Aelius spent around an hour in that cell. It was almost maddeningly quiet, at least for someone who wasn't used to it. Not a single rat scurried, no water dripped from overhead, not even the faint metallic sway of a chain stirred in the darkness. Just his own breathing, soft and controlled, thin enough that it barely fogged the air.
His eyes traced the bars. Thick. Reinforced. He didn't need to touch them to know biting through concrete would be easier. He shifted, folding his arms loosely, letting thoughts drift whether he wanted them to or not.
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. Not sleeping. Just letting everything settle. The air smelled dusty. Old. Undisturbed. Even the guards outside barely moved. He had caught maybe one footstep the entire hour. The rest was dead air.
But that was the thing that finally got him thinking in a way he didn't want to articulate. The stillness. The emptiness. It felt too careful. Like the dungeon wasn't built for prisoners in the normal sense. It was more like it was built for people the king didn't plan to keep for very long.
He forced a breath through his teeth.
One hour. Two. Maybe more. Time didn't pass normally in places like this. It stretched and folded and made minutes feel like they had weight. His mind wandered again when he didn't tell it to.
It would've been easy to say he didn't care if he made it out. Easy to pretend he didn't think about the fact that, somewhere in this world, the version of his guildmates that belonged to this world was being drained into a giant lacrima. Easy to pretend none of this mattered at all.
He stayed still for a long time, breathing slowly, heartbeat settling into a steady rhythm.
Maybe the truth was simple. Too simple.
He didn't want to die in a place this quiet. Not after everything. Not after surviving the worst places and the worst people and the worst pieces of himself. He didn't need glory or revenge or some grand magical awakening.
He just didn't want the world to decide for him how he went out. He had that much pride left, thin and worn as it was. If he was going to die, then he'd damn well try to make sure it happened on his terms, not as some footnote in a foreign king's schedule. At the very least, he wanted the last word. Some tiny fragment of control in a place built to strip it from him.
He was still chewing on that thought when the door slammed open like someone had kicked it instead of touched it. The sudden crash dragged him out of the swirl in his head. He opened his eyes slowly, not bothering to hide how unimpressed he was. Heavy boots crossed the stone, and a familiar figure stepped into the flickering light of the torches.
Knightwalker.
"Oh. It's you," Aelius muttered, tilting his head back against the wall. "Come to finally spear me? Get revenge for that little stunt earlier?" He kept his tone flat, but the boredom was a little exaggerated, if only because he knew it annoyed people like her.
Erza's glare could have lit the room on fire if Edolas hadn't been running out of magic. Her jaw clenched. Her grip shifted on the spear at her side, knuckles popping. She crouched down in front of him, her armour creaking softly in the quiet space.
"Maybe," she said. "Probably. But not yet. First, I'm here to interrogate you, fairy."
Aelius snorted, looking her dead in the eye. "Fairy," he repeated, amused. "Cute. And here I thought I'd earned 'target' or something more dramatic."
She didn't rise to the bait. Annoying. His Erza would've at least twitched.
"Well," he continued, shrugging as much as he could bring himself to care, "don't get your hopes up. I promise you, I'm dumber than you think when it comes to this place." The words came out dry. "And that's assuming you could break me. Which is… optimistic."
Knightwalker leaned in a fraction, her eyes sharp. "Everyone breaks," she said. "It's only a matter of the right pressure."
"Pressure?" Aelius let out a small laugh, head rolling to the side. "Lady, I've been crushed, stabbed, burned, dissolved, buried, resurrected against my will, and put back together wrong more times than I can count. You threatening pressure is like threatening a fish with water."
Her eyebrow twitched. Just barely. Enough that he caught it.
"Try again," he added quietly. "Actually, try to scare me. You might as well make it interesting."
She didn't like that. He could tell by how her hand tightened on the spear again, how her jaw clicked. The silence stretched out between them for several long seconds. Aelius let it sit. Let her stew in it.
