Chapter LXXXIX: The Pectus Algorithm
The sun never truly rises over the separation. The sky remains bruised, the clouds low and swollen, casting the land in an endless twilight. The castle stands at its center like a wound that refuses to close.
An hour ago, Edison Roe woke up at the gates once more — but this time, he is not afraid.
The Gate of Thorns towers before him, its black iron ribs tangled with vines that pulse faintly, like veins. Cold mist coils between the rails. He blinks the dizziness away and touches the metal; it hums beneath his fingers, alive, whispering something ancient and cruel.
He looks down at his hands — bloodstained, trembling — then up at the gate again. "You've got to open," he mutters. "You have to."
He grabs a rock and slams it between the rails, trying to loosen the vines, to pry the metal apart. Sparks jump out like tiny stars, but nothing moves. He curses under his breath and steps back.
Think, Edison. Think.
He remembers what Theo once said — every lock in this castle was made to be poetic.
So he kneels, tracing the tiled floor before the gate. The grid gleams faintly — six columns, twenty-seven rows. Letters and numbers shimmer faintly under the mist.
Edison breathes out. "Password..."
He closes his eyes and recalls the whispers in his dreams — the voice that told him once: FUNICE.
So he presses the sequence: 5, 21, 14, 9, 3, 5.
Nothing. The gate remains still, humming mockingly.
He exhales sharply. "No, no, no... come on!"
Then he hears it — faint laughter, not from the castle, but inside his head. For a moment, the world blurs. His breath catches.
And something inside him shifts.
His vision warps; the mist bends like glass. Suddenly, he is no longer standing before the gate — he is lying on a velvet bed, his body softer, his hair brushing against silk pillows. The air smells like dead roses.
A mirror glints nearby, and reflected there is not his face — but hers.
Eris.
Her pale eyes gaze back at him with an empty calm.
Edison's voice trembles. "What in God's name..."
He touches his face — her face — the cold skin, the black veins at the neck. Then his gaze falls on a chest atop her nightstand. Dark wood, carved with runes.
Something compels him. He whispers, "Pectus."
The lock clicks open.
Inside is a book, bound in gray leather. Symbols crawl across its surface like living ink. Beneath it, a letter, written in blood-colored ink — only half legible.
"The heart remembers what the gate denies."
The moment he reads it, pain sears through his skull. He gasps and collapses back on the bed — Eris's bed. Her consciousness presses against his, cold and furious, but not yet awake.
He squeezes his eyes shut. "Enough!"
And just like that — he blinks — and he's back before the Gate of Thorns.
The mist curls tighter around him, but he's smiling now, lips quivering. "The heart remembers..."
He looks at the tiled floor again. Six columns. Twenty-seven rows.
Then presses: 16, 5, 3, 20, 21, 19.
PECTUS.
The gate shudders. The vines retract, hissing like serpents. The iron ribs groan and slowly, the passage yawns open.
Edison laughs softly, almost in disbelief. "I did it..."
He steps through.
Beyond the gate lies a corridor of black stone, damp and echoing. And at its end — a door, faintly glowing red. Behind it — a voice.
"Kingsley?"
He rushes forward and presses his ear against the wood.
He hears labored breathing, and the crackle of fire.
Inside, Kingsley Voss kneels in the center of a circle of burning sigils, each glowing crimson and pulsing with malignant rhythm. Sweat streaks down his face as he tries to dispel them, muttering incantations that die mid-air. The heat licks his skin.
Then, from within the flames, a voice sneers — distorted, cruel.
"You will never succeed. You are nothing but an experiment."
He grips his head, screaming. "Stop—!"
"You will fail them all. You will die forgotten, Kingsley Voss!"
For a second, the shadows twist into the faint outline of her face — lips curled into a grin.
Kingsley grits his teeth and forces himself upright. His entire body trembles, but his voice is steady.
"I will never give up."
