Rain fell harder, transforming the graveyard into a landscape of mud and memory. Autumn Hall stood perfectly still, her question hanging in the air between them like a drawn blade.

  Ulrich measured his response carefully, studying her posture for signs of threat, and more importantly, to read her thoughts. He was no mind reader, not like those spirit mediums he’d heard about in Belham. What he could do was no more than advanced psychology profiling through external appearance, no more, no less.

  She held herself with practiced grace, tension coiled beneath the elegant exterior. One hand remained near her side, positioned to reach something hidden in the folds of her dress. A weapon? A charm?

  "Johan Schrodinger," he said, keeping his voice neutral. The fake name felt appropriate for a fake meeting, layers of deception piled on deception. And he couldn’t quite trust this person just yet. "I came to pay respects."

  "To a stranger's grave?" Autumn's head tilted slightly, the fox mask making the gesture seem predatory. "Or did you know Ulrich Constantine?"

  The way she spoke his name sent chills down his back. To speak about oneself in third person was rather… bizarre.

  "I know of him," Ulrich said carefully. "Through mutual acquaintances."

  "What acquaintances?"

  "Ma'am Felanor. The Servant of Night."

  Autumn Hall's entire body stiffened. Behind the mask, her eyes widened fractionally before she regained control. But the reaction had been visible, confirmation that the name carried weight.

  "You've spoken with her?" Autumn's voice dropped lower. "Recently?"

  "Within the hours. She told me I might find you here."

  "Why would she do that?" Her question came sharp, and he knew it wasn’t directed at himself, but rather, an internal question given voice. "Ma’am Felanor doesn't arrange meetings without purpose. What did you offer her?"

  "Nothing that grand. I am but a historian who wanted to pursue the truth." Ulrich took a measured step forward, closing the distance between them to eight meters. "I'm searching for answers about Belham. About what happened to this city. She suggested you might have knowledge worth sharing."

  Autumn studied him for a long moment, tilting her umbrella slightly to let rain streamed down her mask in rivulets that caught the fading light. Finally, she gestured toward the tombstone.

  "The truth will place in places you might never imagined." Her fingers traced the Celtic inscription without looking down. "Are you prepared for that possibility?"

  "I am." Ulrich chuckled and nodded.

  "Brave words from someone hiding behind a mask."

  "You're wearing one too."

  A soft sound escaped her, almost like laughter but carrying no humor. "Fair enough."

  She settled onto a broken piece of monument that had fallen near the grave, arranging her dress with graceful precision. "If we're going to trade information, we should at least be comfortable while doing it."

  Ulrich remained standing, keeping that slight distance. Trust needed to be earned incrementally, not assumed. And Ulrich was the least trusting of others.

  "You first," Autumn said. "Tell me what you know about Belham. And I don’t mean the history of this island."

  This was the exchange she demanded. Information for information, carefully phrased to prevent either party from gaining too much advantage. Ulrich organized his thoughts, deciding how much truth to reveal.

  "Belham was a city scattered across islands in the fog sea. The Ministry operated there, combating supernatural threats under the authority of the Churches of the Night Mother. It was prosperous, defended, significant." He paused, watching her reaction. "Then something destroyed it completely. Six hundred years later, only ruins remain and no one speaks of what happened."

  "Not quite true." Autumn's fingers tapped against stone in a rhythm that might have been nervousness or a deliberate display of nervousness. "Some speak of it. Those who belong to the Eternal Club."

  The name struck his mind no less than the rumbling thunder in the distant. Ulrich kept his expression neutral through force of will, grateful for the mask hiding his reaction.

  "The Eternal Club," he repeated carefully. "I've heard the name, many times."

  "Have you?" Skepticism colored her tone, and she did not disguise it one bit. "Most people only know it as a criminal organization, dealers in illegal services. But it's much more than that. The Club worships the number forty-two. They believe it represents... something. A truth that has been passed on since time immemorial."

  Time immemorial?

  Ulrich contemplated on those two words for a moment. Time immemorial was the specific terms used to reference the Era before the Age of Darkness, that was, before the arrival of the First Epoch. Was it a coincidence? Could the Eternal Club possibly existed even before the arrival of Gods, of History?

  "What truth?"

  "I don't know. That's part of what I've been searching for. The Club guards its secrets zealously, and those who dig too deep tend to disappear, disappeared into the river of history."

  Forty-two, that number again. The number felt significant, though Ulrich couldn't identify why yet. So, he put it away for later consideration.

  "You mentioned they worship it," Ulrich prompted. "What else do they do?"