Finally, she exhaled, slow and controlled, the kind of breath someone takes when they're trying very, very hard not to punch a hole straight through someone's skull. The torches flickered against the stone, throwing her shadow long across the floor.
"You know," she said, voice dropping into something low and dangerous, "the king wants answers about your guild. About your friends. About where they teleported off to. You can make this easier."
Aelius blinked up at her, unimpressed. "Why? So you can kill them?" He clicked his tongue. "Well, I don't know. And they aren't my friends. Also, you suck at interrogating, by the way."
He didn't even get the last word fully out before she moved.
Knightwalker grabbed him by the collar of his cloak and slammed him back against the wall hard enough that his skull cracked off the stone. The impact echoed in the cell like someone had dropped a boulder. Aelius let out a grunt, more out of reflex than pain. Still, it rattled him enough to blink spots from his vision.
Her face was inches from his, breath hot with anger.
"You think this is a game?" she hissed.
"I mean," he said, eyes half-lidded, "you're the one who came into my room like were having a tea party so yes."
She slammed him again, this time pinning his shoulders with her forearm across his chest. His ribs twinged from the fresh pain threading through his side wound, but he held her gaze steady.
"Your arrogance is astonishing," she said.
"No," Aelius said, voice steady despite her weight against him, "what's astonishing is how bad you are at this. You want answers? Threats don't work on me. Pain doesn't work on me. I've had gods do worse." He paused, then added with an almost bored drawl, "You should really diversify your methods."
Her jaw clenched so hard he half-expected her teeth to crack. She leaned more of her weight into her forearm, crushing his chest against the wall and forcing a sharp breath from him.
"You are not in control here," she snarled.
Aelius grinned. "I'm in a dungeon, stabbed half to hell, pinned to a wall, and you're still somehow more annoyed than I am. That's… honestly impressive."
She shifted her grip, fingers wrapping around his throat. Not tight enough to cut his air, but enough to send a clear message. The cold metal of her gauntlet pressed against his skin.
"Tell me where they went," she said.
"I don't know," Aelius answered simply.
She tightened her grip.
"Try again."
"Try growing a personality," he shot back, voice rasped but still infuriatingly casual. "I don't know where they went. I don't even know them. And even if I did know, what makes you think I'd tell you? You literally stabbed me earlier. That does not build trust."
Her eyes flashed. The spear in her other hand scraped against the floor as she shifted her stance. For a moment, she looked genuinely tempted to ram it through his leg just to see if he screamed.
Aelius didn't break eye contact once.
"You know what your problem is?" he asked, voice low, almost conversational despite the hand at his throat. "You think fear is the only tool you need. But you don't scare me. I've been scared before. You aren't it."
She released him abruptly, and he dropped forward, coughing once as he caught his breath. Before he could straighten, her boot hit his side hard, right at the wound. Pain flared white and hot through his ribs. But as always her ignored it.
Knightwalker stepped back just enough to glare down at him.
"I can make this slow," she said coldly. "Days. Weeks. Until you can't tell dream from reality. The king will allow it."
Aelius forced himself upright, leaning against the wall. His breathing was uneven, but his smile stayed intact, thin and mocking.
"And I can keep giving you nothing," he said. "Until you realise this is a waste of your time."
Her brows lowered. "You think I won't break you?"
Aelius met her stare with something steady and unshaken.
"You can try," he said. "But I promise you, Knightwalker… the day you break me is the day this world ends. You don't want to know what comes after that."
For the first time, she hesitated. Not long. Not obvious. But he saw it. The smallest stutter in her expression.
She turned away sharply, spear slamming butt-first against the floor.
"This conversation is not over," she said, voice tight.
"It never is," Aelius murmured.
She stormed toward the door. Before she stepped out, she paused.
"You're going to regret testing me."
Aelius smirked. "I've regretted far worse," he said. "You'll have to work for that spot."
The door slammed shut behind her, leaving the dungeon echoing and Aelius breathing casually, his will unshaken.
