I was led into an empty room, and then a guard locked the door behind me.

The only thing I could see was red wallpaper with a pattern of little stylized dragons and black flowers, irises maybe, but I had no doubt the trial wouldn't be easy.

But I had gone through a mind-altering and disturbing situation to get the Everto Stone the first time, and, after I failed everyone, I would stop at nothing the second time.

The door opened, and a knight I'd never spoken to entered. I'd seen him often, as Nia's second-in-command. He had a needle in his hand, and I didn't like the look of it.

"To be trusted with something like the Cubic Stone, you have to go deeper in your understanding of yourself," he said. "If this doesn't drive you mad, nothing probably will."

I didn't like the explanation, nor his cold tone. Besides, it sounded as if I was about to get more of the same treatment I got the last time.

"Did the Tamed Lion tell you how the Stone was found in the story?" the knight, who looked closer to a thug, asked.

I shook my head, unable to say anything from the moment my eyes laid on the long needle.

"They went back to the source of all things," he said, with sick satisfaction. "Maybe your name will prove your worth. What we need for a quest such as this is a holy fool."

"I'm young and barely experienced," I only managed to get out. "I am not... the holy fool you say by any means."

"In desperate times, every idea counts. Besides, many heroes of old were nothing but teenagers."

Then, he jabbed the needle into my neck.

I'd like to say that, after the piercing pain right under my jaw, I woke up to find the knight had left the room. But the truth was that I was not in the room anymore.

I heard Edgar's voice calling me. I thought it was probably the same old vision of the scaly monster I had to kill, the one with Edgar's face. And now that I knew about his destiny, I had an inkling as to what it meant.

But it had never spoken before.

The voice said, "Do you love me, Ryan?"

I didn't know why it was playing tricks on me. I was reminded of Ohda's words. I'd never even spared a single thought towards Edgar as more than a friend. Everything was too complicated. I didn't trust myself to give myself to anybody. I didn't trust anyone else to accept me as a burden, as I often was a weight pulling them down for my family since I was a child.

"I don't know in which way I love you," I replied. "But I certainly do."

"And do you think I love you?" his voice was a little mocking now, in a way I'd never heard it before.

"I don't care. I know that to some extent, you must. And I can settle for love, however small its percentage might be."

"Then..." the voice sounded puzzled now. "Why are you killing me?"

The scene changed, and it was a blurry kaleidoscope, and then the million little eyes I'd seen the time Mister Autumn drugged me. And then I woke up.

I wasn't in the empty room anymore, but on a bed, and, judging from what the hushed voices were saying outside my bedroom, I realised I must have won the Cubic Stone. I felt a little unworthy. I hadn't done anything but confuse my feelings and feel freaked out --- a lot.

After a while, Edgar opened the door and came inside. I tried not to look at him differently.

"You don't look too well," he said. I noticed Nia was at his side.

"I would have told you to look after yourself," he added. "But in this case, it's not like you had much choice." He was almost moved to tears.

"Does Edgar get a name?" I asked. "The way I am the Folly?"

"No, but there is a place where it's imperative he goes. A place whose door only he can unlock," Nia said. "The Gate of the Sanctuary."

"Well... Why didn't you say it before?" I asked. I tried to grin, but it made me wince.

Then, I noticed I was wincing because my eyes were not used to the light yet. It came pouring in from a window.

And when Edgar looked at me with a frown, I noticed it was like the glow was coming out of him.

The sensation I felt was pleasent, but strange. I had it before -- it was like a light was shining in my dark. I closed my eyes and envisioned a dark room with light pouring in from the windows.

"Hate to interrupt," Raegan coughed, from behind us.

"Nia told me you had doubts about the quest," she added. "Whether you would come back alive --- the usual. The truth is, I know you like a brother. I know some would say you're a pessimist. I know you would define yourself a realist. I think it's none of those things. You're an analyst. Your brain studies data, learns from experience, and your experience tells you you can't make it out of this one."

"Thank you," I replied. "Encouranging."

"No, what I want to tell you," Raegan grinned. "Is that sometimes, everything will be alright. Jurji is waiting outside the door, to talk to you."

The door, in fact, opened up in that very moment.

"So," he asked me. "The ordeal you recently went through, the fact that people gave you a nickname... What do you intend to do about it?"

"Nothing," I shrugged. "I wanted the Stone anyway, ask Raegan. They can't make me do anything I don't want to."

"I know it's up to you to decide whether to tell your friends about your powers," Edgar whispered to me. "But I, for one, think you shouldn't be keeping it a secret from them."

"You're right. You're totally right," I conceded.

