Chapter Text
The Grove's chaos was left behind.
Beyond the great amphitheater, past the winding cloisters and whispering archives, stood a narrow spiral staircase carved into obsidian rootstone—leading to a study hidden high above the central grove, nestled in the upper lattice of glowing trees.
Anaxa’s home.
The walls of the chamber were soft with candlelight. Shelves cradled volumes older than Okhema itself. Tools—both alchemical and arcane—lined every table, and in the center of the domed room, a round sitting area encircled a low crystal hearth.
Tonight, it no longer felt like a scholar’s sanctuary. It was a containment zone.
Phainon moved first, his usual spring in his step now dulled by caution. He gently guided Aglaea toward one of the cushioned chairs beside the hearth.
She obeyed, but not out of willingness—her body moved like someone caught between timelines, as though a single wrong word would unravel her presence.
Her eyes were fixed forward. Not cold. Not furious.
Just… blank.
Beside her, Cerces—still in Anaxa’s body—settled gracefully at her side, moving like she owned the room (and, well, the legs in it). She reached out, slowly and without assumption, to place her gloved hand atop Aglaea’s smaller, trembling one.
She leaned in slightly and whispered, her voice soft.
“It’s alright, darling. You're not dreaming. You’re not broken.” She smiled gently.
Her thumb began to trace slow, soothing circles across Aglaea’s knuckles.
Across the room, Hyacine had never let go of the figure beside her—the cloaked, small-framed body still wrapped awkwardly in a long, trailing robe.
Anaxa had not spoken since being escorted here. Not a sound. His limbs were stiff, shoulders hunched like a statue chiseled from guilt.
Hyacine, ever gentle, kept her arm around his shoulders—not to restrain, but to stabilize.
“Come on,” she coaxed. “We’re not going to hex you. Just breathe.”
Anaxa didn’t respond.
But he let her guide him to the farthest chair, where he sat and folded in on himself—arms crossed, legs tucked, gaze buried behind the oversized collar of the robe.
His hair—Cerces’s wild beige strands—fell like a curtain between him and the room.
At the door, Castorice stood sentinel. She didn’t pace. She didn’t speak.
Her back was against the frame, her gloved hand resting calmly at her side. But her eyes never left the room.
The quiet stretched so long it felt like it would wrap around them all like a rope.
The only sound was the low hum of the memory-flame and the almost rhythmic creak of the chair as Aglaea shifted faintly—still lost in a daze, her posture too stiff for her silk.
Hyacine, still seated beside the cloaked figure in Cerces’s body, finally turned to him with her soft, healer’s hands. Her brow was furrowed—not in anger, but in silent concern, the kind that ran deeper than words.
“...May I?” she whispered.
Anaxa flinched beneath the robe.
But he didn’t stop her.
Slowly, carefully, Hyacine reached beneath the heavy hood and began to draw it back. She brushed aside the comically oversized sunglasses and the tangle of beige hair draped over his face.
The cloak fell.
And what it revealed was a young woman—soft-featured, luminous-eyed, and strikingly beautiful. Her expression was caught between shame and shock, her lips drawn tight in a line.
Hyacine blinked.
Phainon inhaled sharply.
Even Castorice narrowed her eyes, just slightly.
“...Who is she?” Hyacine asked quietly, looking toward the real Anaxa—but still speaking to the professor’s body seated calmly beside Aglaea.
Cerces, of course, smiled.
She continued to gently rub Aglaea’s back, her touch practiced and soothing, her eyes aglow with amusement as if she were simply unraveling a game to children.
“That,” she said lightly, “is your professor, Anaxa.”
Hyacine tilted her head.
Phainon’s jaw fell open, but no sound came out.
Castorice’s eyes narrowed into slits.
Cerces raised her hand with a tiny, theatrical gesture—never stopping the rhythmic motion on Aglaea’s trembling spine.
“And I,” she continued, tone smooth and sweet as velvet tea, “am Cerces. The Titan of Reason. In his body.”
There was a beat of pure silence.
Even the fire in the hearth seemed to flicker in confusion.
Then—Phainon, very slowly, turned to Hyacine.
“...So she’s him and he’s her?”
“Explain. Now.”
Cerces gave a happy little hum. “But of course~”
She turned slightly toward the group—still seated beside Aglaea, whose eyes were glassy and distant—and gave a theatrical shrug. “It all started with a bath, a little homunculus experiment, and a catastrophic lack of self-control.”
