A few days slipped past in that peculiar way time has of melting when you’re too busy to notice it properly—one moment you’re standing in a room examining a glowing red gemstone and wondering if giving women magical demonic appendages is ethical, the next you’re blinking awake to realize an entire week had somehow evaporated while you weren’t paying attention.
In that span, I’d grown... comfortable with the ruby. Not complacent—never that—but familiar enough to understand its moods, its limits, the way it responded when I pushed just hard enough without tipping into catastrophe.
I practiced in private, refining my control until I could activate the spell and retract it at will, the process becoming smoother each time, less like wrestling power into submission and more like guiding something that was already inclined to cooperate.
Meanwhile, preparations for the play had progressed with the kind of organized chaos that suggested we might actually pull this off without everything catching fire.
Julius had finished writing the script after following along with the prisoners’ training sessions, producing a manuscript so dramatic it made Shakespearean tragedy look like light comedy—lots of betrayal, philosophical monologues about fate and justice, and pacing so indulgent it practically demanded applause between sentences.
Props and costumes had been sorted from the theater’s extensive collection, dusted off and mended where fabric had surrendered to time’s relentless assault.
Flyers advertising our grand opening had been distributed throughout the mid-section and inner circle using the printing press we’d discovered in the basement, each one designed with enough mysterious allure to make nobles curious and enough explicit warning about violence to keep away anyone with functional self-preservation instincts.
It was marketing at its finest—promise danger, deliver spectacle, and hope no one asks too many questions.
Llyod’s renovations for the theater’s interior were nearly complete, the space transforming from "charming ruin" to "legitimate establishment" with impressive speed.
The entire space had been reborn in sweeping, decadent grandeur, its architecture reshaped into something far more imposing and refined, with towering arches, intricate carvings, and opulent detailing that whispered of wealth and power, every surface elevated from crude functionality into a statement of deliberate, breathtaking excess.
The air itself seemed to settle into a new order, as though the building had awakened, shedding its former fragility and standing reborn as something deliberate, unyielding, and impossible to ignore.
All in all, everything was coming together beautifully. Suspiciously beautifully. The kind of success that made you glance over your shoulder, waiting for the inevitable collapse that should follow. Like watching a disaster hesitate at the edge of becoming real then awkwardly shuffle backward under the weight of sheer stubborn will and what I could only assume to be divine intervention from whatever gods hadn’t completely given up on us.
With a few minor exceptions, of course.
Because nothing in my life was ever allowed to proceed smoothly without at least one spectacular complication threatening to derail the entire operation.
The biggest problem had a name now—Hodor, which Grisha had somehow extracted from him after multiple beatings that I’d wisely chosen not to witness.
The Boss’s former right-hand man had proven himself spectacularly resistant to cooperation, fighting back at every opportunity with the kind of stubborn fury that would’ve been admirable if it wasn’t making my life significantly more difficult.
Whereas Orion—our other prisoner—remained calm, collected, and what I could only describe as genuinely excited about this opportunity to perform rather than die randomly in the Maw, Hodor treated every rehearsal like a personal insult worthy of violence.
I sighed as I stepped into the main theater through the double doors, the sound escaping my lungs with enough force to stir the nearby curtains into a soft, accusing flutter. The space was alive with activity, bodies moving with purposeful chaos across multiple zones of productivity.
On stage stood our two star prisoners under Nara and Willow’s direction, the contrast between them so stark it was almost comedic.
Orion stood at ease, posture relaxed but attentive, his ginger hair catching the stage lights and reflecting them back in warm copper tones. A faint, easy smile played across his lips as he listened to Nara’s instructions. The man looked as though he were having the time of his life, nodding along with genuine interest as she explained blocking and emotional delivery.
He leaned in slightly when he spoke, asking quiet, thoughtful questions that made people instinctively draw closer just to hear him—engaged, curious, and, disturbingly, enjoying himself.
And then there was Hodor.
He looked as though someone had told him his entire family died and then asked him to dance about it. His massive, scarred frame stood rigid with barely contained fury, tension coiled so tightly through his body it felt like the air around him might snap if stretched any further.
His fists were clenched at his sides with such force that even from across the theater I could see the whitening of his knuckles.
Every instruction Willow offered was met with open hostility. Not passive resistance. Not reluctant compliance. Hostility. His ruined face twisted into expressions that suggested he was actively, methodically cataloging each of us in order of who he would murder first when the opportunity presented itself—and refining that list with each passing second.
"No," he growled—again—for what had to be the fifteenth time in as many minutes, his voice cutting across the theater with all the subtlety of a falling brick through stained glass. "I’m not saying that line. It makes me sound weak. Pathetic. Like some sniveling coward begging for scraps."
