Chapter 954: Glasshouse Duel
The old glasshouse on Avalon’s east ridge still stood—steel ribs, shattered panes, a floor choked in black roses that had no right to grow in salt-poor soil. Wind hissed through the broken teeth of the roof. Every step crunched. Every shadow looked like a trap set years ago and left to wait.
Evelyn waited at the center path, hands folded, veil dark as oil. Her presence pressed on the room the way a verdict presses on a defendant—no drama, just weight.
"Daughter," she said.
"Name’s Rose," I said, and kept walking.
Her lips tilted. "Names are for tools. Tools get labels, then storage."
"Good," I said. "Label this: end."
I let my Gift breathe. Blue roses unfolded around my boots, not many, just enough. The air steadied. Choices opened like doors cracking on their hinges.
Evelyn’s Gift answered. Black roses climbed the rusted lattice, petals drinking light. The room narrowed with them. Options shrank.
We didn’t posture. We went to work.
She moved first. Nine circles spun around her wrist—clean, hard, textbook perfect. Black thorns gathered, twisted tight, and slashed at my midline. Oblivion Arc IX. Anything it crossed would be written out of the scene: ground, bone, air.
I didn’t meet it head-on. I laid a blue petal in its path with one clear instruction: ’Be read twice.’ The Arc hit the petal, stuttered, shaved a strip of floor instead of my ribs, and buried itself in dead soil.
"Parlor trick," she said.
"Nine-circle clause," I said. "You taught the basics. I kept going."
Her eyes didn’t change. "You were built to carry weight, not opinions."
I put my palm up. Nine circles lit—sky-blue, steady. "Azure Split IX," I said, and cut the room into two safe lanes that only I could see. I stepped into one; the path ahead opened. Her black petals snapped shut where I wasn’t.
She wrote a new problem. Black roses sank into the floor. The tiles under me went slick, then too rough, then vanished to trick the ankle. A floor made of bad decisions.
I planted a blue rose at my heel and wrote one small rule: ’Steps count where I remember them.’ I remembered each step. The floor had to agree.
She didn’t blink. She lifted her left hand, and a brand showed on the back of it—ink dark as space, lines like chains closing around a crown. The glasshouse’s shadows went colder.
"Meet him," Evelyn said calmly. "Arakhel. Demon Lord of Sloth."
A voice passed over my skin like a rough glove. Not the full presence—just a taste through contract. The black roses tightened. Straps of shadow crept from plant to plant and cinched the room into smaller shapes.
"Borrowed power," I said.
"Leased," she corrected. "I pay in results."
Chains struck. Not metal—decisions turned into links. They coiled for my forearms and throat. I threw blue petals into the links. Each petal said the same thing: ’Pick one thing to hold.’ The chains tried to hold everything. They chose wrong and slipped.
She nodded once, almost approving. "You’ve grown."
"You never looked," I said, and drove forward.
Nine-circle against nine-circle, simple and fast.
I snapped a Blue Fold IX at her—space parted like opening a book, letting my ice dart cut the page and reappear behind her. She answered with Thorn Crown IX, a spinning ring of black bloom that erased the dart’s end-point and sent the trick back redrawn to bite me.
I stepped aside. The returned dart took a blue path and turned into a harmless gust. She tried to strangle the gust into stillness. I turned the stillness into a weight and dropped it on her ankle. She crushed it with a thought.
"Stop testing," she said, sounding bored. "Bring the work that breaks you."
"I already brought it," I said. "You’re standing in it."
She flicked her fingers. Chains combed the room. Three snared my arm. A black rose bloomed above my shoulder and began to drink my range of motion.
I didn’t pull. Pulling plays to chains. I wrote a blue petal into the cuff that said, plain: ’Ends now.’ The cuff had to decide if it ended closing or ended opening. It opened. My elbow came free.
She clamped harder with the contract. The brand on her hand glowed. Arakhel’s whisper turned into pressure; the room’s edges clicked like gears. The black roses’ Gift and the demon’s binding stacked. Pathways narrowed to a pin.
I opened a lane through the middle anyway. Blue roses marched to the center path and held the space.
"Still wasteful," she said, annoyed. "Always multiplying roads like a child drawing mazes."
"Men get highways," I said. "We get alleys. I build highways."
She was done talking.
Another nine-circle construct spun: Final Revision’s younger cousin. Not the full rewrite, but close. Lines etched in the air, petals closed into a wheel the size of a door. If it touched me, my next cast would become hers. Not control, but theft.
I didn’t try to outmuscle the wheel. I went under it.
"Blue Brace IX," I said—three lines that pin a room to "fair." Attack speed normalized. Range honest. No free steals.
She pushed against the brace with Arakhel’s chains. The brace groaned but held. The brand flared. My teeth rang.
"See?" she said. "Leverage."
I gave her mine. A clean, direct nine-circle sequence, nothing clever: Frost Lance IX overlaid with Gravity Comb IX. Cold to bite, weight to crush. She ate the frost with a black bloom, stripped the weight with the brand, and sent the remains back as the start of a net.
"Almost," she said.
"That’s the word you say when you’re about to lose," I answered.
She finally got angry.
It didn’t show on her face. It showed in the number of black roses. They multiplied at once, eating the light. Seams crawled over the steel ribs. The whole glasshouse became a trap.
I let my Gift widen. Blue roses opened behind me, beside me, ahead of me. The room breathed with me instead of with her. The floor steadied under my feet. The wind that wasn’t there stopped lying.
Nine-circle to nine-circle turned into Gift to Gift. Hers closed. Mine opened. Chains against lanes. We pressed.
She was good. She stayed on me with clean timing and ugly tricks. A black thorn caught my shoulder and erased a line of skin. A chain bit my hip and turned a step into a stumble. I paid both and kept moving.
"Stop running," she said.
"I’m walking at you," I said, and did.
She tried a new angle—voice soft, ugly words. "You’re nothing without me. I built the frame. You’re decoration."
I set one blue rose between us with one sentence: ’I am not your work.’ The rose burned bright enough to tint the chains.
She frowned at that. Not hurt. Inconvenienced. "Arakhel," she said, and the contract’s pressure doubled. The brand’s lines crawled up her arm. A black crown sketched itself over her hair.
The chains surged.
I felt the first tug in my chest—the pull that wants you to agree with the person who raised you, even if agreeing kills you. I let the feeling exist. Then I cut it off and threw it away.
"Round two," I said.
Her crown closed like a trap.
I stepped forward to meet it.