But Marcellus did not stop there. His voice, calm on the surface yet edged with something unyielding, pressed forward:
"I haven't told this new Alia that I would share the truth with you. That part is yours to handle. If you want answers, if you want clarity, you'll have to go and speak with her yourself."
Elias felt his chest tighten as though invisible hands had gripped his ribs and refused to let go. His face paled, and his lips trembled before sound finally broke free. "Speak… with her?" His words faltered like loose stones tumbling off a cliff, uncertain, hollow. "About what? What could I possibly say?" The tremor in his voice betrayed not only hesitation, but fear—fear of what he might discover, and of the questions he did not dare ask aloud.
Marcellus's gaze hardened, his tone shifting into a steadiness that carried both authority and inevitability. "According to every account we've pieced together, in her previous existence she lived as a thief. She is innately attuned to the shadows of the underground world, quick with instincts honed through survival. And more than that—she was Jim's student. You know what that means. And you…" He fixed Elias with a look that pierced, "…you are the one who now oversees this domain. Do you see it? The two of you are bound by circumstance. Sit down with her. Strip away the barriers. Exchange knowledge. If you can cooperate, we will be far quicker to understand our enemies. And in the days ahead, that understanding may be the only thing that lets us keep our footing."
Elias stared at him in silence. His eyes, wide and unblinking, betrayed the storm behind them. He looked both cornered and exhausted, like a man who had been running in circles and finally found himself trapped in the same place he had begun. Slowly, he gave a hollow, bitter laugh, the sound sharp and self–mocking. "So that's it… That's the plan you've been steering me toward."
He turned sharply, the sweep of his cloak breaking the heavy air like a blade. "Very well. If this is what you want, I'll return to the chamber. I'll confront her. I'll tear away whatever veil still lies between us."
His footsteps struck hard against the stone floor as he started down the hall, his back straight, rigid, lonely. Candlelight threw his figure long and distorted across the walls, a shadow that wavered yet refused to bend.
Marcellus's eyes followed him, and though his face remained controlled, the flicker of conflict betrayed him. He hesitated, lips parting then closing again, before he finally called out in a voice that seemed to come from deep in his chest:
"Elias. Remember this—she, too, is innocent. Do not let your anger, your grief, drive you to harm her. She is not your enemy."
The words seemed to strike Elias in the back. His stride faltered, his shoulders gave a barely perceptible shudder. For a breath, he stood in stillness, caught between denial and acknowledgement. He did not turn; he gave no outward sign of concession. Only a single word, low and heavy as stone, fell from his lips:
"…Fine."
And then he walked on, never looking back, his figure sinking into the corridor's waiting shadows until he was gone from sight.
The silence left behind was broken only by the steady echo of his footsteps—measured, deliberate, and weighted with the burden of thought. Each strike against the stone floor rang like a judgment tolling in his ears. Marcellus's warning repeated itself endlessly, an unshakable echo: She is innocent. Do not harm her.
"Innocent…" Elias whispered the word inside his heart, rolling it bitterly on his tongue. His hand curled into a fist before he realized it, knuckles whitening under the strain, nails cutting faint crescents into his palm. The images came unbidden—Livia's radiant smile, so achingly familiar, and Alia's eyes, clear and steady yet belonging to someone he barely knew. They overlapped in his mind, blurred until he could no longer tell them apart, until his reason threatened to tear under the pressure.
"Who am I supposed to see when I look at her?" His thoughts lashed like whips in the confines of his mind. "Is she Livia's shadow? A reflection? Or an entirely new being born of fate's cruelty? If she truly is a side of Livia that has awakened while the other sleeps, what right do I have to demand answers from her? To force her? To drag her into my pain? Should I not… simply watch, silently, from a distance?"
The questions pressed into him like iron weights. His chest ached as if crushed beneath an unseen stone, every breath drawn only with effort. He told himself to remain rational, to stay the clear–minded judge he had always been. But reason faltered each time the thought intruded—What if Livia never returns? The words alone stoked the fire in his veins, fury and despair rising like flames that would consume all restraint.
He halted beneath a half–lit archway, staring into the black corridor stretching ahead. His jaw tightened. His thoughts pressed forward again, grim, relentless.
"Marcellus, you want me to talk to her as though it were a matter of intelligence, a calculated move in this endless struggle. But for me… it's more than strategy. For me, every word with her is like gambling with my soul. Every glance is torment."
The air around him felt colder now, the silence deeper. His eyes, once clouded with uncertainty, burned with a flickering mixture of hesitation and grim resolve.
Livia… no matter what they say, no matter what fate conspires… I will not allow you to vanish. Not like this.
And with that vow, he pressed forward into the darkness, his footsteps carrying both his anger and his fragile hope into the unseen night.