Langley had changed.
Where silence once filled its stone corridors and market roads, now there was the rustle of scrolls, the clinking of coins, and the hum of workshops testing new designs. Ships left its harbors daily, loaded with woven cloth threaded with aura, clockwork farming tools, and repurposed scholarly instruments. Langley's seal, once faded, now commanded respect in merchant guilds and noble courts alike.
The duchy had regained its reputation.
Selene watched from the parapets as students filed into the academy at dawn, books and tools in hand, some still blinking sleep from their eyes. A month ago, this school had been in ruins. Now, it was alive. She had rebuilt it with the scholars, line by line, wall by wall.
But she wasn't smiling.
From the corner of her eye, something fluttered—red.
She turned quickly. Nothing was there. Just the gentle sway of a crimson banner, the wind catching its edge.
Not a butterfly.
Not again.
A knock on the door pulled her thoughts back. Elias entered, eyes cautious.
"There's someone requesting an audience," he said. "From the Church of Balance."
Selene raised an eyebrow. "The Church?"
"They heard about the aura condenser. And about... disturbances."
Selene looked out over the courtyard again. "They waste no time."
"They sent one man. He claims to be a recorder. His robes have a bronze thread."
"An observer, then. Not a judge." She picked up her gloves and stepped away from the window. "Good. Let's keep it that way."
In the receiving hall, a tall, thin man stood with his arms crossed beneath a long robe. Bronze embroidery marked his cuffs and collar—a sign of neutral rank. Not a threat, not yet.
"I am Recorder Halden," he said calmly. "Sent by the Church of Balance to monitor Langley's aura flow and structural changes after your reactivation of forbidden relics."
Selene met his gaze. "Nothing here is forbidden. We've revived technologies lost to neglect, not to law."
"Perhaps," Halden replied. "But the lines have shifted. Our seers in Falheim felt the aura pulse from your condenser. Some thought it was a natural event. Others… didn't."
Elias stood beside her. "We acted well within our rights."
Selene stepped forward. "I'll allow you to inspect the facilities. Nothing will be hidden. But understand: Langley is not your experiment. We will not stop progress because priests feel tremors."
Halden's expression remained unreadable. "Then may I observe your workshops and your scholars?"
"You may observe," Selene said. "But nothing more."
He bowed slightly.
As he was led out, Elias turned to her. "You handled that well."
Selene didn't answer right away. Her mind had begun to race again, but not with words.
With images.
The moment she locked eyes with Halden, something inside her sparked. A vision—not of him, but of a glass cathedral in ruins, sunlight streaming through broken windows. Red butterflies spiraled through the air like falling leaves, landing silently on stone steps covered with ash.
It had felt real.
Not seen. Not imagined. Remembered.
"Selene?" Elias asked.
She blinked once, then met his eyes. "He doesn't believe a word we said."
"Does that worry you?"
"No," she said quietly. "It worries him."
Later that evening, Selene sat alone in the academy library. The candles burned low. The silence was comforting—but not complete.
She held a cup of tea, untouched. Her hands trembled slightly. Not from fear. From something building beneath her skin.
Across the table, a book sat open—her notes filled its margins. A scholar's thesis on condensed aura resonance. She had rewritten the conclusion the night before. The new theory was stronger, cleaner, definitive.
Her thoughts had become... loud. Each word she wrote brought three more. Equations bloomed behind her eyes like flowers might bloom behind a closed curtain.
She exhaled slowly. Then it happened again.
A flutter of red.
She turned—and this time, it was real.
A single red butterfly sat on the edge of the windowsill, perfectly still. Its wings were patterned with a lattice of thin gold veins—just like aura lines. It pulsed once. Then vanished. Not flew. Vanished.
Selene froze.
For a moment, she couldn't hear anything but her heartbeat. Then the candles flickered.
A page in the book turned itself. The candlelight bent strangely over the ink.
Her own handwriting stared back at her. But she hadn't written the last line:
"We are not engines. We are cages."
She stared. Then turned the page.
It was blank.
At midnight, Elias found her still in the library, standing by the window.
"You didn't go back to your room," he said.
"I didn't feel tired."
"You look it."
She smiled faintly. "Strange, isn't it? I don't feel tired. I don't feel awake. I just… feel everything."
He frowned. "Has it gotten worse?"
"No. Just... sharper."
Elias stepped beside her. "The Church will report this back to the capital."
"I know."
"And the King?"
"He will watch."
Elias looked at her closely. "Are you alright, Selene?"
She answered without pause.
"Yes."
But even as she spoke, she felt it again—that strange sense of displacement, like her mind had answered before she heard the question.
And far off, just past her vision, the butterflies waited.
Quiet.
Watching.