The world in front of me slipped into darkness.
The magic circle started to glow a deep crimson, tracing its delicate gossamer of runes and enchantments outwards from the center, as if the blood were being drawn out from my veins. In a sense, that was not too far departed from the sensation that I felt – it felt like every fiber of my being was being pulled out, string by string, until I was left as nothing but an empty husk. It was uncomfortable, and with each passing second my numbing limbs clamored for me to fall from the chair and break the spell. But something in my mind persuaded me that any discomfort, any sacrifice, was worth the price of the truth, and so I persevered.
At this point, I had seen reality as I knew it melt into nothing far more times than I could care to count. Every time I teleported, every time my mind or my magic was toyed with, pulled here and there by the deliberations of beings far greater and far more powerful than I could ever imagine… my mortal human frame could only take so much punishment. Yet as much as it pained me to say it, I had already become used to feeling the ground fall from beneath my feet.
Even the fires of hell seem tolerable if you are doomed to burn in them for long enough. After all, humans are nothing if not adaptable creatures.
Satori and Suwako had departed from the room, leaving me to my own devices. There were no windows, so I could not see what was going on outside. All I could do was sit, hands clasped, trying my best to keep my head screwed on as best as possible as my limbs grew number and number.
Without warning, I suddenly felt a cold sensation seep into my flesh. It started from my fingers, but worked its way deep into my skin, wrapping itself around my bones. It was as if my blood were being ossified, turned into icy stone as it struggled to maintain its flow through what few open vessels remained. A lump grew in my throat, but I could not scream. My joints grew rigid; my essence grew frigid.
This, I thought, was what it felt like to die.
Then, just as the frost was threatening to creep into my throat, the sensation stopped.
My eyes darted open.
I was lying in a bed. A lantern flickered faintly, casting its dim yellow glow against the ceiling. A small spider web was stretched across a corner, at the intersection of the ceiling and two adjacent walls. The air was slightly humid, but not uncomfortably so. A faint, damp smell filled the room, the smell of old oak and weather-worn sheets of paper.
I sat up. I was no longer at the room I had been in at the Furnace. Yet it did not feel as if I was in completely unfamiliar territory. Something about this place felt oddly nostalgic, oddly sentimental-
"I see you have woken up."
A desk was parked against the wall opposite the bed upon which I lay. In front of that table sat a purple-robed figure, whose gentle but clearly concerned expression, cast against the nascent light of the candle, caused my eyes to widen.
"P… Patchouli Knowledge?"
"Yes?" She tilted her head and stared at me quizzically. "That is my name."
"Where am I?" I asked.
"The Mansion Library, of course. Do not tell me you have already forgotten? Maybe that tome was a little too much for you to start off with. I would suggest taking some more time to rest if you are still unwell."
"The tome?"
"Yes, the tome. A book designed to bring your magical potential to bear. You were a non-magical being just moments ago, after all."
I recalled having a similar conversation with the maiden before me a month and a half ago, though given what had transpired between now and then – if "now" could even be quantified given my current predicament – it felt more like at least a year's worth of time. Yet I had somehow returned to this moment, a moment I had almost forgotten in all the tumult of my more immediate experiences. That was, of course, the day my magic had apparently been unlocked.
Or, if I were to trust in what I had learned so far, the day my memories had been taken from me.
My mind raced as I struggled to come up with a question that might help me glean the truth behind what had been done to me. Show too much foresight, and Patchouli might become wary of my motivations. Show too little, and I would leave here without learning anything new. I decided to start off with the most obvious question that came to mind.
"So, are you saying that I can use magic now?" I asked.
"That depends on you." Patchouli rose from her seat and poured out a cup of warm water, handing it to me. I nodded in thanks, and she sat at the foot of the bed, watching me closely as I sipped from the cup.
"How so?"
"Technically, all beings have the potential to use magic. Magic is energy, and it is brought forth by the soul through willpower. Normally, however, willpower alone is not sufficient to manifest magical energy, especially in an incipient form like your own. It must be married with belief, the belief that something fantastical and impossible will happen, even if your rational, logical mind tries to tell you otherwise. In other words, faith. Belief in the unbelievable."
