Although he no longer counts the candles, he knows there are exactly 999. He would sense instantly if even one were missing or added. It was ingrained in his very being, a result of lighting them night after night as a young boy for his mother—until the day he discovered a spell in a centuries-old book that allowed him to ignite them all at once. Candles, of course, are laughably outdated. Still, he prefers them to electric light. There's something strangely comforting about witnessing nature at work on such a basic, visceral level. In truth, he doesn't care much for modern technology at all. Not only is it overrated, but most people have become far too dependent on it. He uses it as sparingly as possible. Most are burned up by now.
For the past few hours, he had been sitting motionless on the floor in the middle of his living room, surrounded by an overwhelming number of unopened boxes. It wasn’t exactly cozy, but then again, this house was never meant to be a home. It was just the perfect location to keep an eye on Maxime Kwintens and her father without being detected.
At least, that had been the plan—until Maxime Kwintens collapsed right in front of his door, forcing Angel to drag her inside. For a brief moment, he thought the game was up. But even on that very first evening, he found a way to turn the situation to his advantage. With Angel’s help, he managed to gain her trust, become her friend—or at least, make her believe they were.
She began visiting more frequently—sometimes to escape her father, sometimes to vent her frustrations about school, and occasionally to seek his guidance. He observed her closely, studying her every move, only to reach an inevitable conclusion: this girl could never be the one to disrupt the balance as foretold. She simply lacked the talent for it.
The discovery had been unexpected—shocking, even. The list had never been wrong before. Yet, as he delved deeper and uncovered her surprising journeys to the parallel world, even those seemed more the result of luck than any particular skill. Certainly, nothing that justified revising his conclusion. He wasn’t even sure if he felt relieved. Perhaps he’d rather confront a crisis with earth-shattering potential than endure the embarrassment of being wrong all these years.
“Well, it is what it is,” he sighed. “A stone doesn’t turn into bread just because you’re hungry,” as his mother used to say.
So, it turned out to be a false alarm—or at least, that’s what he thought until an hour ago, when everything changed dramatically.
Looking back, it was all too clear that he had taken an unjustifiably large risk by leading her to the heart of his library. Even though she seemed harmless, the Guild’s policy was unambiguous: take no chances. He should have eliminated her immediately. Yet, she had seemed so insignificant and helpless that he couldn’t bring himself to do it—not right away. Perhaps vanity played a role in his decision to deviate from the rules, but he needed to test her one last time. He couldn't bear the thought that he might have been wrong all these years and the quickest way to be certain was to confront her with one of her earlier incarnations. Recognition, after all, is a powerful catalyst. On some subconscious level, people always recognize fragments of themselves in a past life.
He showed her the book, even though he was 99% certain she would fail. And then, against all odds, she didn’t.
He had never seen anyone lose consciousness just from looking at a single page—he’d barely managed to catch her before she hit the floor. When she came to, he was so shocked that he did something completely out of character: he started talking and couldn’t stop. Words poured out of him like water from a burst pipe.
He! Mastro, the leader of The Guild, brilliant in every way, had shared some of his deepest secrets with a sixteen-year-old girl of only mediocre talent. There was no risk, he told himself. She was completely under his control. And yet, the moment he tried to help her return to the parallel world was precisely the moment when everything unraveled.
Typically, visits to the shadow world—officially known as Mondo Krespusko—are purely mental. The body remains grounded, anchored to reality. Ordinary people access that realm unconsciously, through dreams, without any control over what happens. Only a select few initiates possess the ability to consciously enter Mondo Krespusko and influence events within it. So, when he discovered that this unremarkable, seemingly untalented girl had managed to achieve it as well, he needed to understand how. And then, something occurred, unprecedented in the history of The Guild. All the control and power he believed he held over her vanished in an instant when not only her mind, but also her physical body, transitioned. She dissolved into thin air—leaving nothing behind.
For at least a minute he sat frozen in the antique arm chair in the heart of his maze. When he finally found the strength to move again, he walked back to the living room, made a phone call, lit 999 candles with one spell, sat down to meditate and hadn’t moved... until now.
Finally, he opens his eyes, watching the last candle flicker out as he rises from the floor. The time for reflection has passed. Now, he must act. This is war, and his school is the battlefield.
“Angel, darling, it’s time.”
“Of course, Daddy. I’m coming!” comes the cheerful reply from the kitchen.