After the heated discussion, they did not return through the relay chamber.
Selene tore a controlled rupture through the air instead, precise and contained, folding space back onto itself with practiced efficiency. The transition was harsher than before, not violent, but abrupt, and when the world settled again, they were standing inside a sealed observation hall deep beneath the headquarters, layered with wards so dense the air itself felt heavy.
The doors closed behind them without a sound, and for several seconds neither of them spoke.
The girl leaned against the cold stone wall, steadying her breathing while the residual pressure flowed out of her limbs. Her skin still hummed faintly where the limiter rested, not burning now, but alert, like something had been taught a lesson and remembered it.
Selene stood a few steps away, back straight, shoulders tense, one hand resting near her weapon out of habit rather than need. When she finally turned, she did not soften her expression.
"None of this was supposed to happen; you were never meant to reach a relay," Selene said quietly. "Not yet."
"That wasn't an answer," the girl replied, lifting her gaze. "First there was you and your sister, then I found out , you tracked me."
Selene did not deny it and she exhaled deeply, then glanced at her.
"Yes," she said simply. "From the moment the limiter synchronized with your core."
The admission landed heavier than anger ever could.
"You said it was for my protection," the girl said. "You said it was to keep everyone safe."
"And that was not a lie," Selene replied, her tone steady but strained. "But it was not the whole truth."
She stepped closer, stopping at a careful distance, close enough to be heard clearly, far enough not to crowd her.
"The part with me and my sister is complicated, I will tell you about that later on. There are things beneath this city that do not sleep," Selene continued. "Things that cannot be destroyed without tearing the foundations of everything above them apart. They are imprisoned, layered under containment systems older than the council, older than the authority you see on the surface."
The girl's ears flicked, her instincts sharpening.
"How many?" she asked.
Selene hesitated for the first time.
"Seven," she said. "Six that we can name. One that we cannot."
A chill slid down the girl's spine when she heard that. Could that person be the one she was resonating with?
Selene turned slightly, gesturing toward the far wall where faint sigils pulsed behind layers of stone. "They are not gods, not demons, not monsters in the way stories simplify them. They are convergences of will, power, and intent that grew too large to exist without warping the world around them."
She began to speak the names without ceremony.
"Vaelith, the Ash Binder. Thren, the Hollow Crown. Iseron of the Black Lament. The Twin Choir, bound together and screaming even now. Calyx, who devours causality itself."
Each name carried weight and the air reacted subtly, as if remembering them.
"And the last?" the girl asked.
Selene's jaw tightened and she glanced away from them.
"The last has no name," she said. "No gender. No true form. Only records of what it did."
She looked directly at her then.
"Three hundred years ago, before the current city was rebuilt, it nearly erased everything you're standing on. Streets folded into nothing. Entire districts vanished without collapse or fire. The council of that era sealed it at the cost of thousands of lives and buried the truth so deeply that even now only a handful of us know it exists."
The girl swallowed at the extent they went to gain control.
"That presence," Selene continued, more quietly now, "is the one you've been feeling. Not whispering, but I know it's watching."
Her fingers tightened against the stone at her side.
"And the girl I keep seeing," she said slowly. "The one in my dreams. The one standing in ruins, calling me forward, the person in the chains, I know you know who she is, Selene, please tell me."
Selene closed her eyes for a brief moment, knowing there was no point in hiding anything.
"She was a priestess," Selene said. "Not of the council or of the city. She belonged to the old convergence cults that existed before authority tried to categorize power. She was the last one to stand against the nameless entity."
The girl's eyes widened at the amount of information she was receiving; things were a lot more complicated than they seemed.
"She failed," Selene continued. "But she did not die cleanly. Her consciousness was torn, fragmented, and bound into the sealing itself. What remains of her is neither alive nor dead."
The girl's breath hitched.
"So I'm seeing her because—"
"Because you resonate with the same lattice," Selene finished. "Your core aligns with the same systems that once answered to her. That is why wards recognize you. That is why old structures respond instead of rejecting you."
Silence settled between them again, thicker than before.
"You weren't just tracking me," the girl said softly. "You were waiting to see which prison noticed me first. You want to know the same thing as me, why it is happening and how I am involved."
Selene did not flinch, since she was right, she did not have all the answers, which is why she wanted to keep the girl close.
"Yes."
Anger flared, sharp and bright, but beneath it was something colder and more dangerous.
"And if it had been the nameless one?" the girl asked.
Selene met her gaze without hesitation. "Then I would have ended this before it could choose you."
The honesty in that answer was terrifying.
The girl laughed once, short and humorless. "So my life here was never really mine, was it?"
Selene's expression softened just a fraction. "It is now. That is what changed tonight."
She stepped closer again, lowering her voice.
"The convergence responded to you in the relay chamber because you are not just compatible," Selene said. "You are unclaimed. The sealed entities are bound by old rules. They cannot act directly unless invited, unless aligned. You are something new to them."
The girl's eyes narrowed. "A door."
"A crossroads," Selene corrected. "And that is why my sister intervened. She sees opportunity where I see catastrophe."
"And you?" the girl asked.
Selene hesitated, then answered honestly.
"I see responsibility," she said. "And fear. Because I do not know which of them will reach you first, or what you will become when they do or why this is happening."
The whisper stirred faintly, not speaking, but she could tell it was present.
The girl straightened, pushing away from the wall, her posture steadier than before.
"You should have told me," she said.
"Yes," Selene agreed. "And now I am."
She held her gaze, something like resolve settling into her expression.
"You will not leave the city again without my knowledge," Selene said. "Not because I wish to cage you, but because there are forces moving now that will not hesitate to fulfill their wishes if given the chance."
The girl nodded slowly, she was angry, but beneath that, she understood it was for her good, since now she was starting to see things clearer.
"Then you better stop deciding things for me alone," she replied. "Because whatever that priestess became, whatever that nameless thing wants, they're not the only ones watching anymore."
A faint tremor ran through the wards, subtle but unmistakable.
Selene exhaled sharply.
"You felt that too," Selene said.
"Yes," the girl answered. "And this time, it wasn't from below."
For the first time since the confrontation, Selene looked genuinely unsettled.
Because somewhere beyond the city, beyond the prisons and the seals, something else had shifted its attention and unlike the others, it had not been bound at all.