The third beacon tower is a massive monolith, two hundred meters in circumference like a short sprinting race, and slopes up as an inner ramp and large rooms off to the sides.

The cockatrice is a cross between a snake and a cockerel, with a long body covered in scales on the belly and feathers on the back, with the head of a rooster. Like many mythical creatures, it just keeps growing the longer it lives.

It’s currently sleeping under the floor, winding up the tower. The tower itself was sealed very long ago, back when the floating island wasn’t a school – in fact when the cockatrice went to sleep, it was a mobile fortress.

In Luca’s timeline, Haochen Xia woke the cockatrice as a distraction because it unfortunately counts as a bird and the high mage had power over it. The creature was confused, not understanding where it was or who all the humans were. The cockatrice attacked, as it was made and trained to do.

Luca had to partner up with another guardian, the three-legged crow, to stop the rampage – and wait a second, did the crow not like Luca because of Nicholas? Because that clears up a lot of the open hostility when Luca first met the guardian.

Unfortunately, by the time they stopped the great creature, the cockatrice had killed too many and was later put down by Principal Selwood herself – and the principal is a whole other issue Luca needs to deal with.

The rooms in the tower are empty, filled with only tapestries like the main citadel but these show battles, mass slaughter, the oceans rising and empires falling. It shows Outer Gods.

“Let’s pretend we don’t see the tapestries,” Nicholas mutters with a grimace because if you invite them in, they will come.

“She’s not so bad,” Luca says casually, pointing at some sort of demon thing in gold striking down a celestial.

They’ve already moved on, so they don’t see the demon caricature turn to watch them go.

They leave the room and walk in a pair spiralling up the ramp to the next one, Rafael and Stavros heading down, cleaning the place up while they also add it to the lens’ vision. They need to paste specialised octagrams everywhere to connect it in.

“You're really smart,” Luca muses, not too concerned about the absolute invasion of privacy the modified spyglass is because it’s helped him so much in the past. It’s a highly regulated artifact but Stavros spirited it away from his family’s trophy room and they modified it for Thoth purposes.

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Nicholas pauses, looking up from the lens. “Yes?”

Luca laughs. “I mean, whenever someone talks about you, it's never about how intelligent you are. I've heard of creative, troublemaker. Mariana’s the fierce protector, but she’s also always the smart one.”

“Because she is smart,” Nicholas points out, not understanding.

“I just find it strange no one mentioned it, your grades are basically all perfect.” Luca remembers from the school letter that came for Nicholas during the summer, incredible marks even across all the extension classes he’s taking. Nicholas’ parents didn’t mention it either.

“Of course, I'm the Ayad Heir.” Nicholas shrugs and draws an octagram on the wall before smoothing it over with a charm to hide it. A new room is added to the lens’ sight. He looks at Luca. “Not that your grandparents care all that much about tradition but it's expected from someone like me. People would pay more attention if I was failing.”

“Oh,” Luca says and looks away awkwardly as they start walking again. "Okay, so, I'm not the best at school but I'm first in the year at duelling-"

Nicholas laughs. “Luca! You don't need to. Really, it's not important as long as you get the grades to pick a career you like.” Nicholas shrugs. “Or just take over one of the many Ayad businesses. Or live off the family riches that you could swim in.”

Luca rocks back on his heels and smiles. “What are you thinking of doing?”

Nicholas shifts the lens’ sight a bit as they get too far up the ramp and out of view. “Um, yeah, basically take over the Ayad family. Have lots of cute babies.”

Luca waits but nothing else is said. “What do you want to do?”

Nicholas shrugs and scrawls some runes in the air, then flicks them up to stick to the ceiling. “I don’t know. There’s not much I…really do.”

“You make a lot of things, like that lens,” Luca encourages. “A spellcrafter like Jordan? Or a doctor? Every time I see you holding a book, it’s a medical text. You could even do Loops professionally at your level.”

“Those are hobbies though,” Nicholas dismisses.

Luca pauses. “Dad, is everything okay?”

Nicholas purses his lips and holds the lens up higher, pretending to focus very hard on it. “That’s just a bit of a difficult question, the future…wait, the future?”

Nicholas startles, making Luca startle and his focus drops into his hand on instinct.

“Baby!” Nicholas cries with wide eyes. “I completely forgot. I finally researched time travel -well Raffy did- and it all talks about corrections. Time magic has been studied extensively apparently, and there are time travellers in history books, and it all says time is linear. It corrects itself. I don’t know how you’ve made it this long without reality trying to rip you out but – but are you okay? Have I just not noticed it happening?”

“This isn’t the same timeline anymore,” Luca says, relaxing and tucking his wand back up his sleeve into the holster spell. “We’ve broken off.”

“You sound certain,” Nicholas muses.

“This isn’t about time anymore.” Luca hesitates, unsure how to word it nicer. “I’m dead. I never made it out, I died. Christos says he still feels the ley lines pulsing through his veins. This isn’t time.”

Nicholas stares. Luca offers up a wry smile.