Starfall Cove, beneath the sea.
Julien stepped through the stone door once more. The ghostly blue light wrapped the sunken city like frozen tides, bathing everything in an atmosphere caught between dream and memory.
"You're back, little Black. Faster than I expected."
The voice drifted from behind him, carrying a thousand years of weariness and a faint trace of anticipation.
Julien turned. Evan Rosier's ghost floated out from a half-collapsed domed building. Her translucent form shimmered with a mother-of-pearl sheen in the blue glow.
"This time you brought friends? I'm happy for you. Whether it's the endless journey of magical discovery or the path of a Guardian, being alone is far too lonely."
Suddenly, Evan's gaze landed on Elizabeth Rosier. Surprise flickered across her translucent face.
She drifted closer, her ice-gray eyes—identical to Elizabeth's—studying the young witch carefully.
"You…" The ghost's voice was soft as whispering seawater. "You have the eyes of the Rosier family, but your magic… it feels warmer. Not like my time, when everyone in the bloodline carried that chill."
"You are…?"
"I am Evan Rosier. What, Julien never mentioned my name?"
"Ancestor Evan!" Elizabeth gasped. Her ice-gray eyes widened in disbelief.
She instinctively pressed her hand over the family crest on her chest—an ancient Rosier gesture of respect to an elder, even though she had never imagined doing it under these circumstances.
Elizabeth turned to look at Julien. He shrugged with a small smile. "I didn't know either. Not until just now."
"I am Elizabeth Rosier," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "I… I saw your name in the family genealogy. You… a thousand years ago…"
"Died? Disappeared? Or got disowned?" Evan smiled. "It doesn't matter anymore. I never really cared about the family back then. I only regret never seeing Pyxis again."
Her voice grew quieter. The blue light around her fluctuated, rising and falling like an emotional heartbeat.
Julien noticed that when Evan spoke the name "Pyxis," her tone changed. It wasn't simple nostalgia—it was something deeper, almost painful tenderness.
"By the way, child of the Black family, did you find any news about her while searching for the star fragment?" Evan turned to Julien, a spark of hope in her ice-gray eyes.
"I don't know much," Julien admitted. "I only know she was the first Guardian of the Stargate. She helped build Hogwarts' defenses and, in the end, chose to seal it rather than open it…"
"Ah…" Evan sighed softly. "You don't know how her left eye would crinkle first when she smiled. You don't know she was terrified of thunder but still insisted on observing the stars on stormy nights…"
The ghost's voice echoed through the empty underwater city with an eerie resonance.
Elizabeth and Liriya quietly took Julien's hands. Their fingers were cool, but he could feel them both trembling—touched by something profound.
Evan remained silent for a long time. The blue light around her pulsed, brightening and dimming like a heartbeat.
"When she decided to take the star fragment to Hogwarts, I asked her: 'If I choose to stay, will you remember me?'"
"She said: 'I'll seal the memory inside the Mirror of Erised. Every time I look in it, I'll see you standing behind me, just like this.'"
Evan gave a quiet laugh, heavy with a thousand years of time. "But I knew the Mirror of Erised shows desire, not memory. I probably never appeared in it… because what she truly longed for wasn't me."
"What was it?" Julien asked.
"I don't know why she ultimately chose not to open the Stargate, as you said. But I do know her deepest desire was to reach the end of this world—or perhaps another one. If she never succeeded, she must have carried that regret…"
"And here I am," Evan's voice dropped to a whisper, "waiting a thousand years… for another possibility."
A rare wetness gathered at the corner of her translucent eyes—ghost tears, crystallized from magic and memory.
"Ancestor," Elizabeth stepped forward, "the fact that we're all here together now… isn't that the other possibility you've been waiting for?"
Evan's form stabilized. She looked at Elizabeth, this young witch with the same ice-gray eyes as her own.
"You remind me of myself when I was young," Evan said softly. "Not in appearance, but in that… resolve. Once you choose a direction, you never turn back."
She turned to Julien. "And you… you have her curiosity. But curiosity like that can also lead to regret."
"I won't walk toward regret," Julien shook his head. He looked at Rosier, then at Liriya, and said with quiet certainty, "Because I won't be alone. My companions will always be by my side."
Evan watched the three young lives standing together in the sunken city. For the first time in a thousand years, a genuine smile appeared on her ancient face—not bitter, not mocking, but one of release and quiet relief.
"I believe you. Now, strengthen the seal," Evan's figure began to rise, merging with the city's dome. "But remember, children—the seal is not the end. It is a wait. A wait until you are ready—not to open, but to understand."
"Understand what?"
"Understand why the Stargate exists." Evan's voice grew distant, fading into the depths of the sea. "Understand why it chose us, and why…"
Her final words dissolved into the murmur of water, the pulse of blue light, and the eternal breathing of the city.
Julien took out the star fragment and walked toward the floating black stone tablet. The crescent-shaped groove shimmered in the blue glow, like an eye that had waited a thousand years.
The moment the fragment slid into place, the entire city trembled violently. Light spread outward from the tablet, restoring the faded runes and awakening the dormant magic.
The glow gradually calmed. The underwater city returned to its slow, eternal rhythm. But on the newly repaired black tablet, a fresh line of text appeared—not ancient runes, but handwriting that looked like it belonged to two young witches:
"To our future selves:
If the Stargate must be opened, let us open it together.
If the door must be closed, let us close it together.
—P.B. & E.R."
Julien, Rosier, and Liriya stood before those words in silence for a long time. Then Julien reached out and took both girls' hands in his.
In this city that had lain sunken for a thousand years, beneath the unfinished vows of their ancestors, three young lives made their own promise.
If the Stargate must be opened, they would open it together—no matter where it led.