When Arsh opened his eyes again, what he saw were the varnished railings of the library, shining in the moonlight. He was lying on something soft. When he tried to get up, he realized it was Bera beneath him. Bera gave a little growl to signal Arsh to get off him. Both of them stood up and looked around.
They had returned to the exhibition hall. Shards of glass were scattered everywhere. The glass casing surrounding Limos's chest had shattered, and dozens of skeletons were piled up around it.
'The illusion is broken; everything has returned to where it belongs,' Arsh thought. Now, it was finally time to leave.
"I'll be right back," Arsh said to Bera. Taking Limos's chest in his arms, he began staggering toward the main hall. The others were probably elsewhere in the library. Although he wanted to check where they were, he couldn't find the strength within himself.
He planned to go to the consultation desk and call Professor Reiner using the phone there. But by now, he must have already realized that they were missing. The moon showed that it was already past midnight.
As he staggered closer to the hall, he heard voices. He immediately recognized one of them; it was Professor Reiner's voice. When he came to the hall, he saw Professor Reiner along with a few other people he did not recognize.
When Professor Reiner saw him, he rushed forward.
"Arsh! What happened to you? Are you okay? Where are the others?"
"Too many questions,' Arsh thought with a smile.
Just as the professor was about to reach him, Arsh remembered an important detail.
"I think… I think Bera needs a few pieces of clothing."
"What? What does that mean?" Reiner asked, but at that moment, Arsh's body gave in, collapsing to the ground from exhaustion, pain, and relief all at once.
…
"You are very weak… vulnerable like a newborn baby"
Arsh suddenly woke up from a nightmare. These nightmares had stopped with Professor Reiner's treatment after the day he came here, but now, after a week, they had returned. This time, he remembered hearing the voice of a young girl in the dream, but he wasn't sure what she had said.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in his bed. As he sat up, he realized that the pain in his leg, back, and head was completely gone. The clothes he was wearing were clean. When he uncovered his leg and looked, he saw nothing but a slight redness where the wound should have been. He tried to remember what had happened after seeing Professor Reiner, but nothing came to mind.
"I must have fainted," he thought.
At that moment, he heard a knock on the door.
"You can come in."
It was Walter.
"Are you awake? I came to check on you. Your leg looked pretty bad."
"My leg is fine. It's like nothing ever happened."
"Professor Reiner worked hard on it. After healing Bera, he went to rest."
"How are the others?"
"Bera is still sleeping. He used a lot of strength. Mes is with him now. Mr. Herman went home to take care of Mary. I rested a bit too—I wasn't injured like you."
Despite saying this, it was clear how exhausted he was from his dull, drained eyes.
"What happened to Limos's chest?"
"Don't worry, they'll take care of it. There won't be any more problems after this… Now get some more rest, it's almost dawn. I'll go tell Mes to get some rest too. We'll discuss everything in detail in the morning." Walter said. Then, without saying anything more, he left the room.
Arsh lay back down on the bed. Even though his injuries had healed, he still felt exhausted. He also hadn't eaten anything except the sandwich he'd had in the morning, and his stomach ached with hunger. Still, he couldn't find the strength to go down to the kitchen. Despite the hunger, before long he fall back asleep.
…
He only managed to wake up around noon the next day. When he went to the bathroom and looked at himself, he realized that although his clothes had been changed, there were still bloodstains on his face and in his hair. He looked terrible. He took a shower and tried to pull himself together.
As he headed to the kitchen to satisfy the hunger that had been gnawing at his stomach since the night before, Bera came out of his room as well.
"How are you?" he asked.
"I'm fine. And you?"
"I'm fine too."
Such a brief exchange was enough for both of them. When Bera followed him to the kitchen, Madam Hilda and Eleni filled the table in front of them with various dishes. They ate quietly together.
"Thank you… you saved me twice yesterday."
"Let's call it even… you were the one who got us out of there yesterday."
After they finished eating, Madam Hilda told them to go down to the library, where Professor Reiner and the others were already waiting.
"If possible, I want to stay away from the library for a while," Arsh thought. From the uneasy expression on his face, he was sure that Bera was thinking the same.
"Maybe it would be better if we hold the meetings somewhere else for a while," Bera said after they entered the library.
