The storm came without warning.
Gray clouds coiled over the Black Bulls' base like a brooding beast. Thunder rolled low but never struck. Rain tapped lightly at the windows, more a whisper than a threat. It was the kind of weather that kept the squad indoors: restless, bored, half-wild with cabin fever.
And for Vanessa Enoteca, it was the kind of day when secrets crept from under the floorboards.
It started with little things.
Loyce, calm as ever, barely flinched when Luck exploded a couch. He hadn't been flinching at anything lately. Even for Loyce, it was strange.
Then there were the moments he whispered under his breath—not in irritation or exasperation, but like he was answering someone. Someone no one else could hear.
Vanessa started watching more closely.
Three days later, she found it: a stitched sigil inside Loyce's coat. Ancient. Twisting gold thread sewn into charcoal fabric. It pulsed once beneath her fingers and then lay still, like a living thing pretending to be dead.
She showed Gordon.
He didn't ask why. Just nodded once.
"It watches. It listens," he murmured. "But never speaks unless it wants to."
Vanessa shivered. Not from fear, but recognition. Something old was standing behind Loyce, wrapped in his shadow like a second spine.
Then came the spirals.
A parchment left on the war table. Etched symbols carved into wood grain, stair rails, book edges. Leading her through the base. From room to room. Each clue older, deeper, colder.
It all ended at a wall behind the showers. A dead end.
Or so it seemed.
A week passed. Then the mission came.
Vanessa, Finral, Charmy, and Loyce were assigned to escort a noble to a leyline site near the edge of the Forsaken Realm.
It should've been simple.
But Finral noticed it too. Loyce's footsteps warped the air. Space bent slightly around him. A leaf curved upward instead of falling down.
And when Finral tried to open a portal near him, it stuttered.
"Loyce," Finral had asked, "You feeling alright?"
"Fine," came the flat reply.
Too flat.
In the ruins, the distortions grew stronger. Reflections twisted. Spatial magic resisted. Vanessa felt something breathing beneath the stone.
That night, they said nothing to Loyce. But exchanged a glance.
Something wasn't right.
Something was wearing silence.
Back at the base, they compared notes. Then found it.
A hidden room.
It shouldn't have existed.
The sigils from the coat. The spirals from the parchment. A book resting on a pedestal.
They opened it. It opened them back.
No words. Only shapes. And a voice behind the mirror.
"You came far," it said. "You thought you were clever."
Then the room collapsed.
No traces left.
Only a feeling:
You were allowed to see this.
The day after, the Black Bulls base felt... too normal.
The couches were repaired. Charmy was cooking. Luck was sparring. Gordon was humming.
But Finral and Vanessa didn't relax.
Because Loyce had noticed.
He wasn't saying it aloud. But the way his eyes lingered a little longer. The way he caught Finral glancing. The way he sat stiller than usual, like waiting for a knife that might not come.
"You're watching me," he said at one point. Calm. Sharp.
Vanessa smirked. "We always watch you."
"Not like this."
He wasn't wrong.
Because he'd begun to suspect. Not the truth—but the suspicion itself.
And that was enough.
That night, Loyce flipped through mission reports. His reflection in the cabinet glass didn't blink.
He turned slowly toward the book on his shelf.
Still closed. Still untouched.
Still lying.
He didn't know what was wrong. But he knew something was.
Vanessa spent that evening trying to redraw the symbol she saw in the hidden room. Each time, the ink bled. The lines warped.
Finral's portals glitched for half-seconds near Loyce and only near Loyce.
They didn't tell him what they'd found. Couldn't. Wouldn't.
But Loyce wasn't stupid. He didn't confront. He observed.
Inside the shadows, Azazel watched them all.
Vanessa—the unraveling thread. Finral—the clever gateway. Loyce—the keystone.
They had found a door that only he could open. And he had let them knock.
Now they were circling.
Waiting.
And so was he.
But not forever.
In the end nothing was found. All that was heard was Loyce talking to himself and everything stopped immediately.