After the incident, no one dared to speak of what happened, since they feared Selene, but even she was unsure of what was going on, however, she did not let the girl out of her sight.
They did not let her return to her room.
Not immediately, at least, since not everything was truly settled.
Instead, Selene led her through a series of internal corridors she had not seen before, passages narrower and older than the rest of the headquarters, their stone darkened by centuries of enchantments layered one atop another. The air here felt different, not heavier, but sharper, like every breath was being evaluated before it was allowed to remain inside her lungs.
No guards followed closely, yet she could feel them regardless, their presence threaded through the walls and sigils, ready to converge at a thought. Especially the presence of the female knight that helped her earlier. This was not an escort.
This was containment without chains, the same feeling she had before resurfaced ten time stronger, her defenses on high alert.
Her body had stopped shaking, but the echo of the connection lingered deep in her core, a faint afterimage of shackles and blood that refused to fade from her mind. She kept her expression neutral, her steps steady, even as questions pressed against the inside of her skull with increasing urgency.
Selene stopped before a circular chamber sealed by a door marked with interlocking runes that made her instincts recoil on sight. The magistrate pressed her palm against the center glyph, and the wards peeled back like layered veils, allowing them inside.
The chamber was small, bare except for a single table carved from pale stone and two chairs positioned across from one another. No windows. No decorative sigils. Whatever magic existed here was hidden so deeply it barely registered, which made it far more unsettling than overt displays ever could.
"Sit," Selene said.
She did even though she did not want to.
For several seconds, Selene remained standing, studying her as if recalibrating a mental ledger. Whatever conclusions she was drawing did not appear comforting, even though the woman was more than willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
"You are not what I thought you were, that is what I told you. It still sticks, but things within the span of two days have gotten much more complicated," Selene said finally.
She met her gaze without flinching. "You didn't know what I was at all and to be honest, I am not sure anymore either."
"That is true," Selene allowed. "But now I know what you are not, and that narrows the possibilities in dangerous ways for both of us."
She leaned back slightly, hands folding together. "You did not summon the bound entity, and you did not force the contact. That alone disqualifies you from several classifications that would have required immediate execution."
Her breath caught despite herself when she heard that word, it was enough to send her alarms flaring in her head and her claws came out.
Selene noticed and her eyes narrowed before a smirk tugged at the edges of her lips. "Do not go into a rampage just yet; listen to me, little vixen."
She continued calmly. "What concerns me is that the contact responded to you. That means something in your core resonates on a frequency we believed inaccessible. Either you are an anomaly created by forces we do not yet understand, or you are a missing component in a system older than this city."
Neither option sounded survivable in this world, which she now realized was much more complicated than she initially thought.
"I didn't choose this," she said quietly.
Selene's eyes softened just a fraction, though suspicion never left them, after all, she was not caught between her duties and an... unexpected connection she did not want to admit to as yet.
"Very few do. Choice is a luxury afforded after power, not before it," she replied, as she glanced away for a second.
A pause followed, thick with unspoken calculations.
Then Selene did something unexpected.
She slid a thin crystal disk across the table toward her. The object hummed faintly, its surface etched with containment sigils so fine they were nearly invisible.
"This is not a shackle," Selene said. "We need to be realistic. I do not know you well, yet here I am, and this could affect me. This is a limiter. It will not suppress your abilities, whatever they may be, but it will mask the resonance you emitted earlier. If that signal repeats unfiltered, every sealed thing beneath this city will feel it."
Her fingers hovered over the disk, she understood her perspective and it was only natural. "And if I refuse?"
Selene did not answer immediately. Instead, she stood and walked to the wall, pressing a sequence of sigils that caused the stone to ripple. A projection bloomed into the air, not an image of the city, but of what lay beneath it.
Layers upon layers of containment chambers appeared, some glowing steadily, others dim and fractured. Three burned brighter than the rest.
One of them pulsed in the same rhythm her core now recognized instinctively.
"That is what answers when you call without meaning to," Selene said softly. "And that is what will answer if others learn how to replicate the signal you created today, monsters we may not be able to contain will stir."
The implication settled like ice in her chest and she swallowed, her eyes shimmering with an intensity as she tried to understand what it meant for her.
Selene turned back to her. "If word spreads that you are a bridge rather than a breach, or whatever this truly is, if they see you as a threat, you will not be hunted by amateurs anymore. You will be studied, divided, and used."
The system stirred, its tone unusually grave.
[Strategic Assessment Updated]
[Survival Probability Without Mitigation: Low]
She exhaled slowly and took the disk.
The moment her fingers closed around it, a subtle shift rippled through her core, not pain, but alignment, as if something had been fitted into place that had been waiting for it all along.
Selene watched closely. "No rejection," she murmured. "Interesting."
"You're not telling me everything," she said.
Selene smiled thinly. "No. And neither are you."
For a moment, the tension between them sharpened into something almost intimate, suspicion and necessity woven so tightly neither could pull away without unraveling both.
"This is where the terms change," Selene said. "You are no longer simply under my protection. You are under my jurisdiction. That means training, supervision, and controlled exposure to the city's deeper mechanisms."
"You want to turn me into an asset," she said.
"I want to prevent you from becoming a catastrophe," Selene replied. "If that requires making you competent enough to choose your own battles, so be it."
Silence stretched between them, then Selene added, "There is another reason."
Her gaze hardened as she grabbed the girl's chin and tilted her face up, meeting her gaze. "The bound entity you touched is scheduled for evaluation in six cycles. If it reacts again, the council will authorize a purge."
Her heart slammed painfully against her ribs. "A purge would kill it."
"And destabilize a lot of things as well," Selene agreed. "Which means if it reacts again, and you are the cause, you will be blamed whether you intended it or not."
The choice crystallized brutally.
She straightened in her chair, resolve settling like armor around her spine. "Then teach me how to control it, help me fight for myself."
Selene studied her for a long moment, then nodded once before releasing her chin. "Very well."
As Selene turned to dismiss the projection, a faint whisper brushed the edge of her awareness, not loud enough to be words, but clear enough to be intentional.
Meanwhile, the girl's fingers tightened around the disk as her core responded, not with fear, but recognition.
Whatever she had touched beneath the city was not done with her.
For the first time, she realized the true danger this world could bring and that the cost of survival here was far higher than she had imagined, it was not something that would just happen because she had planned it out in her head.