I coughed, to clear my throat. "Raegan, Jurji," I said. "There's something I haven't told you. I have been experiencing problems with my powers. That's one of the reasons why I am here. I don't know why, but in this realm I feel better."

"I had noticed you looked weird," Raegan said.

I remembered the words she told me.

Blood was dripping from your nose down to your tunic and coloured pencils were flying all across the room. Ryan... we didn't know what to think. Even your expression, it didn't look like you.

I realized, horrified, that not only I must have looked horrible. I must have looked like a member of the the Reapers, too. They wore red tunics all the time.

"However," she added thoughtfully. "I wouldn't have said the problem you had was with your magic. You're very strong."

"Nia checked on me, once," I said. "She said what I have inside me is like a virus. It's making my powers stronger but feeding on them at the same time. There's no telling what it will do. Maybe it will leave me powerless, or dead."

All of my friends looked at me with the same horrified expression on their faces.

"You don't have to say that," Jurji said. "You don't look that bad."

"I don't," I agreed. "It's just sometimes, weird things happen..."

"Like that?" Raegan asked, pointing at my nose.

I knew what was happening even before she pointed it out. Blood was dripping down from it, again.

I tried to say something, but blood begin to drip from my mouth as well.

Edgar frowned. "This has never happened before," he confirmed. "If you don't mind, I'll help him to the bed."

That said, he took my arm and started helping me up. I don't remember how I made it to the bed. I was scared and confused. I only remember Edgar made me spit all the blood in a basin and told me to sleep.

When I woke up from my dreamless sleep, Raegan was waiting at the foot of the bed.

"When Jeff arrives here," she said. "He will show you something that might disturb you."

"What?" I wondered, for a minute, if the Scottish Enchanter was joking.

"He found something in his grandfather's house that might help us. A diary. It's hard to look through it for clues, though. It was written by his father during the time he was cursed."

"How do you know?" I asked. "Did Vitaly or Daniel check?"

"No need," Raegan grimaced. "Jeff thinks it might be his father's calligraphy. And, either way, it wouldn't prove anything. When you become a Typhon whose soul is rotting, even your calligraphy looks different."

"Does the diary have dates?" I asked.

"Um... no. It's more like pieces of papers stringed together, really. Even the paper itself --- I cannot understand whether it's old paper or new. Well, if you read it, you'd understand why we say Samuel wrote them."

"Okay," I said. "I'll wait for Jeff, then."

"No need," Raegan replied, again. "He asked me to bring you the first piece of paper, as proof."

Raegan handed it to me. I started reading it silently.

Dear diary,

I am afraid the jinx has really started, and it won't take too long for it to go too far. I already feel more at ease being referred to as Set, though, of course, I haven't told anyone. I don't want any of my friends to see me in the state I'm in --- especially one of them.

He would understand immediately what happened to me. He is busy acting like the rightful heir of the Winters, though saying I resent him for it would mean I'm a liar.

I'm NOT a liar, despite what people think. I do not envy him, or his role in the family, I'm just scared out of my mind. That's all.

Today Set made me do things I didn't want to do. It made me grab a knife and use it to cut a wound in my hand. It bled a lot. Set likes pain and suffering. It feeds the dark side, he said.

I should say, for posteriority that it's not a possession --- but I feel him, working his magic in my veins. Whispering terrible things.

Dear diary, I am honest when I tell you that black magic has always interested me, but I've never wanted to feed the dark side. Not like that. Not for no reason.

As soon as I started gaining control over my own mind, I healed the wound nicely with a spell. Now, only a small scar on one of my fingers is visible.

I am afraid, though, of what the curse is going to make me do next. I know that the dark magic will take full control when I'm done with the letter, or during the writing process, it has no respect, and that I'll black out. Tomorrow I will not recall anything. Not about the wound, not about the letter.

When the magic takes over, I will remember all of this again. When it leaves, I won't even remember that I remembered.

"This is... horrible," I said. "And you say this is the first?"

"Apparently, when he went back to that state and remembered about the first diary entry, he wrote others," Raegan commented glumly. "Might just be the most disturbing things I've ever read."

I nodded in agreement. I wondered how many things Samuel had documented in detail. Was my parents' murder one of those things?

"That letter," I said cautiously. "Is making me feel weird."

"Jeff said I shouldn't have shown you, but how could I?" Raegan was enraged. "We're looking for ways to break the curse once and for all, and we have access to a diary written by a cursed person!"

"No, you were right to show me," I explained. "You and Jeff did the right thing. It just feels funny to read what he writes about my father..."

"I can't imagine how it must feel like for you," Raegan frowned. "At any rate, now we know he wasn't really in control of his actions."