  "They're wary of something called the Limbo." Autumn's voice dropped to barely above a whisper, as though speaking louder might summon unwanted attention. "The two concepts are connected, forty-two and Limbo. Inherently linked in ways I haven't fully grasped. But the Club's members fear Limbo with genuine terror, not the performative kind used to intimidate outsiders."

  “And trust my words. Ma’am Felanor, despite ‘her’ exalt status, fears Limbo as well. That, I have confirmed myself.”

  Rain intensified, drumming against the broken church ruins and creating a sound like distant applause. Ulrich processed the information, turning it over in his mind for connections to anything he'd experienced.

  ‘Her’. The way she spoke of Ma’am Felanor as ‘her’ indicates a certain level of status that frightened Ulrich. He assumed Ma’am Felanor was a Demigod-level powerhouse, but looking at it, he was certainly wrong.

  A Great Demigod? Rank seven? Maybe… Rank 8? Such honorific and respect are only held for those of great status in the world of mysticism!

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  At the same time, the concept of Limbo caught his attention. The word resonated faintly, though he couldn't recall where he'd encountered it before. Dreams within dreams? Spaces between reality? The Shadow Realm itself existed in a kind of liminal state, neither fully real nor completely imagined. The meaning of this word was infinite, and given the Eternal Club's existence, it could literally mean anything.

  "Your turn," Autumn said. "Tell me something I don't know about Belham."

  Ulrich hesitated. What could he offer that wouldn't expose too much? Giving a moment of thought, he settled on a partial truth.

  "The Ministry had a Sanctuary at 61st Euston Street. The Keepers operated from there, maintaining the balance between the surface world and the Shadow Realm, as well as the supernatural society. There was a captain there, his name is Ottis Owen. Rosaline served as Keeper of the Sanctuary. He watched Autumn's body language carefully. "Does any of that mean anything to you?"

  Her hands clenched briefly before relaxing. "Rosaline," she breathed. "I've seen that name in fragments, pieces of old records that survived the destruction. She was important somehow, though the details are lost."

  "What about Ulrich Constantine?" The question emerged before Ulrich could stop it. "What do you know about him specifically?"

  Autumn's gaze fixed on the tombstone, her posture softening in ways that suggested genuine emotion beneath her tight guardedness.

  "He was a Watchman. Rank 2 Shadowmancer according to what little documentation exists. He died during Belham's destruction, one of countless casualties." She reached out and adjusted the white flowers slightly. "The inscription says to search for eternity. I've been trying to understand what that means for many years, perhaps six hundred."

  Six hundred years…

  The statement hung in the air like a heavy boulder rolling down the hill. Ulrich stared at her, searching for signs of exaggeration or metaphor. But her body language suggested literal truth.

  "You've been alive for six hundred years?" he asked carefully.

  "Not continuously." Autumn laughed bitterly. "The details are complicated. Let's just say I have a very warped perception of time."

  A reincarnation cycle? Some kind of immortality? Ulrich's mind raced through possibilities, trying to fit this revelation into his understanding of Selena. Could his friend from the present somehow be connected to this woman across centuries? That they shared some kind of mystic link?

  "You look like someone I know," he said, testing the waters. "The resemblance is exact."

  Autumn went very still on his comment. "What's her name?"

  "That's not part of our exchange."

  "Then neither is my response." Her tone hardened. "You want to know if I'm somehow the same person as your friend. I'm not. But there are certain mark that repeat across time, connections that transcend individual lifetimes. Perhaps your friend and I share something fundamental."

  Not quite an answer but close enough to confirm his suspicions. Autumn Hall wasn't Selena, but they were linked in ways he didn't yet understand. Reincarnation? Echoes across time? The mechanics still remained unclear.

  "My turn again," Autumn said. "What brought you to this graveyard specifically? Why seek me out?"

  "I saw you in a vision," Ulrich admitted, though hide the specific details and emphasized. "I needed to understand why."

  "Visions? You speak like a charlatan…" She didn’t denounce his words and accepted them at face value. "That means the connection is significant. Whatever links us goes deeper than coincidence."

  "What have you learned about Belham's destruction?" Ulrich redirected. "You've been searching for six hundred years. Surely you've found something."

  "Fragments. Pieces that don't form a complete picture." Frustration leaked through again. "I know the destruction was sudden, catastrophic. I know it involved forces beyond normal supernatural threats. And I know that certain knowledge was deliberately hidden, erased from records as though someone wanted the truth buried permanently. Past, present, or future."

  "Who would do that?"