She continued to explain how Anaxa’s in attempt to separate the coreflame from his body, accidentally misplaced their souls instead. Cerces in his own and Anaxa’s into the newly created homunculi.
“And then…” She made a spinning motion with her hand. “Zap. Swap. Oops.”
Phainon blinked slowly. “…That’s it?”
Cerces grinned. “That’s the academic summary, yes.”
Hyacine looked between her and the cloaked figure on the far end of the room—the woman with Cerces’s face, still curled up in her chair, silent as stone.
Anaxa groaned into his palms.
Castorice had not moved from her position near the door, but her gaze was razor sharp. “That’s very difficult to believe,” she said coldly. “A homunculus causing a full soul displacement?”
Cerces tilted her head, then gave a dramatic shrug.
“You’d have to ask the man who built it. My field’s memory, not metaphysics.”
She gestured lazily toward Anaxa—still in Cerces’s body, still bundled awkwardly in a robe two sizes too long.
The others turned slowly to look at him.
But he didn’t speak.
His shoulders remained hunched, his fingers tightly woven together. He looked like someone trying to fold himself into a single atom.
And finally— Aglaea moved.
Subtle. Small.
Her hand—still under Cerces’s—twitched slightly. Her lashes fluttered once. Then, slowly, her eyes turned to look at the man seated beside her.
The man who had spoken so gently.
Who had hugged her. Who had kissed her cheek.
A face she knew. But the gaze?
It was not his.
“...You’re not him,” she murmured softly.
Cerces smiled wider, but more gently now. She nodded once.
“No, my love. I’m not.”
A long silence followed—heavy, fragile. Aglaea didn’t pull away.
She just… watched her.
For a moment, the world softened.
The tension that had knotted Aglaea’s shoulders began to ease—not completely, but just enough for her voice to return. Her gaze flickered up at the man beside her—his tall frame, sharp jaw, that calm, unbothered smile.
Her eyes lingered.And then—she blushed.
Barely.
Faint, but visible.
A dusting of warmth across her cheeks, like sunlight filtering through her composure.
She tore her gaze away instantly, looking down at her lap. Her fingers tightened in her silk sleeves.
Cerces saw it.
Her smile bloomed, sweet and triumphant like a girl watching her cake rise exactly as she planned. With the same calm arrogance as someone who knew the moment would come eventually—no matter how many timelines or soul swaps it took.
She lifted a hand and cupped Aglaea’s cheek again, gently guiding her chin up—not forcing, just coaxing.
“Darling,” she said, using that old name with a whisper, “don’t hide it. Your coreflame is responding. It’s resonating with mine.”
“It always has. And now, without all that reason clouding romance… You can feel it too, can’t you?”
Aglaea swallowed hard, her throat shifting visibly. Her lashes fluttered once more.
“I… I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.
Cerces chuckled softly, her voice light, silk-wrapped mischief.
“You’ve lived for centuries, stitched gods into gowns, turned heartbreak into power…”
“And yet here you are—still cute as a girl in love for the first time.”
Aglaea looked away again.
But this time—she didn’t pull her hand back.
The rest of the room had turned to statues.
Phainon had gone rigid on the floor cushion, mouth half-open, blinking in slow, confused intervals like someone caught buffering a romance novel he didn’t download.
Hyacine looked between the two with wide eyes and faint panic, as if she were witnessing something that was definitely not Twilight Courtyard Certified.
Castorice… actually blinked. Her lips parted. Just a fraction. But for Castorice, that was the equivalent of throwing a chair.
And Anaxa, still slouched in Cerces’s much smaller frame across the room, looked like someone who had just heard their own thesis being rejected by the stars themselves. His face had gone from mortified to utterly lost.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. And he absolutely could not watch himself—or rather, his body—hold Aglaea like she was the protagonist of a soft-focus romance opera.
The lines had long been crossed.
Watching her blush?
Watching Cerces call her cute?
Watching her not pull away?!
In HIS BODY??!
He abruptly stood from his chair, the long sleeves of Cerces’s robe flapping like a tragic bird caught in the wind. His disheveled silver hair spilled over his shoulders in wild waves, making his movements look even more frantic.
He stormed toward Castorice, who still stood like a silent sentinel near the door.
“Touch me,” he demanded, voice trembling with the urgency of a madman. “Castorice—your corrosion. Use it. Now. Unmake this vessel. I beg of you.”
Castorice’s brows rose a single degree—her version of a full scream. “...Professor?” she asked flatly.
“I am not your professor right now. I am a trapped soul! A condemned scholar forced to spectate his own romantic downfall! End me!”