"Well, that was productive," Aelius muttered, rubbing at the fresh ache in his ribs where her boot had met bone. "And she still didn't remove the mask. Is common sense here reversed, too?"
He let his head fall back against the wall with a dull thud. The chains rattled softly. The torchlight flickered across the metal of his mask, painting the edges in orange. If she'd just torn it off, she'd have gotten at least one real reaction out of him. Maybe even a second. But no. She seemed more focused on hitting him than thinking.
He stretched his fingers as far as the restraints allowed, working out stiffness. The cell was dead silent again. That same suffocating quiet he wasn't used to, pressing in from all sides. It made every little sound too loud. His breath. The faint crackle of the torch. He glanced toward the door. Knightwalker was long gone. Her presence still hung in the air, sharp and bitter like steel cooling after a strike. She hit hard. She moved fast. But she didn't think two steps ahead. If she had, he'd be on the floor bleeding from more than a cracked rib and a few bruised organs.
He exhaled slowly, the moment settling.
Interrogation wasn't going to break him. Pressure wasn't either. The only thing that could ever do it was something he hadn't seen in this world yet. Something raw. Something real.
But these people? These soldiers? Knightwalker?
They all swung their weapons first and assumed that was enough.
He let his eyes close again, sinking into that thin, uneasy calm.
Maybe that was why this place was already dying. The magic. The logic. The people. Everything here felt brittle. Fragile. So quick to lash out, but never willing to look past the surface.
He tilted his head slightly, "Reverse common sense," he murmured. "Sounds about right."
The quiet swallowed the words whole.
The next time he heard anything, it wasn't a single set of boots. It was many. Heavy steps, armour scraping, the kind of movement that meant someone important wanted something done fast. Aelius opened his eyes just as the door slammed open again, the torches on the wall shuddering from the force.
Three guards rushed in first, spears levelled. Knightwalker followed behind them, face set in that permanent, irritated scowl she seemed to reserve specifically for him.
Before he could say anything, one of the guards jammed a rough cloth between his teeth, tying it tight behind his head. The sudden gag cut off his next sarcastic comment. The fabric tasted like old dust and metal. He made a muffled sound of protest more out of spite than discomfort.
The cloth annoyed him far more than the dozen injuries he was sporting. Not because it hurt, but because it meant he couldn't talk. Didn't matter that he'd already wasted her time for two whole rounds; he still had plenty of verbal jabs ready and waiting. Now they were stuck in his throat, useless.
Knightwalker watched him with a thin smirk that didn't reach her eyes.
Two guards unshackled him from the wall and hauled him upright before his legs could fully steady. They didn't give him a moment to find his footing. They just dragged him forward, boots scraping stone, chains rattling as they pulled him out of the cell and into the dim corridor outside.
Aelius twisted a little, trying to look back at Knightwalker, but one guard jerked his arms forward again. Knightwalker walked behind them, spear in hand, keeping pace with that same controlled stride she always had. She didn't look at him the way a captor looked at a prisoner.
She looked at him like something unfinished. Like she hadn't decided whether she wanted him dead, broken, or something else entirely.
He tried to grunt something through the gag. Something probably along the lines of "This is unnecessary", or "You're all idiots," or maybe just "Really?"
It came out muffled and annoyed.
One guard cuffed him in the back with the butt of a spear for making noise. Aelius rolled his eyes.
They pulled him down a long hallway lit by sparse torches and up a narrow stairwell. The air changed as they climbed, shifting from damp stone to something sharper, colder. He felt the breeze before he saw the doorway. They were taking him outside. Or somewhere more open.
Knightwalker finally stepped up beside him as they reached the landing. She looked him over once, like checking inventory.
"If you bite through the cloth," she said calmly, "I will remove your teeth."
Aelius let out a muffled scoff behind the gag. He wasn't going to bite it. He just hated it. Hated not being able to run his mouth, hated not being able to needle her, hated the silence she was forcing on him.
She seemed to pick up on his irritability anyway.
"Good," she said. "Quiet suits you."