  "The Eternal Club, possibly. Or forces even they fear." Autumn stood, brushing mud from her dress with grace. "I've been searching for the Books of Hermes. Specifically, the Bronze, Silver, and Golden Bough. Those texts supposedly contain fundamental principles about the nature of reality, the structure of epochs, the mechanics of divine power, as well as the origin of all mysticism related. If any documentation that might explain Belham's destruction, it would be in those volumes."

  Books of Hermes?

  The phrase triggered something in Ulrich's memory. Not from his time in Belham, but from the dream itself. The very beginning of this changed cycle, the ‘first’ loop, when he'd first met Zheng San, the pouch thief, in Donghai City.

  The black book!

  He'd dismissed it, too focused on other concerns to investigate thoroughly. After revolving one problem after another, Ulrich completely forgotten about it.

  The Silver Bough…

  "Have you found any of them?" Ulrich asked, keeping his voice neutral despite the sudden urgency flooding through him. He knew where this book was and could be found, but decided to feign ignorance. Given all that has happened thus far, who knows what sort of effect will cascade from him revealing things when not necessary?

  "No. The search has consumed many years. But I won't stop looking." Autumn turned toward the ruined church, staring at its broken walls. "Somewhere in the rubble of ruins, the truth remained hidden. I'll find it eventually."

  The rain had soaked through Ulrich's suit, cold water running down his back. But he barely noticed it, his mind racing through various implications. The Silver Bough existed in this dream timeline and had been present from the beginning. If he could examine it properly, it might contain answers about Belham, about the Eternal Club, about everything.

  Or at the very least, allow him to grasp the principles that would allow him to divinate the matter directly or indirectly.

  "We should end this," Autumn said suddenly. "The dream's cycle will conclude soon, and I have no doubt we will meet again."

  "You know this is a dream?" Ulrich couldn't hide his surprise. Even Ma’am Felanor could not discern the truth, and this person, Autumn Hall, was the first to do so!

  "Of course. I'm aware of the loop, a good friend told me." She looked back at him, and behind the mask, her eyes held deep resignation and sorrow.

  The phrase from his tombstone. Search for eternity. Had he somehow known this would happen? Had his past self left that message specifically for Autumn, knowing she would spend years trying to decode it? All of which lead to this very moment?

  Not to mention, the only person in both worlds to know of the truth regarding this dream was himself. Could it be that sometime in the future, he will tell Autumn Hall the truth and set history on its current course?

  "The masks stay on," Autumn chuckled lightly. "Neither of us is ready to trust completely."

  "No," Ulrich agreed. "Not yet."

  "Will we meet again, Johan Schrodinger?"

  The fake name sounded wrong in her voice, too formal for the strange intimacy this conversation had created. But Ulrich maintained the deception, for his own sake, and for the sake of maintaining the loop as it was.

  "Perhaps. If our searches align."

  "Then I hope they do." Autumn retrieved her flowers, apparently planning to take them with her. "Be careful, Johan. The search for truth about Belham has killed better people than us. That tombstone is proof enough."

  She walked away through the rain, her elegant dress trailing through mud without concern. Ulrich watched her disappear into the fog gathering among the ruins, wondering what thoughts occupied her ancient mind.

  At least, my future self didn’t tell her about ‘me’. I wonder what was the reason for this…

  When she was gone, he approached his own tombstone. The Celtic inscription seemed to glow faintly in the failing light.

  "Search for eternity."

  The grammar of time grew confusing when dealing with dreams of the future.

  The world began to fade, that familiar sensation of the dream cycle reaching its conclusion. He’d grown so used to it. Looking at the dark horizon, Ulrich didn't fight it. He allowed the white light to come, erasing all things.

  …

  His eyes opened to darkness. His bedroom in Belham, in the present day, in the reality where he was Ulrich Constantine, a Watchman who just advanced to Rank 2, and not Johan Schrodinger. Rain battered the window, the sound eerily similar to the dream's downpour.

  He sat up, mind racing through everything Autumn had revealed. The Eternal Club. The number forty-two. Limbo. The Books of Hermes. And… the revelation of her awareness of the dream cycle.

  Most importantly, the Silver Bough.

  The black book from his dream's beginning, dismissed and forgotten in his focus on other string of mysteries. It had been there all along, waiting for him.

  Ulrich swung his legs off the sofa, the sudden urgency driving him fully awake. He’d already grasped a good understanding of Ancient Hermes, the language used in the book. Given that all the Boughs are written by the legendary figure, Hermes, it was not strange at all that the books would be written in Ancient Hermes, the most primitive mystical language.

  Without hesitation, Ulrich headed toward the library of the Sanctuary and focused on learning more about Ancient Hermes, beyond what he already knew.