Castorice raised her other hand instinctively—but she didn’t get the chance to act.
“Absolutely NOT!” a voice cried beside them.
In a blur of motion, Hyacine lunged forward and grabbed Anaxa by the collar of his robe.
“You are not getting dissolved in front of the fireplace!” she scolded, dragging him bodily away from Castorice. “What part of talking this out sounded like ‘touch me with a death spell’ to you?!”
“All of it!” Anaxa wailed, flailing as she wrestled him backward. “All of it sounded like death would be kinder!”
“You’re being dramatic.”
Anaxa was now tangled in his own oversized sleeves, being slowly and steadily sat back down like a misbehaving toddler by the surprisingly strong Twilight Courtyard healer.
Cerces, still seated beside Aglaea, glanced over at the scuffle and waved cheerfully. “Don’t be jealous, love~” she teased toward Anaxa. “You still look gorgeous in my body.”
“I'm going to restrict your entry permission!” Anaxa screamed.
“Too late. I made a copy of your sigil.”
Phainon scratched the back of his head, his blonde strands already tousled beyond recognition. His gaze drifted from Aglaea, still staring off as if someone had pulled her soul halfway out, to Cerces, still doting on her, to Anaxa, currently being held in place by Hyacine like an unruly scroll being pressed flat.
“Okay…” he said slowly. “So… what do we actually do now?”
He turned helplessly to Castorice and Hyacine. “Do we… let them keep being each other? Or is this some kind of one-week trial kind of deal?”
Castorice didn’t even blink. “If I knew, I’d be outside right now walling off the Grove with salt.”
Hyacine, however, gave a gentle sigh and placed her hand once again on Anaxa’s shoulder. He tensed—but did not move this time.
She leaned in, voice soft but clear.
“Is it true, Professor?”
“Did you really build a homunculus for her? The tank, the soulcraft, all of it?”
Anaxa swallowed. His eyes didn’t lift from the floor.
But—after a long pause—he nodded.
Once. Heavy.
Hyacine exchanged a brief glance with Castorice, who folded her arms in silent anticipation. “Then… do you know how to reverse it?” she asked, keeping her tone gentle, yet pressing.
Another long pause.
Anaxa finally pulled his legs in closer to sit upright, the oversized robe sagging around him like a collapsed tent.
“...In theory,” he muttered. “But it will take time. To analyze the soul print residue. To ensure stability. If I reroute the Coreflame—”
“No,” Cerces interrupted. Her voice wasn’t teasing now.
It was calm, even… but firm.
Everyone turned toward her. Cerces slowly let go of Aglaea’s hand, lifting herself to a more upright posture.
Her expression remained serene, but something behind her eyes had shifted. “You shouldn’t try to reverse it,” she said softly. “Because you’re forgetting why it happened.”
Anaxa stared at her.
“The resonance,” she said, tapping lightly over her chest—the place where the Coreflame of Reason now resided, in Anaxa’s original body. “It rejected the host. The homunculus shell.”
She turned toward him fully now, meeting his stunned gaze with calm certainty.
“The Coreflame refused to settle into that empty vessel you made for me. It didn’t recognize it. It saw it as unnatural—unworthy. So instead…”
She gestured gently between the two of them. “...It came to the closest soul it knew.”
Anaxa’s throat tightened. His mouth opened—but no argument came out.
Because she was right.
That resonance…
That flicker of connection he felt before the chamber went dark—
It had been the Coreflame of Reason, seeking a vessel it knew—rejecting the artificial one. Choosing the one whose soul had danced with it for centuries.
With a graceful tilt, she leaned in and wrapped her arms around the silent seamstress beside her. The body of Anaxa enveloped Aglaea’s smaller frame, and Cerces let out a pleased hum.
“Still,” she murmured, nestling in a little too comfortably, “I would also like to keep holding my dear Mnestia.”
She pouted, cheek resting against Aglaea’s temple. “It’s been so long. And you’re so warm now.”
Aglaea stiffened beneath the contact, her entire face quickly going from drained to glowing red—again. Her lips parted like she meant to object.
Hyacine, ever the calm among storms, slowly let her hand fall from Anaxa’s shoulder and stood straighter. Her golden eyes turned to Cerces—still hugging Aglaea like a child refusing to give up their favorite plushie.
“Then… what should we do?” she asked, softly but clearly. “If reversing the ritual might damage Professor Anaxa’s soul… we can’t force it. But we also can’t ignore it.”
