Oliver's thoughts churned, his mind a battlefield of calculations and dead ends. His instincts screamed at him to find a way out, to resist, to fight—but the more he analyzed his situation, the clearer the truth became. Escape was meaningless.
The teleportation talismans had been his trump card, but Morgana had kept up with him effortlessly, as if his movements were nothing more than a mildly amusing game. He had three left. Three chances to flee. But where?
Back to Hoshizuki?
Pointless. He didn't even know if he was still on Earth—or how to return if he was. It wouldn't matter—his house was already compromised. Morgana had gotten his notebook, proof enough that she had already been to his home. And if she hadn't, Aihara Misaki had already been staking it out before all of this began.
There was nowhere to run.
Oliver exhaled slowly, unclenching his fists as he forced himself to swallow the frustration clawing at his chest. If resistance was futile, then he needed to adapt.
For now.
Oliver steadied his breath, forcing his mind to work past the haze of Morgana's presence. He met her gaze—those swirling violet eyes that seemed to hold a thousand shifting possibilities.
Morgana tilted her head, a smirk playing on her lips. "Tell me, Oliver…" she mused, her voice rich with amusement. "Do you know what I am?"
Oliver's jaw clenched. A witch, obviously. But something about her felt… off. She wasn't human, not entirely. And the way she spoke, the way she had pulled him from reality so effortlessly—she wasn't just any magic user.
His silence only made her smile widen. "Oh, don't look so tense," she purred, waving a delicate hand. "Let me make it easy for you. I'm not a witch." She leaned in slightly, her breath warm against the space between them. "Not really."
She straightened, turning away as she lazily paced in front of the massive bookshelves. "I'm just a figment."
Oliver frowned. "A… figment?"
Morgana let out a soft laugh, her fingers trailing along the spines of old tomes. "Yes. A made-up construct. Something that was never meant to exist beyond imagination." She turned back to him, amusement dancing in her violet gaze. "But then I gained awareness. I saw the real world for what it was." Her smirk faded, just slightly. "And I wasn't the only one."
A strange chill ran down Oliver's spine.
"There are others like me, dear." She gestured lazily to the library around them. "Figments born from dreams. Given shape by the minds of those foolish enough to perform the Dream Pattern ritual." She turned back to him, this time with a calculating gaze. "Each figment is different, shaped by the dreamer's own subconscious. Some are peaceful, harmless even." Her smile returned, dark and knowing. "But others, my dear… others aren't so friendly."
Oliver's fingers twitched at his sides.
Morgana let out a dramatic sigh, rolling her shoulders as if the topic bored her. "With the Dream Pattern spreading like wildfire, the number of figments appearing has grown exponentially. At first, I considered putting a stop to it, snuffing out the ritual before it could spiral out of control."
She stepped closer again, lowering her voice just slightly. "But then I found something… curious." Her smile sharpened. "Someone else has been spreading it—on purpose."
Oliver stiffened.
"Oh yes," Morgana chuckled. "Some unknown party is ensuring the ritual finds new hands, encouraging more and more dreamers to create figments—whether they understand what they're doing or not." She exhaled through her nose, her amusement laced with something colder. "And if I allowed that to continue unchecked, well… it wouldn't be long before all that chaos led unwanted attention right to my lovely little base of operations."
Her eyes gleamed. "And a little witch like me simply couldn't let that happen."
Oliver barely stopped himself from taking a step back.
"So," she continued, casually brushing a strand of silver hair behind her ear. "I thought of another solution."
She studied him for a long moment, as if weighing something in her mind.
"The number of true Dream Walkers has also increased." She paused, letting the words sink in. "Why not use them?"
A slow, knowing smile curved her lips. "If I can rally enough of them, I can turn them into a force. Hunters of rogue figments. Keep the chaos in check. And most importantly—keep the eyes of the world away from Hoshizuki and the places that matter to me."
She took another step forward, her presence once again overwhelming.
"And that, Oliver…" she murmured, tilting her head ever so slightly, "is why I want you."
Oliver's breath hitched.
Morgana smiled, lifting a single finger. "Join me."
It wasn't a request.
Her violet eyes gleamed, shifting with unreadable patterns.
"Become a member of my little organization, dear dreamer."
The air around her thrummed with power, and Oliver could feel the weight of the offer settling over him like an invisible net.
His mind raced.
This wasn't just some chance encounter.
Morgana had been watching him.
And now, she wanted him to be a part of something much, much bigger.
His voice was calm when he finally spoke. "What do I get if I join?"
Morgana's smile widened, pleased. "Smart boy." She stepped back, crossing her arms as she tapped a finger against her cheek, feigning thoughtfulness. "Anything within reason."
Oliver hesitated. His mind raced, sifting through possibilities—what could he ask for that would actually benefit him?
What could he ask for that wouldn't scream desperation or reveal too much of his hand?
Power? That would make him a pawn.
Freedom? An illusion, and they both knew it.
Protection? Too dependent on her whims.
No—he needed something that would feed his growth without binding him entirely to her leash.
He took a breath, steadying the storm inside. "Information," he said at last.
Morgana's smile curled, slow and deliberate, as if she'd just bitten into a ripe fruit and found it even sweeter than expected. "Oh? Now that's interesting."
