The descent into the Arcanum Depths felt like being swallowed by the earth.
No windows. No warmth. Just iron stairs twisting downward through stone and old brick, deeper than any part of the foster building Leximus had ever been allowed to see. Eveline walked ahead, carrying a lantern whose flame burned a cold-blue—its color a sign of the charms lining the walls.
Containment wards. Repulsive Ether. Layers upon layers of reinforced sigils meant for one purpose:
Keep something inside.
Not someone.
Something.
Leximus felt their eyes on his back the entire way down—not worried eyes, not protective eyes. Eyes measuring danger. Eyes that expected him to fail.
At the final landing, Eveline unlocked a heavy iron door that groaned open like a warning.
The chamber inside was cavernous, carved directly from bedrock. Charms etched on iron plates lined every wall, humming faintly in the air like distant bees. The sigil carved into the floor was broad and ancient—so old the lines had worn into grooves.
Leximus stepped onto it, and the grooves pulsed.
Not with his element.
With fear.Everyone else's fear.
Sirius took position near the door. He didn't lean. He didn't relax. He simply watched him the way a guard watches a cage.
Eveline stood beside a panel of charms, hands folded behind her back. Her posture was gentle, but her distance was intentional.
Rylan lingered farther away than all of them.
He kept his shoulders tense, jaw locked, eyes drifting anywhere but the shadows cast beneath Leximus' feet. His silence was pointed. Protective, even. Not protecting Leximus—protecting everyone else.
Calvin flipped open his notebook, took a deliberate step forward, and let a small spiral of airy Ether flow around his fingers. Cool, harmless. Controlled.
"This isn't elemental mimicry," Calvin said softly, as if volume might upset something invisible. "You're not going to imitate Air, Water, Fire, or Earth. That would tear you apart. You are only learning how we discipline Ether—how we keep it orderly."
Leximus nodded, throat dry. "Okay."
"Every element has a natural rhythm," Calvin continued. "Air spirals. Water flows in waves. Fire pulses. Earth roots and anchors. But the discipline is the same. Ether follows the mind."
He tapped the side of his head.
"If the mind is fractured… the flow is fractured."
The words hit Leximus harder than he expected.
He looked down at his hands—hands that shook even when he tried to be still. Hands that had destroyed a room. Hands that had nearly—
He swallowed.
"When you told me yesterday that your energy 'doesn't listen,'" Calvin said, voice tightening, "I don't think that's true. I think it listens too well."
Leximus froze.
"It responds to the state of your mind," Calvin explained. "If your thoughts are chaotic, your Ether becomes chaos. If your thoughts are steady—"
"Then the Ether steadies," Leximus whispered, finishing the sentence without realizing he was speaking.
Calvin's eyes softened briefly with something close to approval—then hardened again as he remembered where they were, who was listening, and why this training was necessary.
"Sit," he instructed.
Leximus lowered himself into the center of the sigil. The stone was cold beneath him. His shadow stretched across the engraved lines, flickering faintly with the lantern's breath.
And Rylan finally spoke.
"Try the shadows."
The words fell sharp into the air.
Everyone turned toward him.
Calvin raised an eyebrow. "Shadow manipulation isn't a basic element."
"It's what reacted first that night," Rylan said, voice flat, almost mechanical. "Before anything else moved. Before… the rest." He looked at neither Calvin nor Sirius. "Don't ask me to explain it. I'm just telling you what happened."
He didn't say what he really saw.Or how the memory lodged like a thorn in his ribs, impossible to ignore.Or how he hadn't slept since, afraid that if he closed his eyes the shadows would twist again.
Sirius watched Rylan. Not suspicious—calculating. Measuring how close the trainee was to breaking under whatever he was withholding.
Leximus settled deeper into the sigil, breathing carefully. His shadow flickered once—uncertain, nervous.
"Don't force it," Calvin said. "Don't command anything. Don't shape anything. Just breathe. Breathe… and see what responds."
Leximus inhaled slowly. The air felt cold in his lungs.
His mind, however, was not cold. It was a storm—memories, fear, fragmented identity, a hollow ache where a childhood used to be.
But he tried.Tried to push the noise back.Tried to find a place inside himself that wasn't sharp or broken.
A memory surfaced—
His mother's voice.Soft. Blurred. Impossible to fully recall, and yet… calming.
He held onto it.
And something shifted.
His shadow thickened—not spreading, not writhing, simply… gathering. As if the darkness beneath him was responding not with hostility, but with alignment.
Calvin's eyes widened. "There. That. That's synchronization."
The charms on the walls flickered but remained dormant.
Eveline let out the quietest breath of relief—not for Leximus, but for the stability of the chamber.
Rylan's voice cracked as he spoke. "It's… calm. Not like before."
Because Leximus wasn't terrified in that moment.Because the storm inside him briefly quieted.
Calvin scribbled frantically. "This confirms it. Ether is reflecting your inner state. When your thoughts scatter, your shadows destabilize. When your identity stabilizes—"
"It listens," Leximus whispered again.
A truth unfolded inside him like a chilling revelation:
If Ether followed the mind…If the mind determined the flow…
Then his greatest enemy wasn't his power.
It was the part of him he couldn't understand—the fractured self, the missing memories, the hollow longing that never faded.
Sirius finally spoke, voice low. "Then our objective is clear. We are not training him to use his ability. We are training him not to collapse."
"Psychological stabilization," Calvin agreed. "Every session must begin with grounding the mind."
"And if he fractures again?" Eveline asked softly.
Sirius didn't hesitate."Then containment protocols proceed without pause."
Leximus stiffened.
They weren't saving him.They were containing him.
The shadow shivered in response to that thought.
"Leximus," Calvin said quickly, stepping forward, "hold onto the memory that steadied you. Don't lose it."
The boy closed his eyes again. Focused on the one gentle sound in his life. His shadow steadied once more—obedient to the rhythm of his breath.
Everyone in the room breathed easier.
But Leximus did not.
Because the truth now lay exposed inside him:
If his Ether was reflecting him…
Then whatever was wrong inside his mind—whatever was broken—whatever wasn't fully him—
That was the real danger.
And the deeper he searched the quiet inside himself, the more one realization pulsed like a heartbeat:
He didn't know what lived in his mind anymore.
And worse—
Something else might be living there too