Clawdiff lay draped in candy ruin, every street a sticky maze of frosting and shattered sugar-glass. Celeste moved carefully, hugging the edges of alleyways, slipping past shambling silhouettes. Most zombies she avoided—skirting their slow, syrupy claws with nervous steps.
But something else caught her eye.
Council droids.
Their chrome bodies glinted faintly under the candy-lit sky. They staggered, sparking, trying to swing useless batons against the horde. One was torn apart like foil by a licorice ghoul. Another was left twitching, its voice module stuttering in council dialects.
Celeste froze in the shadows, ears twitching.
“Droids? Out here? That’s… strange. They never… they never stray from the patrols or the buildings…”
Her tail bristled. It wasn’t right.
But she pushed on.
The Library loomed ahead. Once a proud hall of carved stone and spired glass, now it sagged beneath layers of caramel drizzle and collapsed sugar beams. Windows were cracked, shelves toppled, the air thick with the stale, burnt scent of something that didn’t belong.
Celeste stepped inside.
The silence was heavy. Books scattered like bones. Chairs overturned. A teddy dropped in the corner. Her chest ached as she mumbled under her breath, like a prayer:
“Oh dear… oh dear, oh dear…”
She turned a corner—and gasped.
Manga.
A whole shelf, half-buried beneath melted gumdrops, still clung to life. Bright covers shone faintly in the dim light—her eyes widened, ears flicking as she squealed softly despite herself.
“Oh! Oh, they’re Magigirl!”
She scrambled, tugging a few free, brushing sugar-crystals from the covers and hugging them close. She couldn’t help the little smile, or the way she slipped them carefully into her bag, her tail twitching happily for the first time in days.
But when she looked up, her eyes caught something else.
An entire section, still intact. Bold letters across the shelving: Iaith Caerfaenic. Caerfaenic Language.
Celeste’s breath caught. She stepped forward, paw tracing the spines. Dictionaries, primers, collections. Whole shelves.
“Oh, goodie,” she whispered, almost bouncing. “These will be handy—I can… I can talk to Bonbon properly, then.”
She gathered a few, clutching them to her chest. But even as she smiled, a pang of guilt struck her.
Stealing books from a library—even one rotting under sugar and ruin—felt wrong. Like a betrayal.
“I’ll bring them back,” she whispered quickly, as if to the shelves themselves. “I promise. Just borrowing. Just… just until I need them.”
Her ears drooped as she slipped them into her bag beside the manga. She cast one more nervous glance over the ruined aisles.
Whatever answers she sought, she would find them here.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling—like the Library was watching her.
Celeste padded softly through the ruined aisles, her bag heavy with borrowed books. The quiet pressed in—too quiet, save for the faint creak of the candy-rotted beams above. She rounded the corner, and froze.
By the broken window, framed in pale moonlight, sat a lynx. His fur was ink-black streaked with faint silver, his ears tipped like blades. In his hands, a weather-worn history tome. He read it without urgency, turning the pages as though he already knew what they said.
Celeste’s breath caught.
“Oh! Hello—you startled me. I didn’t think anyone else was here.”
He didn’t look up. The only sound was the soft flick of a page.
Celeste shifted, ears lowering. “Um… hello?”
This time he did move—just slightly. His eyes, sharp and pale, slid from the text to her face, studying her like one might study a curious insect under glass. And in that instant, recognition struck her. Her fur prickled.
The blurred name from the map. The anomaly.
The lynx held the book loosely, then let it fall shut with a hollow thump. He regarded it almost with contempt.
“History,” he said, his voice smooth, quiet, and cold as still water. “It’s funny. It’s always just one perspective, isn’t it? Written by whoever wins, whoever survives.” He tilted his head, an unreadable smirk tugging at his mouth. “But what about yours? Are you an innocent bystander caught up in all this? Or something else entirely?”
Celeste’s throat tightened. She clutched the strap of her bag. “I… I just came for answers.”
“And you found me.” His voice was soft, amused, as if the inevitability of it pleased him. “How interesting.”
Her paws fidgeted against her sleeves. “Who… who are you?”
The lynx’s smile flickered, never reaching his eyes. He leaned back against the cracked windowsill, the broken glass catching in his fur like stars.
“Help or hindrance…” He shrugged lazily. “It’s really up to you. But today?” He closed the book and dropped it onto the floor with a dull thud, as though it were garbage.
“Today I feel like help.”
Celeste swallowed, clutching her books a little tighter. Her voice came out soft, hesitant.
“Do you… do you have a name?”
The lynx tilted his head, eyes gleaming faintly in the fractured moonlight. “I am what I am. A lynx. A shadow in the corner of your story. That should be enough.”
He bent, retrieving another volume from the wreckage at his feet, and held it out to her between two claws. Its cracked spine read: Hybrid Genetics: A Study of Instability.
“The parts about second generations,” he murmured, “are fascinating. And entirely wrong. But perhaps you’d enjoy the fiction.” His pale gaze fixed on her, sharp as knives. “Still, I imagine you’re here for something more, Celeste.”
