SHADOW || The Catalysts Series, #2

XLII || Awakening

Epilogue

The party hasn't ended. But it is over for Lena.

Upon returning to the first floor, the auditorium is bathed in lights and holograms of effects—spring flowers, autumn leaves, and even drifting snowflakes.

And when Lena was taking her steps down from the podium, the hued lights and hologram displays drove her head crazy. Stuttering images entered her mind, not from this grand hall, but of another world. Of another reality.

It's been happening since Arcana's speech.

Which is probably why Lena's feet drag themselves here without a thought, and she now flings the set of double doors that appears to her right just as she wills it when she is fuming down the hall, her dress pulled up at the sides.

As if this place beckons, knowing where she wants to go. And as if the master knows, too, and is waiting inside.

Lena doesn't have anything in mind on what to expect coming here on a whim, but as she pushes open the doors and invites herself inside, breathing heavily, a warm room welcomes her. The headmaster of Arcane Academy faces the windows behind his desk overlooking the courtyard now crawling with shadows after sunset. The city lights beyond the gates reflect on the transparent panes, and his own grim expression is half noticeable on the glass surface as Lena tries to ignore the rest of the vision forming there.

"I was waiting for you," Arcana says by way of welcome, his arms resting behind his back, not bothering to turn. He quirks an eyebrow over the little reflection.

"Everything's a lie," is all a Lena manages to muster. The emotions right now are a vortex in her, and as anger and longing and even a piece of hopefulness that now turned into disappointment pierce her altogether, she doesn't know what to feel at all. She repeats meekly, "A lie."

In the silence between, there is nothing but her uneven breaths. The sting in Lena's eyes that threaten to let loose but one emotion is on edge, at the ready.

Finally, Arcana turns to face her. She steps back, her shoulders sagging at the sight of his solemn face. "What is?"

"Stop with the roundabout answers, Arcana," Lena snaps, unable to muster a formal conversation. She stammers a little after, surprised at herself—her utter disrespect. So she shakes it off, closing the distance between them.

She stops just an inch or so before his desk, recalling the last time she was in here all those weeks ago, where she didn't exactly leave on a good note either. Back then—like a lifetime ago before all that's happened—Arcana was still probing her to think about her abilities and what they might do. He was urging her to figure it out with Caelus, knowing that the visions she sees are more than that.

Aren't you curious about why I've offered you a place in the Academy? Those were the words from Arcana then.

Before all this, before Arcana and the Academy, Lena had nothing—remembers nothing but vague pieces of her life and the common sense and knowledge of how everything works. A life, it seems clear now, that never existed to begin with.

Lena's lips tremble. "Everything inside me—every memory I have—of coming from the other side of the world, of having a normal family and a mother who's a psychologist and myself growing up as would others... they are all implanted. False, pretence of a world I never will live in. No more than shattered glass like my abilities."

Arcana never questioned her origins. He materialised before her that fateful night, all to lead her here; and today, it's as if he deliberately planned for her to be here after the triggering speech: "Witnessing this moment with all of you present in the moment—whatever that might come tomorrow is merely secondary. And to this, I toast to our endeavours, whatever the future brings."