The library could definitely wait now.
But standing alone in that corridor, Michael's parting words still echoing in my ears, I found myself walking anyway. Not toward my room. Not toward the gardens for a breath of fresh air.
Toward the east wing.
Third floor. Blood lock. Responds to Morningstar blood.
Call it curiosity. Call it restlessness. Call it the desperate need to do something, anything, that moved me closer to not being trash.
The restricted section was calling, and I'd never been good at ignoring a good book.
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The east wing of the Morningstar mansion was quieter than the rest. Less trafficked. The kind of place where dust might accumulate if the servants weren't so terrifyingly efficient.
I passed two maids on my way, both of whom pressed themselves against the wall like I might bite. Their expressions were perfectly neutral, their bows precisely correct.
Their eyes told a different story.
There goes the young master. The disappointment. The trash.
I could almost hear the gossip they'd share later. Did you see? He was actually walking somewhere with purpose. Strange, isn't it?
Let them talk. In six months, I'd give them something worth gossiping about.
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The staircase to the third floor was narrower than I expected, clearly designed for function rather than impressing visitors. My footsteps echoed against stone as I climbed, counting the steps out of habit.
Twenty-three. One for each year of my previous life.
Don't get sentimental now.
I reached the landing and found myself facing a long corridor lined with doors. Most were plain, unmarked. But at the far end, illuminated by a shaft of light from a high window, stood a door that was distinctly different.
Dark wood, almost black. No visible handle. And carved into its surface, so finely that you'd miss it unless you looked closely, was the Morningstar crest.
Seven-pointed star wreathed in flames.
I approached slowly, half-expecting alarms to sound or guards to materialize. This was the restricted section, after all. Surely there was more security than just...
I touched the door.
A pulse of warmth shot through my palm, followed by a soft click.
The door swung open.
Huh. Michael wasn't kidding about the blood lock.
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I'd expected something dramatic. Towering shelves stretching to impossible heights. Floating books. Maybe a mysterious librarian with cryptic wisdom.
What I found was almost disappointing in its normalcy.
A modest room, perhaps thirty feet across. Shelves lined the walls, packed with books and scrolls of varying ages. A reading desk sat near the window, ink and parchment neatly arranged. Several comfortable chairs were scattered about, the leather worn from use.
It looked like someone's personal study. Cozy. Lived-in.
This is the restricted section that requires Morningstar blood to access?
I stepped inside, letting the door close behind me with a soft thud. The air smelled of old paper and leather, the particular scent of knowledge preserved across centuries.
And then I noticed the walls.
Not the shelves, but the walls themselves. Between the bookcases, where plaster should have been, there were... doors. Small doors, barely knee-high, scattered seemingly at random. Each one bore a different symbol, none of which I recognized.
What the...
"Fascinating, isn't it?"
I spun around, heart leaping into my throat.
An old man stood in the corner I could have sworn was empty a moment ago. Tall despite his age, with silver hair swept back from a weathered face. His eyes were the color of aged parchment, warm and knowing.
He wore the dark formal attire of a Morningstar servant, but something about his bearing suggested far more than his station.
Aldric.
The name surfaced from Lucifer's memories like a lifeline, bringing with it a flood of associated images. A warm cup of tea after a particularly vicious fight with other noble children. A coat draped over his shoulders when he'd fallen asleep in the garden. Quiet words of encouragement when the world seemed determined to remind him of his failures.
The one servant who had never, not once, looked at him with contempt.
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"Young Master." Aldric bowed, the motion practiced but somehow genuine. "I apologize for startling you. I was cataloging some recent acquisitions when I heard the blood lock disengage."
"I..." My voice came out rougher than intended. I cleared my throat. "I didn't realize anyone would be here."
"The restricted section requires maintenance like any other part of the library." A hint of warmth entered his tone. "Though I confess, I wasn't expecting to see you here. It's been... quite some time since you visited."
Since I visited. Not since anyone visited. He was being careful with his words, not drawing attention to the fact that the original Lucifer had probably never set foot in this place.
"Things change," I said.
"Indeed they do."
Silence. But unlike the silences with Michael, this one didn't feel like a battlefield. It felt like... patience. Like Aldric was content to wait for me to decide how this conversation would go.
He really is different.
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"Those doors." I gestured toward the miniature entrances scattered across the walls. "What are they?"