He shot her a glare over his shoulder.
She shot one right back, colder than steel.
The guards hauled him forward again, through another iron door and into what looked like a long chamber lit by crystal lamps, packed with soldiers and equipment. A place for execution? Transport? Something official, judging by the sheer number of armed bodies lining the walls.
Aelius felt the pull in his gut, that faint warning instinct he always trusted. Whatever was happening, it wasn't going to be simple.
Knightwalker stepped ahead of him and gave a gesture to the guards.
"Put him on his knees."
They forced him down hard enough to jolt his wounds.
Knightwalker circled once, spear trailing along the floor, the metal tip making a scraping note that gritted between his teeth.
Aelius heard the footsteps before he saw anything. Heavy boots, a tighter rhythm behind them, then something softer, almost a glide. The guards hauled him forward a few steps, forcing him to his knees, and when they stopped, he felt the shift in the room. Knightwalker stood in front of him, weight balanced the way someone stood when they were deciding whether to hit or stab.
Her stare carried nothing. No gloating, no anger. Just a cold expectation.
Before she opened her mouth, another voice slid into the room.
"Miss Knightwalker," the new voice said, smooth in a way that made Aelius tense, "surely you do not need to use my creations in such a wretched manner."
The tone was calm, polite even, but there was a familiarity in it that scraped the back of his skull. He tried to turn his head, instinct pulling at him, but the guards pinned him still. He was forced to listen.
Knightwalker clicked her tongue.
"I do not have to," she said, "but he irritated me. And if he refuses to speak, he deserves to feel every ounce of pain I can give him. Your work is efficient. Consider this… practical testing."
There was a pause. A shift of cloth. Aelius felt the presence come closer, then circle, out of his line of sight. Something in his chest tightened, a slow, creeping dread that had nothing to do with torture.
When the new figure finally stepped into view, his breath hitched.
It was him.
Not exactly. But close enough to make his stomach drop.
The man wore a spotless white lab coat pulled tight over clothes far too clean for this dungeon. His posture was upright, confident. His expression was strangely gentle, a touch saddened even, but his eyes were what landed the hardest. Bright. Awake. Full of a life his own had not held for years.
Aelius hated it immediately.
The other him adjusted his glasses, the movement tidy and practised.
"Knightwalker," he said quietly, "I develop these concoctions to heal, not to torture. They are unstable. If used incorrectly, they can destroy tissue, shut down organs, or trigger catastrophic reactions. They are not tools for punishment."
Knightwalker scoffed and reached toward one of the vials on the tray beside her.
"That sounds exactly like tools for punishment."
The other Aelius stepped between her and the tray, jaw tightening just a fraction. "I refuse to let you use them this way."
Knightwalker leaned forward, her shadow swallowing the light between them. "You forget your place, chemist. These are royal property. And so is this prisoner."
Her hand moved to push him aside.
The other Aelius didn't move.
A flare of anger lit her eyes at the defiance, but he didn't back down, didn't flinch. He looked over at the chained Aelius, meeting his gaze directly. For a moment, there was no dungeon, no guards, no threat. Just two men staring at each other across a gulf neither wanted to acknowledge.
The living version of him continued in a quiet voice that carried more steel than any blade in the room.
"I designed these to save lives. I won't be part of taking one."
Knightwalker's grip tightened on her spear.
Aelius watched all of it in silence, jaw slack behind the cloth gag, mind racing through a dozen reactions he couldn't voice. Confusion, disgust, recognition, and something else he didn't want to name. The guards held him tight, but a cold current ran through him all the same.
Of all the things he had expected to see in this world, this was not one of them.
Another him.
One who still looked alive. One who cared about anything at all.
And somehow that was more unsettling than any torture Knightwalker could have planned.
Edolas Aelius stepped past Knightwalker before she could stop him. She bristled, one hand tightening around her spear, but she didn't strike. Maybe curiosity held her back. Maybe she wanted to see what he would do. Or maybe, for once, she wanted answers as much as violence.