She froze, ears flicking nervously. “You… you know my name?”
His pale eyes lingered on her, knives behind velvet.
“I might. You are an unusually odd specimen,” he said. “Not my first choice for fixing the Council’s problems. But then again…” His gaze drifted toward the ruined city beyond the glass. “No one can fix that. Not really. Not even the Matron of Sight.”
He gave a quiet, humorless laugh.
“And oh, how she tries.”
Celeste frowned. “The Council caused this mess.”
The lynx’s eyes half-lidded. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But look at them.” He gestured vaguely toward the distant glitter of the Royal Quarter. “They hide inside their pretty barriers while life goes on. Trade still moves. Betrothals are arranged. They feast. They dine. And beyond their walls, hybrids and mythics starve.” His ears twitched. “Whether they caused this or not, do you think they are in a hurry to fix it?”
Celeste’s ears dipped. “That’s… very mean of them.”
The lynx let out the softest breath of amusement. “People have done a great deal worse for a great deal less.”
He stepped closer.
Now his voice lowered, turning intimate and strange.
“The question is not what they’ve done.” His gaze slid to the glow hidden under her collar. “The question is what you will do.”
Celeste blinked. “M-me?”
“You have these new gifts.” His head tilted. “What will you do with them?”
Celeste looked down at her hands. “Oh. I think maybe… um… survive? Maybe help my friends?”
“The ones who aren’t here?” the lynx asked.
Celeste’s cheeks went pink. “I did leave without telling them.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “I noticed.”
Celeste fumbled, words spilling out like tangled yarn.
“Well, um, I—I had this… episode, you see, with Bracer. He was training me, and it was all going so badly, I tripped, and then there was fire and light and glyphs and—well, I lost control, and everyone was frightened, and I didn’t mean to but it just—just happened—”
The lynx’s eyes glittered with amusement. “You mean this?”
He raised one claw and a shimmer of mana flickered outward.
Celeste’s body seized. Her aura ignited, blazing with unnatural fire. Pain ripped through her—sharp, searing, as if her veins had been turned to molten glass. She doubled over, clutching her sides, a strangled scream tearing free.
The lynx chuckled softly, watching her writhe.
“This is the real you,” he whispered, stepping close enough that his breath brushed her ear. “Locked away by your little rune. But the moment you lose control… it goes boom.”
“Stop!” Celeste gasped, her voice breaking. “Stop it—stop it, please!”
His laugh was quiet, unnervingly warm. And then, just as suddenly, the torment ended. The fire died, leaving her trembling, gasping for air, her fur damp with sweat.
The lynx straightened, unbothered. His tone almost gentle.
“Your core, Celeste—that is the problem. And your salvation. You can run from it, deny it, bury it under duty and fear…” He tilted his head, studying her like a specimen in a jar. “…but it will find you.”
The lynx smiled, faint and humorless.
“You want to help others,” he said. “A noble instinct. Wasteful, but noble.” His gaze sharpened again. “Figure out who you are first.”
Celeste looked up, still breathless. “How?”
His smile flickered like a blade in moonlight.
“When the candle doesn’t know its own flame, it burns the house down trying to light the dark.”
He lingered a moment longer, as though weighing whether to leave her with silence or with a seed. Then his mouth curved.
“Perhaps a little clue, hm? The manalings—oh, forgive me, the mythics—they will know what lies under your skin. And don’t forget the coordinates I gave you. They will be… most helpful.”
He stepped back, fading into the shadows of the ruined shelves, his presence like smoke that clung even as it vanished.
“Oh, and could you make yourself useful and perhaps fix Caerfaen? It’s falling apart. Has been for years, and I’m quite frankly getting tired of it.”
He tilted his head, smile sharpening with quiet amusement.
“I think you’ve done well so far. Stronger than I expected. I think…” His smile flickered again. “We will have some fun.”
Celeste staggered, still clutching her chest, blinking through the haze.
“We’ll meet again.”
And just like that—he was gone.
Celeste spun, chest heaving, eyes still searching for the Lynx. Only black fog remained, whispering with motes of mana like fireflies lost in the dark. She chased the trail, weaving through the shelves until she burst outside.
High above, the Lynx was already perched on a rooftop. His silhouette was sharp against the moonlit dome, book in one hand, pen scratching notes with the other as if she were some specimen to be catalogued.
“H-how did you get up there so fast?” Celeste called, voice small, halfway between awe and demand.
He turned, smiling faintly. The kind of smile that said he knew exactly how much she didn’t know. Without a word, he walked away, vanishing into the shadows.
Celeste’s heart tightened. “Please—come back! I need to know why this is happening to me!”
Only silence answered.
She looked down. In her hands, the book he had pressed on her earlier. A page was marked—her claws trembled as she flipped it open. The text was clinical, cold:
“Genetic Outcomes of Mythic-Pureblood Pairings. Hybrid Second Generation Breeding Viability: Speculative. Theories on Core Instability.”
She frowned. Why would he give me this? It feels… rude. And yet—relevant. Uncomfortably so.