Aldric's eyes crinkled at the corners. Genuine curiosity, he seemed to say. How novel.
"Spatial archives, Young Master. Created by a Space-element ancestor several generations back. Each door leads to a pocket room containing materials on specific topics. Fire theory behind the flame symbol. Ice behind the snowflake. And so on."
I stared at him, then at the doors, then back at him.
"You're telling me there are pocket dimensions. In the walls. Full of books."
"Full of knowledge," Aldric corrected gently. "The books are merely vessels."
A Space-element ancestor created pocket dimensions for library storage.
The implications hit me like a carriage. If a Morningstar ancestor could create pocket dimensions stable enough to last generations, then the element could definitely be used for what I was planning.
Proof of concept, sitting right in front of me.
I must have been grinning like an idiot, because Aldric's expression shifted to something almost approaching amusement.
"You seem pleased, Young Master."
"I am." I turned to face him fully. "Aldric, can you tell me everything about the ancestor who created these?"
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We talked for the better part of an hour.
Or rather, Aldric talked, and I listened with an intensity I'd never shown for anything in either of my lives. He spoke of Celeste Morningstar, a woman born four hundred years ago with a room-sized mana core and the Space element.
Room-sized core.
Just like me.
She'd been considered a failure too. The family had all but written her off. But she'd spent decades mastering her element, finding ways to use Space that didn't rely on raw mana capacity.
And she'd left behind these archives as her legacy.
"The records of her research should be in there." Aldric nodded toward a door marked with a symbol I now recognized as representing Space, a small spiral folding in on itself. "Though I should warn you, some of her later work was considered... unconventional."
"Unconventional how?"
"She believed that Space users could create external mana storage, bypassing the limitations of their cores entirely." His tone was carefully neutral. "The theory was never proven. Most scholars dismissed it as wishful thinking from a woman desperate to overcome her limitations."
My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
They dismissed it. They never proved it wrong. They just assumed it couldn't work.
"Thank you, Aldric." The words came out more fervent than I'd intended. "Truly."
Something shifted in his expression. Something raw and unguarded that disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared.
"You're different today, Young Master."
Third time. I was starting to think I should keep a tally.
"So I've been told."
"No." He shook his head slowly. "Not just different. You're... you're actually here. Present. Engaged." A pause. "I've served this family for sixty-three years. Watched you grow from a bright-eyed child into a young man convinced of his own worthlessness. And in all that time, this is the first conversation we've had where you looked at me like..."
He trailed off, as if catching himself saying too much.
"Like what?"
"Like you're actually seeing me." His voice was quiet. "Like I matter."
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The silence that followed was different from any I'd experienced since waking in this body.
It wasn't uncomfortable. It wasn't expectant.
It was sad.
Sixty-three years. He watched Lucifer grow up. Watched him give up. Watched him treat everyone, including the people who cared about him, like obstacles to avoid.
And he never stopped caring.
"I see you, Aldric." The words felt inadequate, but they were all I had. "I see you, and I'm grateful. More than I know how to express."
He straightened, composing himself with the practiced ease of someone who'd spent decades hiding his emotions behind professionalism.
"Yes, well." He cleared his throat. "The spatial archives will remain available to you whenever you wish. I'll ensure you're not disturbed during your research."
It was a deflection. A retreat behind the safety of duty and decorum.
I let him have it.
"I appreciate that." I turned toward the Space archive door, then paused. "Aldric? The extra desserts. After Michael's cold days. The coat in the garden. Covering for me when I..."
"Young Master—"
"Thank you." I met his eyes. "For all of it. For never giving up on me, even when I'd given up on myself."
For a long moment, Aldric didn't move. Didn't speak.
Then, slowly, a smile crept across his weathered face. Small, but genuine. The first real smile I'd seen from anyone in this house who wasn't family.
"It was never difficult, Young Master." He bowed again, but this time there was something almost conspiratorial in it. "Believing in you was always the easiest thing I ever did."
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He left me alone in the restricted section, surrounded by centuries of accumulated knowledge and the legacy of a woman who'd faced the same limitations I did.
A woman who'd been called a failure.
A woman who'd created something that lasted four hundred years.
I approached the Space archive door, small enough that I'd have to crouch to enter. The spiral symbol seemed to pulse faintly in the afternoon light.
Small steps, I reminded myself. One discovery at a time.
I pushed open the door and stepped into possibility.