Either way, he moved with the quiet certainty of someone who already knew he was going to do something she wouldn't like.
He knelt in front of the chained Aelius, lowering himself slowly, deliberately. Not afraid. Not cautious. Respectful, in a way that made Aelius's shoulders tense without him meaning to. When their eyes finally met, Edolas Aelius let out a breath, soft and almost pained.
"You have the same eyes as me," he said.
The words weren't an accusation. They weren't shocked. They were recognised. As if he was staring at a version of himself he never expected to encounter. As if something about Aelius's hollow stare made something inside him crack.
"I'm sorry," Edolas Aelius murmured. "Whatever brought you here… whatever you went through to become this… I'll do my best to make sure you're buried with your family."
Aelius froze.
Buried with his family.
He didn't flinch often, not anymore. Pain didn't do it. Threats didn't do it. Being torn apart, burned, crushed, ripped open, none of that pulled a reaction out of him the way that sentence did.
His family was gone. Buried was generous for what remained. And hearing another him say it so casually carved a quiet, bitter ache through him that felt old and familiar and unwelcome.
Edolas Aelius reached forward, hands steady. His fingers brushed the edge of the mask.
The guards stiffened. Knightwalker's grip shifted on her spear, not stopping him, but watching closely, eyes narrowing with a mix of warning and interest.
Aelius, bound and gagged, had no way to pull back, but every part of him tensed when those fingers hooked under the mask's edge. The motion was gentle, almost reverent, which somehow made it worse. He didn't want gentleness. Not from someone wearing his face.
Not from someone who still had a soul in his eyes.
Slowly, carefully, Edolas Aelius lifted the mask up.
Edolas Aelius stumbled back, his hand flying to his mouth as if to stop a scream that didn't come. His eyes were wide, almost uncomprehending, fixed on the figure before him. "He's… me?!" he gasped, voice cracking with disbelief. "Knightwalker, what… what is the meaning of this?"
The room froze. Guards shifted uneasily, swords clattering against stone floors, eyes darting between the two Aeliuses. Knightwalker's expression didn't change, but the faint twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed a hint of smugness.
Aelius, the one under the mask, stayed still, eyes calm behind the gag, letting the shock settle around them. No one had known it was him beneath the cloak and mask, and the reveal sent a ripple of stunned murmurs through the assembled group.
"You… you're me," Edolas Aelius whispered again, almost to himself, stepping closer as if proximity could make the truth less impossible. His hands shook slightly as he extended one, hovering over his copies face, unsure if touching it would shatter the reality in front of him.
Knightwalker's spear shifted in her grip, the air tense with anticipation, but she didn't strike. Her eyes scanned the room, calculating, waiting to see what would happen next. The Edolas Aelius' gaze was fixed entirely on the masked figure, a mixture of awe, fear, and disbelief swirling in his bright, alive eyes. "How… how can this be? You're… Earthlands Aelius…"
A silence fell over the cell. Every guard, every onlooker, felt it, the impossible truth hanging heavy between the two men who shared the same face, the same posture, the same hard, measured way of carrying themselves.
The masked Aelius let the moment stretch, unflinching, letting the chaos of their reactions swirl around him. He didn't speak. Words weren't needed. The shock, the fear, the sudden recognition in Edolas Aelius' eyes was answer enough.
Knightwalker finally broke the silence, her voice cutting through the tension like steel. "Interesting," she murmured, tilting her head slightly, the faintest smirk forming. "So this is… the one hiding behind the mask all this time."
Edolas Aelius' chest heaved, breaths coming fast, shallow. "He… he doesn't know anything," he said finally, his voice shaking with the weight of it all. "He's Earthlands Aelius. He's… not like us. He, he has no idea what's happening here."
The revelation sent a new wave of tension through the room. Guards straightened, eyes wide, unsure how to proceed. Knightwalker's smirk deepened, the sharp glint of her spear reflecting the flickering torchlight.