Cerces looked up from Aglaea’s hair, blinking once. Her expression shifted—not into mockery or smugness, but into something surprisingly measured.
“Observe it,” she said simply. “Monitor his vessel—the body he’s using now. It was never meant to house a Coreflame. If it starts to degrade, the backlash could modify his soul entirely.”
A soft, dreadful silence followed.
Anaxa finally lifted his face, pale with the weight of that implication. The words that modify his soul rang like a verdict through his bones.
Hyacine nodded grimly. “Then we’ll need routine checks. I’ll prepare resonance diagnostics.”
Castorice stepped forward next, her voice crisp and unshakable. “And if that’s the case,” she said, “then we must keep this quiet.”
The others turned to her.
“No one outside this room can know,” she continued. “Not until we understand the limits of this… situation. If word spreads, it will only invite panic—and worse, attention.”
They all understood.
Cerces leaned back slightly, arms still looped around Aglaea’s waist as if it were her throne.
“Mmm. Reasonable,” she murmured. “Though I daresay it’s already a little late for that.”
Phainon let out a pained groan, dragging a hand down his face.
“Right. The amphitheater,” he muttered. “I’m pretty sure at least sixty people saw you call Aglaea your soulmate and kiss her.”
Cerces grinned. “Ah, yes. That was my best work.”
“That rumour’s halfway to Okhema already!” he cried.
Castorice’s eyes narrowed. “Then we have even more reason to move carefully. Phainon—start monitoring public chatter. If this escalates, we may need a narrative to redirect the fallout.”
Phainon saluted lazily. “I’ll pretend I’m doing recon and not damage control for a romance scandal.”
“It isn’t a romance scandal,” Anaxa hissed, lifting his head. “It’s an arcano-metaphysical identity collapse due to homunculus resonance instability!”
“You kissed her,” Phainon said.
“She kissed her!” Anaxa snapped, pointing accusingly at Cerces.
Cerces beamed, resting her chin on Aglaea’s shoulder. “Semantics.”
Cerces, still seated beside Aglaea, turned to face her fully now. The teasing edge in her smile faded into something tender and achingly sincere.
She reached forward, her fingers brushing lightly against Aglaea’s wrist before clasping her hands with both of her own.
“Aglaea,” she said gently, “what do you want to do?”
That question—so simple, so heavy—hung in the air like incense.
Aglaea blinked, as if awakening again. She slowly pried herself free from Cerces’s grasp—not forcefully, but with a graceful pause, as if needing just a breath of space.
She turned to face her—face him—with brows drawn low in thought.
“Are you really…” she murmured, voice barely above a breath, “…Cerces?”
Cerces gave a slow, resolute nod. “Through and through.”
Aglaea’s lashes fluttered low. She brought her hand to her chest, lightly pressing against the golden brooch clasping her mantle.
“Then I can’t… deny it,” she whispered. “There’s something inside me. Not just me— The flame I inherited—she’s trying to reach out. But… It’s like she can’t speak. Just pulses. Longing.”
Her voice trembled faintly.
Cerces leaned forward and grasped both her hands again, more firmly now—warm, grounding.
“I know,” she said softly. “It isn’t just your feeling. And it isn’t just mine.”
“But I know it’s real. Even if it’s muddled by these bodies and mistakes… It’s real.”
Her voice dropped to a hush—just between them.
“Please,” Cerces whispered. “Let me prove it to you. Let me stay. Let me love you, even like this.”
Aglaea’s eyes locked with hers.
And for a moment, the Goldweaver was quiet.
A moment stretched long enough to almost feel sacred.
Until—
“Could you please stop saying creepy things with my body !?”
Everyone turned at once to the other end of the room, where Anaxa, still cloaked and wrapped in Cerces’s form, stood trembling with indignation. His fists were clenched. His teeth ground audibly.
“Every time you touch her, it’s my hands.”
“Every time you say something ridiculous, it’s my voice.”
“This is psychological warfare, and I refuse to sit through it like a silent background prop!”
Cerces, still kneeling with Aglaea’s hands in hers, looked over her shoulder and gave him the smuggest smile imaginable.
“Then don’t sit,” she said sweetly. “Come join us.”
“I would rather be dissolved by Castorice.”
Phainon had already curled into a cushion, visibly wincing at the secondhand embarrassment.
Hyacine sighed. “We are never going to be able to go back to normal after this, are we?”
No one answered.
**Knock knock knock.
The door thudded three times, sharp and authoritative, interrupting the still-charged atmosphere inside Anaxa’s study.
