"Is it weird," Haru muttered, "that I kinda miss just being a loser with bad grades and minor trauma?"
They were back in Ayame's room, the five of them cramped around her floor with diagrams, scrolls, old photographs, and half-eaten convenience store snacks scattered around like evidence in a magical trial. Outside, cicadas buzzed under the deepening night, and the city lights flickered like stars had descended just to get a better look.
"I miss being just a music nerd," Mio admitted. "Now I'm a music nerd with potential doom hovering over my keyboard."
Kael leaned against the window frame, watching Ayame work. She sat cross-legged, a thick book open in her lap, her brow furrowed in concentration as her fingers traced a line of ancient script.
"I miss the part where the monsters stayed in the plays," Yuzu said, her voice drier than usual. "And where mirrors didn't whisper about sacrifice."
Ayame didn't look up. "It said we're the choice. That means this didn't happen randomly. We were… selected."
Kael finally stepped forward. "Or *you* were."
That made her glance up. "Kael…"
"You were the one who felt the memories first," he said gently. "Who heard the echoes. Rhiannon came to you. The pendant chose you."
She looked at the pendant, then back at her friends. "Maybe. But I wouldn't have made it this far without you. Any of you."
"Damn right," Yuzu said, tossing a cracker at her. "We're all cursed together now."
"Cool," Haru added, "I always wanted to die dramatically."
Mio flicked his forehead. "No one's dying."
Ayame closed the book. "The mirror said the loom can be broken—but we have to understand it first. It's not a machine. It's a pattern of belief. A magical construct built to erase and rewrite certain truths."
Kael crossed his arms. "Like Rhiannon's story."
"Exactly. The Weaver didn't just feed on forgotten memories—it *crafted* the forgetting. Rewriting history until pain became myth. Until people stopped believing certain truths ever existed."
Yuzu frowned. "So… the bad guy is literally gaslighting humanity."
"Kind of, yeah," Mio said. "And we walked right into its lair."
Ayame stood, going to the board she'd been using to piece things together. "We need to find the original point. The memory that started all of this. Before the school. Before Rhiannon."
Kael stepped beside her. "You think the school was built on a site that's… older?"
"I *know* it was," she said. "The map from the library shows foundations that predate the town. There's something under all of this. Something the Weaver's been using as an anchor."
Mio's fingers hovered over a sketch she'd drawn earlier. "A root memory."
Ayame nodded. "Yes. If we find it, maybe we can sever the pattern. Cut the loom at its source."
Yuzu sat back. "Cool plan. Just one question: how do we find a memory that old?"
Ayame glanced at the mirror in the center of the room. They'd brought it back from the chamber—wrapped in silk, covered with a warding charm Ms. Sato had quietly handed them during her "casual" hallway check-in.
"It remembers things," she said. "But it doesn't speak unless we ask the right questions."
Kael frowned. "So we need a key. Something to *wake* it."
Ayame paused, then reached into her drawer.
She pulled out an envelope.
Yellowed. Faded. Addressed in elegant script she didn't recognize.
"I found this tucked into one of the scrolls," she said quietly. "I think it's a letter. From someone who *knew* the Weaver."
They gathered around as she opened it.
The parchment crackled.
Inside was a single page.
Written in trembling ink:
*To the one who remembers:*
*There is a story beneath the foundation. Older than stone. Older than name. They called her Serephine. She was the first.*
*She did not forget.*
*And so, the Weaver tried to make her vanish.*
*But she left behind a path. Not of footsteps, but of dreams. If you can walk where she walked, the loom will fray.*
*But beware. The truth will not come without cost.*
*Some threads are bound in blood.*
*—L.C.*
Ayame swallowed.
Kael read the name again. "Serephine."
"Who was she?" Haru asked.
"I don't know," Ayame said. "But I think we have to find her memory. Wherever it's buried."
Mio leaned back. "Dreams. That line—it wasn't metaphor. She left behind a *dream-path*."
"You think it's accessible?" Kael asked.
"I think," Mio said slowly, "if we enter the dreamspace again, we might find her."
Yuzu raised her hand. "Point of concern: we almost *died* in the dreamspace."
Haru nodded. "Twice."
"We're stronger now," Ayame said. "We *know* what's real. And I think Serephine's memory is waiting for someone who does."
The room fell quiet.
They all looked at each other.
This was no longer just about Rhiannon. Or even the school. This was about a deeper history—one so powerful, someone had rewritten the world just to bury it.
Kael stepped forward. "Then let's do it. Let's find Serephine."
Ayame nodded. "Tonight."
Mio glanced at the clock. "We should rest a few hours first. Enter the dreamspace right before dawn. That's when the boundary's thinnest."
Yuzu groaned. "I'll make snacks."
"Dream snacks?" Haru said.
"No. Real ones. In case we *die*, I don't want to do it hungry."
Ayame gave a soft laugh.
But beneath it all—beneath the fear and fatigue and flashes of lingering magic—she felt something new taking root.
A connection older than friendship.
Older than fate.
A thread made not of memory, but of choice.
And this time, she wasn't walking it alone.
---