Finally, Edolas Aelius sank to one knee, head bowed slightly as he tried to process the impossibility before him. "I… I don't even know what to do," he admitted, voice low. "This… this changes everything."
"Does it? If he's Earthlands you then he was supposed to be in the lacrima, so his death was guaranteed already. This just means we don't have to worry about getting false info anymore," Erza said with a scoff, twirling her spear like she was tempted to stab him already.
Edolas Aelius' eyes widened slightly, the words hitting him with a cold clarity. He knew exactly what she meant; he knew the fate that awaited his Earthlands counterpart, the trap that had been set, the guarantee of death. The logic was brutal, unyielding. Yet even as the knowledge settled in, a fire flared in his chest, one he refused to extinguish.
"No," he said finally, voice low but sharp, cutting through the cold, calculated calm that Ezra tried to impose. "You don't get to decide that. You don't get to write the terms of his death or mine. That's… that's not how this works." His hands clenched at his sides, knuckles white, as he forced himself to stay steady, to not let fear or disbelief give way to the panic clawing at his gut.
Ezra's eyes flicked to him, narrowing slightly, a smirk threatening at the corner of her lips. "Oh, really? And what can you do about it? He's supposed to be gone already. It's inevitable, Aelius. You can try to resist, but it changes nothing. His time was never yours to protect."
"I don't care what's inevitable," Edolas Aelius snapped, voice rising, fierce and defiant, shaking the very air in the cell. "I won't allow it. I won't stand by while someone else decides my terms, my life, or his. If that's your plan, then you've miscalculated everything. You're going to learn just how wrong you are."
The room shifted, the guards stiffening, sensing the raw intensity radiating off him. His words weren't just defiance; they were a promise, a warning. Even without the magic that bound his Earthlands self, even without any guarantee of survival, he wouldn't allow this to happen.
Ezra tilted her head, curiosity mingling with irritation in her gaze. "You really think you can change what was written for him? That you have the power to interfere with fate?"
Edolas Aelius' jaw tightened, a muscle in his cheek twitching as he shot a look between Erza's spear and the gagged Earthland Aelius still being forced to his knees. His voice cracked out rough, cutting straight through the stale air.
"You expect me to just let you kill him. Me." He jabbed a finger toward the other version of himself, eyes sharp and burning. "You think I'm just going to stand here and let you snuff him out like he's some disposable mistake?"
Knightwalker didn't even flinch. Her stance was relaxed, almost bored, but her eyes stayed cold and sharp. "Yes," she said simply. "My copy is sitting in a lacrima that keeps Edolas alive. This one…" she nodded toward Earthland Aelius like he was an insect caught under glass "is clearly here to free his friends. That makes him a threat."
She took a step closer, planting the butt of her spear on the stone floor. "It's our world or his. And unlike your research chambers or your little pet projects, this is war. You may be the royal scientist, but this is a matter you have no sway in."
Edolas Aelius barked out a humourless laugh, disbelief twisting into something hotter, darker. "No sway. You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to just nod along while you decide my life's worth based on what's convenient for you." He shook his head, breathing hard. "You don't get to assign value to my existence or his just because it fits your narrative."
Knightwalker arched a brow, unimpressed. "Don't make this personal. It isn't."
"It is nothing but personal," he snapped. "That is me in your custody. Not some soldier you can write off. Not some nameless Earthlander you can dump into a lacrima. Me." He thumped his fist against his own chest. "And I'm not giving you the chance to butcher him for your precious balance."
Her expression didn't shift, but the room tightened. The guards holding Aelius exchanged tense glances, unsure if they should restrain Edolas Aelius or brace for him to lunge.
Knightwalker's voice dropped into a cold warning. "Your feelings don't matter here. Survival does. If you interfere, you undermine the entire kingdom. You know that better than anyone."
Edolas Aelius stepped forward until their faces were nearly level, his voice dropping low and steady. "I know exactly what survival costs in this kingdom. I've been the one calculating the price for years. But don't fool yourself." His eyes narrowed. "I'm not about to let you cut down the only other version of me in existence just because it's convenient."
