Mergifari. Strange place. Unknown time. No entrance.

Inside an open room, neither big nor small, devoid of furnishings or decorations, with white marble pillars on the corners, and transparent windows covering the walls, an altar sat in the center.

And, on top of the altar, a white clothed figure laid.

Human in its superficial appearance, long black hair fell down its back and down the altar, reaching the edges of the room.

On its hands, over the bandages-like cloths that covered them, a bowl rested, the figure mixing the contents inside with a wooden pestle.

Once it was apparently satisfied with the results, it put the bowl down, sighing.

“The thread is closing in, and the time for our meeting is soon.” Speaking to no one in particular, the figure talked to the air.

Even when denied with the possession of eyes that could see the present, its actions showed a vision of the future.

Tilting its head, it listened to the room, empty asides from it. “No, your presence is not needed.”

A nod, slow. “That thread of fate remains unchanged, I assure you.”

Once again tilting its head, just, in the other way, it extended its hands, fully covered by a myriad of long cloth strings, which fell down the altar in an uncanny order, as if they were part of its body.

“Your fate? It remains unchanged.”

Falling silent for several seconds, the figure lifted the bowl, before stopping again, looking up, moving its gaze to the window. “Ah, I forgot.”

“I’m tired of the birds singing in the morning, I want to hear the sea waves at dawn.”

Without doing anything, the world around it changed. Like a wet painting being caressed, the trees, birds and the sky became blurry, their forms mixing together in a colorful, world covering stain.

As fast as it happened, new, colorful dots grew on the void, becoming sand, a shore, and the sea. Immovable at first, the waves waited for the whole world to be painted before starting to go towards the shore.

The wind breezee appeared, moving the tropical trees and weakly scattering the sand.

None of that wind reached the figure, its clothes only moving together with its arms, as it went back to mixing the green paste inside the bowl.

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Once it deemed the mixture merged enough, it tossed the bowl to the marble floor in front of it. Shattering, the green substance inside scattered over the room.

The figure looked at the stains expressionless, its empty eyes seeing the meaning behind the blemish.

“Their interference is getting stronger… I see less and less.” Sighing again, it ignored the sullied room, even when the dirt disappeared on its own.

“Ah, I forgot.” It added, after some minutes of silence. “Bring me some cashews next time. I am craving them.”

Closing its eyes, the figure went back to waiting for the predestined meeting.

…

Opening her eyes, Velvet found herself still on the island, just that now some sun rays were starting to show themselves.

Slowly, she got up, dusting her skirt. The night humidity, the flying dust and her own half-dried blood made the act useless, the cloth still dirty and sticky.

Her wounds had been stitched by Hyde, so that was nice.

Frenese’s Book was still laying on the ground, so Velvet went towards it, planning to store it again.

Frenese could've helped her to deal with the third Fear, the one who attacked her while asleep, but honestly, there was no need to.

Once the Fear entered her dream, it got swarmed by the chains almost instantly, which did more than quick work of it.

That confirmed one of her guesses. There was a way of entering the dream’s location safely, like how she and Lothigern entered, and how she ‘dragged’ entities inside, like Frenese, with her chains, but, it existed also a way of setting some defense trigger on entry, like the Fear did, getting demolished.

Well, it was a place made by the Deriliam, and she had seen a small part of the formation, so it made sense that anything less than a Deriliam got squished like a bug if it tried to force entry.

That meant that Velvet was basically stuck in the border of a precipice, and, if the dream somewhat rejected her, things would get ugly way too fast.

So, to cut it short, things she didn't have the power to change nor oppose, and, as such, no reason to be worried about. Instead, she could worry about other things, like going back to the Mergifari after cleaning the altar, in case someone found the island and connected the dots.

She walked slowly, passing the mop artifact she had obtained from Lox, which erased remains of magic, for the places that she used to set traps and stuff, making them unable to be traced back to her.

Her new abilities were supposed to be kept a secret, and only be used during the incursion at the Traversa’s pocket dimension, so leaving any clues as to guess who did the ritual was counterproductive.

Even if the island was like super secret and stuff, and probably a sinking hazard, she’d rather not leave it up to luck.

If she’d had the firepower necessary, she would even try to sink it herself, just to get rid of any shortcuts. But, since she hadn’t, mopping it was.

…

The morning rays were already a significant part of the sky when she reached the altar, which was now a mass of black, melted candle wax.

As she cleaned it, Velvet tried her new abilities.

Unlike enchantresses Esca’s, which grew with them, sorcerers' magic depended on the god who bestowed it.

The god picked, delivered and retracted the blessings as they saw fit. So, even if being a sorcerer was better than an enchantress at the start, as time went on, enchantresses became a more solid choice, unless the sorcerer was a god’s favorite, or something close.

Velvet’s current boons were:

A concealing shadow. Like the concealing spell that Udulluay used, just smaller, and it only affected her. Even so, it hid her identity and made her untraceable, which was what she wanted the most.

That was the biggest benefit of asking a god for blessings. Their boons were usually subjected to the mage’s current needs, unlike an Esca, who started with low level magic, and the magic was based on their Paradigm, which represented the mage’s deepest desires, not their actual needs.

The second one was the shadow chains she used against Siberina. Those ones weren’t as strong as the chains holding shut Frenese’s Book, but they used some of her own blood, corrupting it and converting it into chains.

She made sure that the chains weren’t similar to the ones in the chaining charm, so they looked thicker, and had different rings. No knowledge mage should realize that they had the same source.

The third boon was light deprivation. It made everything in her surroundings get shrouded in darkness, even if light or fire spells were used. Of course, depending on the strength of her enemies, the time it lasted could be longer or shorter.

Those were the three boons she got. One for each Fear defeated, it seemed. She wasn’t going to complain, they worked great for what she needed to do.

Which was in two days. Today, she had to go back with Tristan, to decide on the plan of action.

Having cleared the altar, Velvet started once again setting another, this time, for a fairy to take her back.