He clenches his fist, summoning raw energy between his palms. Sparks ignite, forming a white-blue plasma sphere.
"I am Kingsley Voss! And I have a dream — that one day, I'll heal what the world refuses to fix!"
He slams the plasma onto the floor.
The explosion of light devours the sigils. The flames vanish. Smoke fills the room.
When it clears, he sees a glint above — a key swaying gently from the chandelier.
He exhales, grinning despite the pain. "Guess I earned that."
He climbs up, snatches it, and staggers to the door — just as Edison bursts in.
"Kingsley!"
The two freeze, then almost laugh in disbelief.
"Edison?!"
"Thought you were barbecue!"
They clasp hands, the weight of relief flooding the room.
"Let's move," Edison says, showing him the gate symbol burned on his palm. "Nathaniel and Theo are ahead. We need to find them."
They hurry down the corridor, the castle's pulse echoing beneath their feet.
Hours — or maybe minutes — later, through winding halls and shifting walls, they find them. Nathaniel and Theo, standing beside a fractured mirror, turn as the footsteps approach.
Nathaniel's pendant flashes in response — recognizing them.
Edison calls out, "Nate!"
Nathaniel spins, disbelief written across his face. "Edison? Kingsley? You—how?"
Edison shrugs. "Let's just say I figured out the gate password with... unconventional help."
Theo smirks. "So, same old luck then."
Their laughter is short-lived — because from behind them comes a guttural roar.
The walls split open.
A creature, draped in violet mist, drags itself through the fissure — long limbs ending in claws, its eyes burning with purple fire.
Theo curses. "Not again!"
"Run!" Nathaniel orders.
They sprint through the corridor. The demon crashes after them, its roar shaking dust from the ceiling. Each step leaves burns on the floor.
They turn corners blindly until they find a hall cluttered with overturned statues. They duck behind them, gasping for air.
The demon slithers past the entrance, sniffing the air. The sound of its breath rattles the chandeliers.
Kingsley whispers, "We can't outrun that thing forever."
Nathaniel thinks fast. "Theo — you still got that flash spell?"
Theo nods. "But I need a line of sight."
Edison peers around the statue. "I'll give you one."
Before anyone can stop him, Edison grabs a loose stone and throws it across the hall. The demon turns instantly, screeching, and charges toward the noise — directly into view.
"Now!"
Theo extends his hand. A burst of pure light erupts from his palm, flooding the hall. The demon screams, flailing — blinded.
Nathaniel lunges, pendant blazing. "Kingsley, focus energy on me!"
Kingsley nods, summoning another plasma orb and channeling it toward Nathaniel's pendant. The light intensifies — a radiant surge cutting through the fog.
Nathaniel strikes.
The pendant's light pierces the demon's chest, and for a heartbeat, its body becomes translucent — veins glowing like cracks in glass — before it bursts into a shower of violet ash.
Silence.
The four of them stand panting, surrounded by falling dust and fading embers.
Theo finally breaks it. "You know, I was really hoping for a simple reunion."
Edison laughs breathlessly. "Same."
Nathaniel wipes the blood from his cheek. "We're not done yet."
He looks down the hallway — where two more paths branch off, one veiled in mist, the other glowing faintly gold.
"We find Pauline and Maisie," he says. "Then we finish this."
Kingsley looks at him. "And if the castle has other plans?"
Nathaniel's eyes harden. "Then we make our own."
The camera — if this were an anime — would pull back through the hallways, past the dying embers, up into the night sky where the thunder has finally gone silent. The castle hums again, gears shifting, alive and ancient.
Inside, faint echoes whisper through the corridors — Pauline's voice, calling for help; Maisie's humming, trembling with fear.
Nathaniel tightens his grip on the pendant.
The castle on the hill breathes once more — and the hunt, now with its hunters united, begins anew.
But somewhere, deep within the heart of the fortress... a single mirror cracks.
And behind it, unseen, eyes open.
Watching.
Waiting.
The next move belongs to them.