Castorice straightened immediately, already sensing the ripple of formality in the air. She opened the door with measured calm, revealing two Grove Guards in silver-accented armor bearing the insignia of the Council of Sages.
“Apologies for the intrusion,” the taller of the two said. “We were dispatched following a report of an assault on Sage Anaxa during this morning’s amphitheater lecture. We’re here to check on his condition—and locate the assailant.”
Castorice remained impassive. “He is alive and well. Lady Aglaea is with him. There is no threat to either of them at the moment.”
The guards looked relieved—but only briefly.
The shorter one glanced past her into the room, where Anaxa, still in Cerces’s borrowed body and completely wrapped in oversized robes and a hood, stood frozen like a deer in ceremonial floodlights.
The taller soldier narrowed his gaze. “And the perpetrator?”
He stepped forward just enough to spot the suspicious cloaked figure by the shelves—Anaxa, with long beige hair trailing like smoke. “...Is that her?” the guard asked, pointing. “That’s the one who launched the dropkick on the Sage?”
Cerces muffled a laugh behind Aglaea’s shoulder.
Anaxa stiffened, and his voice shot up in panic.
“This is my house!” he blurted, clinging to the arm of the desk like it was a cliff edge. “You can’t just come in and question a resident on baseless accusations!”
The guards exchanged looks.
The shorter one scratched his chin. “But... isn’t this the Sage’s home?”
“I am the Sage!” Anaxa barked.
“Sir,” said the taller guard gently, “you are… clearly a woman.”
“I AM NOT—!” Anaxa screamed, only to be cut off mid-declaration by Hyacine, who placed a calming hand on his shoulder again like she was soothing a panicking ghost.
“She’s… very upset,” Hyacine said carefully. “There was a magical mishap. Please don’t mind the outburst.”
“She dropkicked a Sage,” the guard replied flatly.
Phainon stood up, looking apologetic. “It was… more like a dramatic tackle. There were extenuating circumstances. A stage. Emotions. Theatrics.”
The guards remained unconvinced.
“Regardless,” the taller one said, “we must escort the suspect for questioning. The Seven Sages have already convened for an emergency hearing. It’s protocol.”
Anaxa’s heart dropped to his stomach.
A tribunal? Already?!
He turned to Cerces, eyes wide in horror. “Do something!” he hissed. “Tell them the truth!”
Cerces let out a long, theatrical sigh, rising slowly from the couch as if burdened by divine martyrdom. She patted Aglaea’s hand as she stepped away.
“You know, for someone who spends all day solving impossible theorems,” she muttered over her shoulder, “you sure didn’t calculate how fast karma would find you.”
She turned to face the two Grove Guards, her borrowed form—Anaxa’s, austere frame—looming like an academic storm cloud.
The soldiers visibly straightened.
“Lord Anaxagoras,” the taller one addressed formally, “is this woman—” he gestured to Anaxa’s disguised body, “—the one who assaulted you?”
Cerces blinked at them, then smiled faintly. “No, no. This is all a misunderstanding,” she said breezily, flipping Anaxa’s long coat sleeve like it was a fashion statement.
“That woman is my sister. She came from a faraway land to visit me, and… well, she got a little passionate. You know how siblings are.”
Both guards stared.
The shorter one frowned. “So she didn’t attack you? You’re not under duress?”
Cerces laughed. It was the kind of laugh that made Anaxa die inside.
“Threaten me? Please. That’s ridiculous.”
“She just gets jealous sometimes when I’m being adored in public.”
And without waiting for permission or consent, she turned and wrapped her arms around Anaxa, pulling his much smaller form flush against his own original body.
He went stiff as stone, arms pinned like a restrained squirrel, eyes wide with a twitch.
His left eye twitched again as he forced his arms—forced—to awkwardly lift and barely, just barely, return the embrace. It was like watching a cat try to hug a tree it hated.
Cerces practically sparkled.
“Oh darling, you’re so shy in public,” she cooed, ruffling his hair in a way that made his soul attempt to phase out of his body.
The guards blinked, clearly still unsure of what reality they had just entered.
The taller one coughed politely.
“Well then… Lord Anaxagoras—ma’am—sir… whatever the case… do take care.”
“If your… sister’s behavior becomes hostile again, you are encouraged to report it immediately. For safety reasons.”
Cerces gave them a dazzling smile and a wave.
“Of course, of course. We’ll be just fine. A little fire keeps things exciting, doesn’t it?”