welter and Hiroyuki.
"Oi! Claudius," Welter called, waving a thick hand from the table in the corner of the dining hall.
Hiroyuki leaned in as Claudius approached, his bowl cut framing a sly smirk.
"You, uh, get enough sleep last night?" he said innocently.
"Yeah," Welter added, grinning. "Didn't expect you to go all blank-faced yesterday. Thought you'd finally snapped."
Claudius sat without comment, unfolding his napkin with mechanical precision. One fold, then another. His movements were ritual.
"Must've been one hell of a dream," Hiroyuki said. "You were muttering something about... cascading cognition."
Claudius raised an eyebrow. "You're misremembering."
"Or misinterpreting," Welter added, stuffing his face.
Claudius began eating in silence, ignoring their nudging. Let them think what they would. Perception was a mutable construct.
Then a shadow loomed.
"Still picking on my brother, boys?"
The voice was smooth, commanding. Welter and Hiroyuki stiffened.
Selene Mornveil stood beside the table, her indigo cloak marking her as an Archive Custodian. Her hair was jet-black, bound in a braid etched with silver filaments like scribed rites of remembrance. Her expression was unreadable, forged in the twin crucibles of duty and lineage.
"S-Selene," Hiroyuki stammered, rising slightly.
"Sit."
They obeyed.
She turned her deep sky blue eyes—like ocean rubies veiled by frost—on Claudius.
"Rumors are crawling through the Archive," she said, voice low, each word weighed like a sealed record. "About your performance yesterday."
Claudius didn't look up from his tray. "I am aware."
"And?"
"They'll pass."
She folded her arms. Her cloak wrapping itself around her body.
"Not if you know who has anything to say."
As if summoned by invocation, Hambrock's presence swept in like a sanctified plague. Blond, broad-shouldered, and radiating the smugness of self-appointed bloodlines, he slapped his tray down beside Claudius.
"Mr. Mornveil," he said. "We need to talk."
Selene stepped between them, smiling with a bureaucrat's poise.
"Hambrock. Did you forget that harassment during communal meals violates Regulation 12.3?"
Hambrock opened his mouth, but Selene raised a single gloved hand.
"Do feel free to file your grievances with the Board. If you survive the paperwork."
Hambrock gritted his teeth. Claudius watched him with the disinterest of a man observing mold through crystal.
"Whatever," Hambrock growled. "Just don't embarrass the Wing again."
He stormed off.
Selene leaned down.
"Be careful," she said softly. "Whatever's going on, you're on thin ice—and you're starting to crack it yourself."
Claudius stood, eyes flicking to the timepiece. "I'm about to be behind schedule."
She frowned. "That's all you have to say?"
"For now."
They watched as he departed, coat trailing behind him like a penitent shadow.
The rest of the day passed like glass under tension.
Eyes followed him wherever he went. Conversations ceased when he entered rooms. His name lingered on lips like poison half-sipped.
He endured it all with mechanical grace, face blank, posture perfect, thoughts partitioned and catalogued.
Until evening.
Alone in his room once more, Claudius stared at the faint groove in the floor—the line marking where Shisan had tampered. Like a scratch in a mirror that only he could see.
He opened the trapdoor.
Checked the chest.
Untouched.
Still, it was too close. Too personal.
He sat at his desk, turning the gold pocket watch over in his hand, its tick steady as judgment. The golden cover caught the lamplight, flashing like the eye of a god long since blinded.
12:00 AM would come again.
And next time...
Next time, he would not simply endure.
He would retaliate.