"Yes, but if I understand correctly, he said it's not a possession because it's still him, doing things. It's always him. One could maybe even fight the curse."

"It would require a lot of strength, but yes," Raegan said glumly. "Let's put it this way --- Sam wouldn't have killed all of those people. However, when the dark magic from Set came over, he was not able to say no."

"I can't stop thinking about my father and his brother," I admitted. "If I were in their situation... I don't know what I would have done. But the point is, I'm not like any of them. I keep thinking it over and none of the things they did were things I could have done. I feel detached from my family."

"Welcome to the club," Raegan grinned. "I only feel that every day. And ever since Luna Torres has been trying to make me understand she knows something about my father that I don't, understanding him hasn't become any easier."

"I get that," I said compassionately. Families were a very complicated thing. I wondered if it would have made any difference if I had one.

The main issue with understanding my parents lied in the fact that they were not there to explain their actions.

"When are we expecting Jeff?" I asked.

"Tomorrow, probably," Raegan replied. "Vitaly has already granted him permission to come, so there's no point in waiting. He can't wait to show you the rest of the diary."

After that read, I couldn't sleep anymore. I went to Edgar's room to check how he was doing. The past few days had been hard for him, too. Getting his powers back, only to be too drained and exhausted to use them. Having to worry about me all the time. Worrying about dying, and about the vision.

"Hey," I joked, upon entering the room. "We could have shared a room, like last year at the Academy..."

I knew something was up when I was getting no reply. I looked inside the room, only to find Edgar laying on the bed.

I looked at him, closely. He was not feeling sick... he was sleeping like a stone.

Now, I did not stumble upon sleeping men every day, but I could have sworn I had never seen anyone sleeping like Edgar. He had every muscle of his face completely relaxed. He looked exhausted, even in his sleep, as if he was tired of putting up resistance.

I grinned at him, and thought about waking him up, but then thought better of it. It would have been selfish. While it was true that I needed him there for me, Edgar also needed alone time. I realized, feeling guilty all of a sudden, that he was only truly alone in his sleep.

I was about to leave the room, when Edgar's hand reached out and held mine. I realized then that, apparently, he wasn't sleeping as deeply as I had thought. And also that, maybe, he didn't want or need alone time.

I sat near the bed, and tried one of my new spells. While it was not fair to try astral projection if Edgar thought I was keeping him company, I had to practise my new skills. Every day I woke up asking myself what would happen to my body, to me. Would I wake up every day more powerful, or would my powers turn weird like Edgar's? I had to check on them from time to time.

That was why, with the talismans with the Hebrew letters scattered all over my tunic, I tried astral projection. I asked it to see my rival, hoping it would be Jake.

Perhaps I should have learned by now one had to be careful with such requests.

I knew the aim wasn't accurate, because the only thing who showed you what or who you should most fear was the Enemy Mirror. However, when I arrived in a room and saw someone who wasn't Jake, I wasn't ready for it.

The man in front of me had a startled expression on his face, but soon regained composure. At first, his face was in the darkness and I couldn't make it out except for the look in his eyes. I should also add the spell had drained me and left me dizzy, so I wasn't thinking lucidly.

When the man stepped out of the shadows, his face looked grotesquely fake. I knew only one person whose face always looked like that.

Jinn.

Of course. The most ruthless member of the Reapers, who had escaped when the others were put to trial.

"I admit, at first, I couldn't understand what you were doing," he said, his voice fake and robotic as always. "Astounding. Who knew you could pull that one off?"

I wanted to reply, but couldn't. It all seemed suddenly like a very bad idea.

"Do you remember the Special Plan? Plan 101?" Jinn asked. "There was never only one phase. If I capture you, I'll show you the rest."

Oh, shit. I tried to tear the talismans off, but it wasn't working. My fingers were trembling.

"I'll tell you more," he added. "Each one of us has more than one fatal weakness. I know another one of yours. You're afraid of not being understood. Not only of not being accepted or feeling left out, but also literally misunderstood. You're genuinely afraid other people think you're dumb or too weird."

"No," I said, noticing the whole thing felt weird. I felt as if I was in a dream. Or was it the second phase of the plan 101?

"This can't be happening," I said. "I reached for Jake. You're not supposed to be around anymore. The Senate could not locate you. No, this is a nightmare. I'll wake up now."

"Look at you," he smiled lazily. "You can't even understand yourself!"

"No," I replied, talking to myself. "No, no, no, wake up!"

I woke up in Edgar's room, sweating trickling down my face. Apparently, it had really been a nightmare.

But what if it hadn't? What if Jinn was still around, looking for vengeance?