"Ah… I didn't think of that. Should we change the place?" Reiner said. Mes and Walter were there with him.
"No, it's okay."
"Arsh, we were talking about what happened yesterday. From what I've heard, you were very helpful. But since you had just arrived here and had only recently acquired your siuni, I wouldn't have wanted to put you in such danger. And Mes, you as well. I misjudged the situation and put both of you in serious danger at the beginning. That was my mistake."
"It is okay. For me, it was also an experience to understand what you're dealing with," Arsh said.
"A terrible experience," he added silently to himself.
"He is not sincere," Bera added without lifting his eyes from the table.
After the events of the previous day, Arsh had learned a new things about Bera's power.
It seemed that he possessed two siunis: one was the ability to transform into a panther, and the other was reading emotions. Having someone see his emotions so rawly was unsettling. This meant Bera had been aware of everything he had felt since the moment they first met. And also it was clear that Bera did not trust him. That was normal; he couldn't really blame him for that. But Arsh wasn't sure whether Bera had noticed the small lies he had told the day before. Still, for now, he would continue as he was.
"That's perfectly normal," Professor Reiner said with a smile.
"So what happened to the student? Mary Lowe?" Arsh asked, trying to change the subject.
"Don't worry. There's someone working on this at the police department together with Herman. She won't remember anything about what happened. Instead, a scenario prepared by the police will be explained to her family."
Arsh was not sure how many people made up this organization called the FFSD, who they were, or how far their power extended. Still, it was impressive that they were able to gather people with such siunis.
When he sat down at the table, Arsh read the titles of the books in front of Mes — "Yulos Legends," "Ancient Creatures," "Yulos Culture"… It looked as if whatever he was searching for, he hadn't found it yet in those books. Professor Reiner, on the other hand, was holding a different book in front of him. When Arsh glanced sideways, he saw that the drawings in the book belonged to different siunis. When Professor Reiner noticed his gaze, he began to speak.
"These are siunis applied to objects. Actually, we call them 'simtu.' They are more common than siunis. In different cultures, people use them according to their beliefs. I'm sure there are some in Kurshan as well. But of course, most of them are either ineffective or have lost their essence. As for the one you used yesterday, would you redraw it if I asked you to? Walter mentioned how strong its effect was."
"Of course," Arsh said, pulling a piece of paper toward him. Now knowing that what he had used was called a simtu rather than a siuni, he began to draw the shapes from memory.
"Will said that symbols consisting of concentric circles usually have a protective effect. These symbols were in the burial chamber I mentioned," he said, explaining as he drew.
Although Arsh was not sure how convincing he would be if Reiner asked how he knew all of this, he decided to attribute everything to Will. At this point, saying that he had seen the symbols in the bruil chamber and that Will had told him about them seemed like a sufficient answer. He had simply applied something he had only learned in theory, and it had worked. But the question he expected never came.
When Arsh finished drawing the symbols and handed over the paper, he heard only a thank you.
"Since the topic came up, Bera, Professor Millway, and Will Jones have spent the past week researching this. Tell us what you found, Bera."
"Finding information on the name Millway wasn't very difficult. He works in the archaeology department at a university. He has many publications and has been involved in numerous excavations in Kurshan. His work is supported by various funds; in fact, there is no one else whose funding is approved this frequently. For now, he was in Tirsit and left for Hals the other day. I haven't yet been able to find out what project they are carrying out there or who is behind it."
"As for Will Jones, his health hasn't been very good since returning from Kurshan. He is still being treated in the hospital. The organization mentioned in his notebook is likely connected to Millway, but we still don't know who else is involved. As for the guards accompanying Professor Millway, we don't have any information yet. We'll find them together. You remember their faces, right?"
"I remember," Arsh said.
There was no way he could forget those faces. When he thought about seeing them again, he felt a strange emotion rising in his chest. It was as if a fire that was already burning inside him was now being fueled by these thoughts.
"You've already learned that I can read emotions, Arsh. I know what you're feeling right now. And I understand the reason. But you won't approach them without me knowing," Bera said.
After a moment of silence, Professor Reiner ended the conversation.
"Rest for a few days and regain your strength. Then, together with Bera, find those men. Arsh, don't let them see your face and keep yourself under control. We're telling you this to prevent you from making a move on your own" he said.