The city accepted him.
That was the problem.
Eidolon Reach did not flare, did not resist, did not collapse. Instead, it adjusted—like a system relieved to finally identify its missing variable. The threads of light that had fallen inward dissolved into the streets, sinking into stone, glass, and memory alike.
Aster felt the pull immediately.
Not physical.
Narrative.
Something in the city now expected him to continue.
Lyra staggered half a step as the air thickened. "I hate this," she muttered. "I really hate this."
Raven's shadow finally moved—dragging itself across the ground with visible reluctance. "Yeah," he said flatly. "Now my shadow's here. That means the place thinks we belong."
Elias swallowed. "That's… worse, right?"
"Yes," Lyra and Raven said together.
The girl in white watched Aster closely, her expression unreadable.
"The bond has begun," she said. "Not complete. But recognized."
Aster flexed his fingers. The mark at his chest pulsed once, slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat syncing to something older.
"How long until it finishes?" he asked.
"That depends," she replied. "On how much you interfere."
He gave a short laugh. "So… minutes, then."
The city shuddered.
Not from instability—
from agreement.
Across Eidolon Reach, the shadowless citizens began to change. Faces sharpened. Movements grew more confident, more consistent. Some of them turned their heads toward the plaza, eyes focusing for the first time.
They were no longer placeholders.
They were participants.
Lyra felt a chill crawl up her spine. "Aster… they're anchoring to you."
"I know."
"That means if something happens to you—"
"I know," he repeated, more quietly.
A deep sound rolled through the city.
Not a roar.
Not thunder.
A registry tone.
Rings of pale light expanded outward from the plaza, passing through buildings, streets, and people without resistance. Wherever it passed, reality seemed to take notes.
The girl in white closed her eyes briefly.
"The system has logged you," she said. "A fixed anomaly. A tolerated contradiction."
Elias stared. "That sounds… bad."
"It sounds temporary," Raven corrected.
The Seventh Note stirred again—stronger this time. Aster felt information brush against his mind, not as words, but as implications.
This city is not the cause, it whispered.
It is the symptom.
Aster looked up.
The sky above Eidolon Reach was changing—not cracking, not bleeding, but flattening, like a page being prepared for new text.
"Something's coming," Lyra said.
"Yes," the girl replied. "The auditors."
Raven's eyes narrowed. "Plural?"
"They do not send individuals for this," she said. "They send corrections."
The city's bells rang again—louder now, layered with dissonance. Far beyond the boundary, the warp in reality began to glow, as if something on the other side had finally received confirmation.
Aster stepped forward, fully into the plaza.
The ground responded instantly, lines etching themselves beneath his feet—circles, sigils, patterns that mirrored neither magic nor law, but precedent.
"If I leave now," he asked the girl, "does the city survive?"
She hesitated.
"For a while," she said. "Long enough to fail on its own."
"And if I stay?"
"Then it will endure," she replied. "At the cost of accelerating everything else."
Lyra clenched her fists. "You're asking him to choose how the world breaks."
The girl met her gaze calmly. "That choice was made the moment he stepped inside."
Aster closed his eyes.
When he opened them, his shadow stood upright beside him—still attached, but no longer pretending to be passive.
"Alright," he said softly. "Let's stop pretending too."
The sky finished flattening.
Somewhere beyond perception, a system finalized its verdict.
And across multiple timelines, the same conclusion quietly propagated:
Eidolon Reach was no longer an error.
It was a dependency.
Arc Two had begun in full.
And this time,
there would be witnesses.