"You really want to know, Nyr?" Rodolf asked, his eyes flicking toward Cylien every few seconds like he was checking to make sure she couldn't hear them.
Thankfully, she wasn't listening.
She was walking a good few paces behind us, chatting with Layla and Amelia. Far enough to not catch a whisper.
I nodded. "Yeah. I need to know, Rodolf."
He hesitated, scratching the back of his neck like he was trying to dig the words out of his skull. "Alright… After Ephera's death, everything went to hell. You know that. Everyone was shaken. But you… You were the first one who found her. And then you vanished. Remember?"
I frowned. "Yeah… kinda. I think I just—needed to be alone."
"Right. That's what I figured too. That's why I didn't push. Marlene, Emric, and Lucy—they all wanted to see you, talk to you, check on you. But me? I thought maybe space was what you needed. So I held them back. As for Gladys, she isolated herself"
He paused, took a breath like it tasted bitter.
"But you didn't even come back with us. Stayed in Paris. For days. We ended up sending Emric to talk to you. He came back seriously pissed off and told us to leave you the hell alone."
Ah. That must've been after our last argument.
I wasn't in the right headspace. I was spiraling, barely holding anything together.
Rodolf continued, his voice quieter now. "But when you didn't show up for Ephera's burial… that's when we knew something was really wrong."
He glanced at me again, slower this time. "We looked everywhere, man. At least I did. Gladys and Marlene too. Emric… I don't know, he started saying weird things. Stuff like his father knew something, maybe even had a hand in it. Then he said he'd talk to him. But the next thing we hear?"
Rodolf shook his head like he still couldn't believe it himself.
"He killed his father. That's what the reports said. Lucy kinda confirmed it too. Said it was true, or at least partly true. But you know Emric. Always digging deeper than he should. Lucy went after him—on her own—trying to find him. He'd run off somewhere after the whole… murder thing. And then she vanished too. Just like that. Disappeared, even though we all promised to stay in touch. No calls. No messages."
That was exactly what Gladys told me.
"At that point," Rodolf went on, "only the three of us were left. Me, Marlene, and Gladys. And we were falling apart. Marlene was spiraling into panic attacks. Gladys started acting… off. Like something snapped. And I was just there, trying to hold it all together, but I had no idea what the hell was happening or how to handle any of it."
I couldn't really blame him.
Rodolf had been one of the few dragged into the mess I was involved—along with Marlene, Emric, and Lucy.
And deep down, I was sure Ephera and I had something to do with all of it.
Maybe not directly. Maybe not intentionally.
But something tied us to this whole mess.
"Even so, I couldn't just sit quiet. I knew something was damn wrong. And I wasn't the only one. Marlene—she was panicking because she felt it too. She was convinced someone was watching her. Following her. Same with Gladys and me. That creeping feeling, like eyes were on us no matter where we went. But we couldn't do jack shit about it. Couldn't understand it either."
He looked away for a second, into the distance like he was reliving it all.
"Then... it was our turn. I don't know exactly what went down. I was the first to go. Before Marlene, before Gladys. Everything happened too fast. But the last thing I remember—the last face I saw—was this guy. Wore an eyepatch. His men called him Rickward."
I blinked. Once. Twice.
That was my mother's family name.
And there was only one other person I knew who carried it. Her younger brother.
No… that had to be a coincidence.
I hadn't seen him since my parents died. He was there when Leon was sentenced—sat through the entire trial, actually. Said a few words to me afterward. I don't even remember what they were anymore. After that, he vanished. I never reached out.
He reminded me too much of what I'd lost. And maybe, just maybe, he felt the same way.
After all, he'd lost my mother—his sister. And my dad… they used to be friends, once.
But the last time I ever saw them together, they were arguing.
It was just a week before they died.
That memory surfaced like a ripple breaking the surface of a still lake, and my heartbeat spiked.
I narrowed my eyes trying to remember.
Rodolf's voice brought me back.
He was looking at me—expression hard, but not at me, if that made sense. His anger was somewhere else. Somewhere deeper.
"Marlene…I've never seen her cry like she did after Shayna and then Ephera died. After all of you died. She stopped smiling, Nyr. Just… stopped. And up until now, she's never told me what happened after I was gone."
He looked me dead in the eyes.
"You better not ask her. Don't put her through that. Not now."
"I won't. Who do you take me for?"
"Alright then," Rodolf replied. "Let me be honest with you. I'll help. I'll do whatever it takes to bring those bastards down. But I'm not involving Marlene. No." He shook his head. "I'm not dragging Cylien into this mess either—not again. I want her to live in peace this time, really live, without tears and without fear. She's been through too much already. I don't want to see her cry anymore. Not because of me."
He looked up at me. "I don't know how you feel about all this reincarnation thing… but I'm not Yanis anymore. I've changed. I've got new responsibilities. And Cylien… she's not Marlene."
But even as the words left my mouth, I couldn't lie to myself. I couldn't relate to what he was saying. Not after everything that happened recently.
"I want them dead just as much as you do," Rodolf continued, fists clenching tightly at his sides. "But once all this is over—once whatever's going to happen in Sancta Vedelia happens—you're going to tell me everything. All of it. No more secrets, no more holding back. I am not dumb. I know you're connected to this somehow. You being here… it's not a coincidence. You dragged us into this. Me and Marlene, both of us, and I'm already pissed off enough about it because, in case you forgot, we both died because of it. Died, man."
His voice cracked slightly, and he turned his head away for a second. "And now I'll probably never see my father again. Back in the real world, I mean. That's the part that still eats at me."
"Rodolf…" I muttered, feeling a bit guilty. "I didn't know. Not until the very end either.
"I know. I know," he said with a tired sigh. "I'm not blaming you man. I'm not even mad anymore—not really. Hell, I'm just grateful we're alive again. And I'm lucky. She's with me. Marlene's here. I found her." He added before turning toward me, smirking. "You, though… you're still looking for Ephera, right?"
"Yeah." I lowered my voice, my thoughts drifting to her face. "But I haven't got the faintest clue where she is..."
Rodolf didn't say anything, but I could tell he sympathized.
I, on the other hand, couldn't help but recall what Nyr had told within me.
He knew where she was.
So what was I missing?
"That's fine," Rodolf said, shrugging. "You found Gladys, and we reunited somehow. That's a good sign, right? It means the others might not be far behind. We'll find them too—Shayna included. You said she might be here?"
"Yeah," I nodded. "I don't see why she wouldn't be. If we're here… she could be too."
"What are you two talking about?"
A voice cut through our conversation at that time.
He hadn't really been paying attention earlier, but now he was staring at us like he'd just heard something that didn't make sense—something that shouldn't have made sense.
"What?" I shot back, raising an eyebrow. "Didn't think you were interested in our past lives, John." I let out a small scoff.
But John wasn't laughing.
His eyes were wide with shock. His lips trembled slightly. He looked pale.
Something was definitely off.
"Did you just say... Shayna?" He asked with a quivering voice.
"Shayna… she was our classmate," Rodolf said with a frown.
John's mouth parted slightly. He looked like he wanted to say something—needed to—but the words just wouldn't come.
His eyes shifted to me, searching my face for confirmation, for something that could make sense of what he was feeling.
And that's when it hit.
John finally found his voice.
"Shayna… was my sister."