She tilted her head, silvery hair cascading like spilled mercury over one shoulder. Her eyes gleamed—not with mockery, but genuine intrigue. "Most beg for strength. Or safety. Or someone to kill their enemies for them." She took a lazy step closer, her heels echoing faintly in the vast, starlit chamber. "But you… you want truth. That's a dangerous thing to crave, Oliver. Dangerous, and very, very rare."
He didn't respond. Just held her gaze, waiting.
Morgana twirled a finger in the air, and the stars above them flickered—not in the sky, but in the mirrored dome overhead, a tapestry of constellations shifting in time with her thoughts. "And what truths do you think you're ready for, darling boy? That dreams bleed? That figments have hearts and gods have teeth?"
"I want to understand the dream ritual," Oliver said, each word slow and precise. "How it works. Who created it. Why it's spreading. I want to know the real cost. All of it."
That made her pause. The grin didn't vanish, but it grew thinner, more guarded.
"Ambitious," she whispered. "I suppose it was inevitable. The moment you walked into the spiral, you were never going to stay ignorant." She turned her back to him, pacing slowly past a wall lined with sealed books and glowing runes. "Very well. Join me, and you'll have access to my archives. Not all of them—gods, no—but more than any outsider has touched in years. You'll read firsthand the thoughts of dreamwalkers who died screaming. You'll study figments that still whisper across their bindings. You'll see the birth of the pattern itself… if your mind can hold it."
Morgana turned back, eyes shining with mischief. "all this will be within your grasp. And you simply have to work for me. You'll be part of a little group I'm forming—call them… Threadcutters." She chuckled to herself. "Dreamwalkers who'll act as my blade in the field. Hunting figments. Unraveling corrupted patterns. Plugging holes before they spiral into vortexes."
Oliver didn't speak for a long moment. The words sat heavy on his tongue, not from fear, but from the weight of what they meant. There was no illusion of choice—only degrees of surrender, avenues of survival.
He clenched his jaw once, then loosened it. His fingers relaxed at his sides.
"…Alright," he said finally, voice low but firm. "I'll join."
A soft hum of satisfaction rose from Morgana's throat, almost imperceptible—more felt than heard. She didn't gloat, didn't mock. She merely approved, and that was somehow worse. Like watching a god nod at a mortal for behaving as expected.
She raised her hand.
A violet sigil bloomed above her palm, swirling into existence like ink bleeding through water. It didn't float or spin—it moved, writhing with intention, shifting between half-familiar symbols and alien geometry that brushed the edge of comprehension. Each curve, each flicker, suggested meaning too ancient to be spoken aloud.
"This is your mark," Morgana said, voice quiet but resonant, as though the library itself was listening. "Not a curse. Not a leash. It won't bind your soul or steal your dreams."
The sigil pulsed once, reacting to her words like a heartbeat.
"But it will mark you as mine—for as long as you choose to stay."
She stepped closer, hand extended, the sigil between them like a veil of smoke trapped in glass. Her presence was overwhelming up close. Not crushing, not violent—just absolute. Every sense strained to track her movement, her scent, the weight of her attention like gravity concentrated into human form.
Oliver didn't hesitate.
He reached out and touched the edge of the sigil.
It broke apart instantly—not shattered, not destroyed, but unraveled. Threads of violet light streaked from Morgana's palm and coiled around his arm like veins of fire. They raced to his chest, burrowing beneath skin and muscle without pain, though he felt each strand like a whisper against his nerves.
And then it was there.
Etched over his heart.
A brand of flickering energy, visible for only a breath before it sank beneath his skin and vanished. But the weight of it remained. He could feel it—not oppressive, not invasive. Just present. Like the knowledge of a scar, or the echo of a name that had never belonged to him until now.
Morgana lowered her hand, clearly pleased.
"There," she purred, her voice soft as velvet. "Now the others will know not to toy with you."
She turned and began to walk again, slowly drifting past rows of tall, dust-laden shelves. The library stretched endlessly in all directions, lined with impossible books bound in metal and glass, humming softly with containment runes older than civilization. Strange artifacts glowed behind locked cages—slivers of dreamscape, bottled figments, hearts that still beat.
"You'll meet the rest soon enough," she said, not turning around. "The Threadcutters. I'll send for you when the time is right."
She reached a tall lectern and paused there, flipping through a tome that whispered as it opened—literally whispered, muttering half-heard secrets in a language Oliver didn't recognize. Her fingers danced across the page.
"You have questions," she said, still focused on the book. "Good. Keep them. Hoard them. Feed them until they burn."
She glanced over her shoulder, silver hair spilling like mercury down her back, those eyes gleaming with layered intent.
"Curiosity makes you useful."
The shadows shifted. The air grew thinner, more fluid. Something in the space around them flexed.
Morgana snapped her fingers.
The library collapsed.
Not violently. Not even with urgency. It folded away like a stage set, vanishing into itself—walls peeling into light, books curling into smoke, reality unspooling one layer at a time until Oliver stood alone in the void, the mark still pulsing faintly on his chest.
He was falling.
Down through memory, through layered dream-planes and patterned thought, and he knew—this was the true price. He wasn't just marked.
He was being woven into something.
The moment of decision had passed.
Now the story began.