He jerked his chin toward the bound Aelius. "You touch him, you pick this fight with me. And I promise you, Knightwalker, you don't want that fight."
Her grip tightened on the spear, barely a fraction, but enough to betray the smallest flicker of real tension.
"Then you'd better decide fast," she said quietly. "Because the king won't hesitate. And neither will I."
Edolas Aelius stared her down, breath steady, unblinking. The tension between the two of them sat heavy enough to crack
But the next voice didn't come from either of them.
"She's got a point," Earthland Aelius said, words muffled at first before he spat the last scraps of the cloth onto the floor. He had finally chewed straight through it. "I am here to free my… guild." He paused, jaw shifting like the word tasted wrong. "Though honestly I'm more pissed about the fact you took my house."
Edolas Aelius flinched at the sound of his own voice coming out of a different throat. Knightwalker didn't even look at him. Her attention locked straight onto the unmasked intruder like she had been waiting for this moment.
Earthland Aelius rolled his shoulders as much as the guards allowed, jaw tight but eyes steady. He looked exhausted and annoyed, not defeated. The chains didn't matter to him. The hands on his arms didn't matter either. He acted like he'd been in worse restraints than this, and maybe he had.
Knightwalker stepped in close enough that her armour brushed his knee. "So you admit it," she said. Her tone wasn't triumphant, just cold. "You came here to cause trouble."
He lifted his chin a fraction. "Trouble implies I care about any of you. I just want to get my people out." He let the next breath out through his nose. "And my house."
One of the guards tightened their grip. Knightwalker didn't tell them to stop.
Edolas Aelius rose slowly from his knee. His gaze flicked between them, unsettled in a way he couldn't hide. "You're confirming you crossed worlds," he said carefully. "You did that on purpose."
Earthland Aelius gave him a look. "If I could do it on purpose, do you think I'd let myself get caught by a bunch of armoured cosplay rejects?"
Knightwalker slammed the butt of her spear into the floor. The sound echoed hard off the stone, shutting both of them up. Her jaw flexed once. "Your attitude is not helping your case."
"Wasn't trying to help it."
She leaned forward, bringing her face closer to his. Not questioning. Not threatening. Just staring, like she was piecing together a puzzle that annoyed her by existing.
She stepped closer, close enough that he had to tilt his head back a bit to keep her in view. Her stare dragged over him, not admiring a single thing, just noting details the way a hunter notes weak points.
"You're a better fighter than I ever thought that scientist could be," she said. "Is it because your eyes are dead?"
Earthland Aelius let out a breath through his nose, like he'd heard that before. "You try watching your life get torn apart piece by piece and see how bright your eyes stay."
Knightwalker didn't flinch. She didn't feel sympathy. She wasn't wired for it. But something in his tone registered enough that she didn't mock him for it either.
"They're not dead," Edolas Aelius said sharply from behind her. "They're tired. That's not the same."
Knightwalker gave him the shortest glance, then dismissed it and refocused on the one still held in chains. "Tired or dead doesn't matter. It means you won't hesitate." Her fingers brushed the haft of her spear. "It means killing you won't be simple."
He looked her straight in the eye, unblinking. "You're welcome."
She ignored the jab. "Tell me how you got here."
"Already told you," he said. "I'm not smart enough to answer that."
Knightwalker's gaze sharpened, something colder settling in her posture. She reached out, grabbed him by the jaw, and forced his head up so he couldn't look away.
"You expect me to believe you did all of this by accident."
He didn't fight the grip. Didn't pull back. He just met her stare with the same flat, drained steadiness he had from the moment the mask came off. "Accident or not, I'm still here."
Her hand tightened.
His expression didn't change.
And for the first time since they dragged him in, Knightwalker's eyes flickered with something almost like frustration. Like she was starting to realise the problem wasn't that he wouldn't talk.
The problem was that nothing she did seemed to get a rise out of him.