Mask of Many Faces

The Academy didn't react to the glyph on Lyle's palm.

Not outwardly.

No flashing alarms. No instructors dragging him from class. No teams assigned to "evaluate his condition."

But something had changed.

He noticed it the moment he stepped into the Hall of Mirrors for that morning's theory rotation. Normally a dry lesson about reflected mana currents and illusion glyphs—today's focus was on mana misdirection.

And the instructor?

Not the usual pale, sleepy thread-caster.

Today, it was Headmaster Orien himself.

---

The room held no mirrors now. Only glyphs, scribed in mirrored ink across invisible walls.

"Today," Orien said, "we study perception. And how to lie with it."

His eyes scanned the students, but lingered—just for a heartbeat—on Lyle.

"You may think of lies as something verbal. Obvious. Human. But the greatest lies in history were not spoken. They were worn."

He tapped a rune that shimmered, then vanished.

"Mimic glyphs. Adaptive resonance loops. Shadow-infused memory breaks. All masks. All illusions. And all..." he paused, "...learned."

Lyle didn't speak. But the Bone Claw twitched beneath his skin.

> "He's testing you."

> "He wants to see if I flinch," Lyle thought.

> "Then don't."

---

When class ended, Orien stopped Lyle at the door.

"Walk with me," he said.

No command. Just quiet authority.

They walked through the silent courtyard, past students sketching arrays in the dirt and others in combat glyph circles.

Only when they reached the garden that overlooked the north cliff did Orien speak again.

"I know about your dream glyph."

Lyle raised a brow. "You mean the one no one saw me manifest?"

Orien almost smiled.

"You're not the first to be marked by something older than the Codex. But you are the first to hide it this well."

Lyle said nothing.

Orien continued.

"There are other eyes watching you now. Eyes outside this Academy. And some of them will not wait for you to understand what you are."

Lyle turned. "Are you threatening me?"

"No," Orien said calmly. "I'm warning you. If you want to survive what's coming, you'll need more than strength or clever tricks."

He placed a small, cold object in Lyle's hand.

A ring.

Black. Metallic. Engraved with two intersecting crescent moons.

Lyle's breath caught.

It pulsed with familiar shadow energy.

> "Quinn's mark," the Bone Claw whispered.

> "Dimensional artifact. Temporal anchor. He made this."

Lyle looked up.

"Where did you get this?"

Orien's eyes darkened. "It appeared in my quarters two days ago. No note. No trace signature. Just one line scratched into my desk."

Lyle swallowed. "What did it say?"

Orien stepped back. "'Let the heir find his own gate.'"

He walked away, his cloak flaring behind him.

---

Lyle held the ring for hours before daring to slip it on.

The moment he did—

The world shifted.

Not in space.

In feeling.

Like something inside him aligned with something beyond him.

A codex notification blinked once.

> [Dimensional Ring: Quinn-Class]

Artifact identified. Origin: Vampire Colony, Outer Fringe.

Access Conditions: Monthly Activation. Duration: 7 Days.

Time Sync: Temporal anchor set. No time passage in home dimension.

[Next Window: 4 Days, 3 Hours, 19 Minutes]

Lyle stared.

Quinn's world.

Accessible.

Soon.

---

That night, the dream returned.

But it wasn't the battlefield.

It was… a gate.

Circular. Black as void. Etched with sigils of blood and time. Four shadows stood around it—one of them limping, one laughing, one silent, and the last… watching him.

The Bone Claw stood beside him now, in full form. No longer just part of him.

> "They remember me," it whispered.

> "They remember you."

Lyle stepped forward in the dream, toward the gate.

The shadows didn't block him.

They bowed.

---

He woke with sweat slick on his back, shirt clinging to his skin.

The ring on his finger glowed faintly.

And behind his bed curtain, he felt a presence.

He turned—

But no one was there.

At least, not visibly.

Far outside his dorm window, perched on the roof like a watchful gargoyle…

Muka exhaled softly.

Her tail twitched once.

Then she disappeared into the darkness again.

Watching. Waiting.

Protecting the boy who no longer knew just how many shadows he walked beside.