I recalled Toyosatomimi no Miko saying something similar when we had first met in person at the Moriya Shrine. Belief in the divine, in the seraphic qualities of an icon or prophet, was one way in which the mind might bypass incongruent irrationality.
"And what exactly would I be able to do with magic?"
"Again, that depends on the person. Magic is in many ways a reflection of your personality, just as much as it is a reflection of your determination. A hasty, easygoing person might be most adept at shallow, rapid types of magic; a more introspective and introverted figure might have a greater affinity for more complex, more intricate spells."
"Which of those would I be?"
"That is for you to discover. You have not been here for long, and I am afraid I cannot tell you what your personality is if you do not know it yourself."
"Then I suppose I will have to go and do some exploring." I placed my feet on the floor and nursed my slightly aching head – or at least, tried to put on as best of an impression of a headache as I could. "Where would you suggest I go first, if I were to look for clues about my true self?"
"Perhaps near the Misty Lake, where you were first found. Or the Human Village. There are many others there like yourself, people who have crossed the Barrier inadvertently, hoping and waiting for a return to the outside world. That invariably never happens, however. You would do well enough to eke out a life here, in one form or another."
I saw an opening in Patchouli's words and latched onto it. "Speaking of Misty Lake… What happened after I was brought here from the Lake? I do not seem to remember much."
"One of the Mansion's servants found you, so they took care of you whilst you were unconscious."
"The maid?"
"Quite so." Patchouli smiled. "She was kind enough to watch over you while you slept. But she had some other matters to attend to, so I was tasked with ensuring that you rediscovered your will to live, so you might leave here with at least a fighting chance."
"I will always be grateful to you for that," I replied. "Except…"
"Hm?"
"If the maid that attended to me was gone by the time I had awoken, then surely I would not have remembered who she was, let alone that she was a maid at all. Why did you not question how I recalled who it was that took care of me?"
The smile on Patchouli's face froze.
"How… do you remember her?"
"I have a likelier hypothesis." A spike of fear shot into my heart, but I knew that this was perhaps the only way I could get Patchouli Knowledge to divulge anything – had I carried on with the charade, I would have learned nothing. "I had at least some lasting control over my memories before I entered this library, and they were fully taken from me by a spell from the tome. I was awoken and made to believe that I had been found as a non-magical human, just like most of the others, and then told that my loss of memories was a natural consequence of passing through the Barrier, rather than the result of some artificial magical intervention. Would that seem too far-fetched?"
For a moment, the room was silent. Then, slowly, Patchouli rose from the bed and stood in front of me, blocking out the light of the lantern. I could barely muster the courage to look up, but when I did, I saw a face that glared as icily as the chill that ran down my back.
"Before I send you back to sleep, I must know…" Her voice was colder than any I had heard in my travels thus far. "Why do you know all this?"
"I am not at ease to tell you," I replied nervously.
"You speak as if you know more than I presume you would know, given the effects of the spell that has been cast on you. But you do not seem to know anything concrete beyond the existence of the spell, particularly with regards to your past. After all, if you did know what you had known before, then you would not still be sitting here, entertaining my questions." She stroked her chin in thought. "That leads me to three possibilities. The first is that you are merely toying with me – which, knowing your prior personality, I feel would be an incongruous thing for you to do, though I will remain on guard in case that happens to be true. The second is that parts of your memory have remained intact. A possibility, but given the efficacy of the spell and the highly connected nature of cognitive recollection, I doubt that you would be able to muster anything rational from the sparse threads of memory that ostensibly remained."
She spun away and returned to her desk, taking a book from the nearby shelf and flipping through it. "Finally, the third. You have used one of the spells we know you to be able to use, but you do not remember using it."
"What would that spell be?" I couldn't help but ask. No sooner had the words left my mouth that I realized that, by asking that question, I had just confirmed Patchouli's suspicions.
Patchouli snapped the book shut. "I will not tell you more than you need to know. Now, begone."
She took a spell card from her pocket and waved it around the air. A faint smell of lavender crept into my nose. My eyelids drooped, and I struggled against the increasingly powerful effects of what was evidently some form of soporific, grasping onto the bedsheet for support.
"Sleep well." Patchouli came over to me and pushed me down, easing me into a supine position on the bed. "Pray that we never meet again."