Willow pinched the bridge of her nose with visible effort, her wine-dark skin flushed with frustration as she clung to composure by what appeared to be sheer force of will alone. I could practically hear the patience grinding against its limits, fraying thread by thread as she considered—very seriously, I suspected—whether directing him was worth the continued existence of her sanity.
"The line is ’Please, I only wanted to survive.’ That’s the character’s motivation. That’s what makes the audience sympathize with you before the turn in act two. If you don’t establish vulnerability, the transformation doesn’t land emotionally."
"I don’t care about emotions!" Hodor roared, the words exploding out of him with enough volume to rattle loose dust from the rafters, spittle catching the stage lights in an unfortunately dramatic spray. "I care about not looking like a fucking weakling in front of—"
"Then you’ll die looking strong in the Maw instead of living here performing," Nara cut in, her voice snapping through his protest like a blade through fabric. There was no heat in it—no anger, no raised volume—just the clean, lethal edge of someone whose patience had long since packed its bags and left a forwarding address.
Her bunny ears lay flat against her head, a visible barometer of her irritation, crimson eyes narrowed to slits that promised consequences without the courtesy of elaboration. "Your choice. Say the line or go back to random execution. We have other prisoners who’d love this opportunity."
____________________________________________________________________________________
Hodor’s jaw clenched and worked like he was chewing broken glass, rage grinding visibly against the cold, immovable reality of survival instinct. For a moment it looked like pride might win—that he’d spit defiance and damn the consequences—but then something shifted behind his eyes. Calculation. Fear. The quiet, humiliating realization that this wasn’t a negotiation.
"Please," he forced out at last, each word dragged into existence like it physically offended him. "I only wanted to survive." The line came flat, hollow, saturated with contempt so thick it poisoned the very sentiment it was supposed to convey. It wasn’t vulnerability. It was surrender wearing a mask of irritation.
Grisha stood off to the side watching the spectacle with her arms crossed, amber eyes tracking Hodor’s every movement with predatory focus that promised immediate violence if he stepped too far out of line.
Felix, meanwhile, had claimed a seat in the front row and was silently living his best life. He offered enthusiastic thumbs-ups when Orion landed an emotional beat, tiny, fervent fist pumps when Hodor managed to deliver a line without actively sabotaging it, and delicate little claps that somehow conveyed pure, unfiltered support.
The boy practically vibrated with vicarious excitement, wide eyes tracking every movement on stage as though he were witnessing the most captivating performance ever conceived. It was, frankly, adorable—and wildly out of place given the circumstances.
In the main aisle, Llyod stood surrounded by his construction crew, an island of pragmatic focus amid theatrical chaos. He gestured with his clipboard in brisk, efficient motions, explaining something about load-bearing supports and aesthetic consistency with the calm authority of a man who intended to impose order on this place whether it cooperated or not.
Every so often, his gaze flicked upward toward the stage, assessing not the performance, but the structure—the bones of the theater itself—as though calculating how much of it needed to be rebuilt to match whatever madness we were assembling inside it.
Sawdust clung to his brown hair in uneven pale patches, dusting it like some well-intentioned but poorly executed crown, while his rolled sleeves revealed forearms streaked with paint, plaster, and the honest residue of labor that had actually accomplished something.
He looked exhausted—thoroughly, deeply exhausted—but it was the good kind. The kind that settled into the bones after productive work, where every ache came with the quiet satisfaction of progress rather than the hollow drag of defeat.
I cleared my throat as I approached, the sound cutting cleanly through the ambient noise with just enough projection to announce my presence without resorting to theatrics.
Llyod whipped around immediately, his expression caught halfway between concentration and confusion, like his brain was still somewhere in the middle of calculating load-bearing stress before reality rudely yanked him back. He blinked at me once. Twice. And then his face broke into a genuine smile that was just a little too pleased with itself.
"I’m impressed with everything you’ve accomplished here," I said, stopping in front of him and letting my gaze sweep over the visible improvements. "The renovations are coming along beautifully—better than I’d hoped, honestly, and my hopes were already fairly ambitious given your reputation."
He practically preened at the praise, shoulders squaring and chest puffing out in that unconscious way people do when their work gets acknowledged.
"You’re too kind. Though I’ll admit, this project has been particularly satisfying. Working with existing historical architecture rather than building from scratch allows for creative problem-solving that new construction simply doesn’t offer." His hands came alive as he spoke, sketching shapes in the air, enthusiasm gaining momentum. "The Victorian era aesthetic I was going for presented some unique challenges—maintaining the ornate detailing while modernizing structural integrity required a careful balance between—"
He stopped.
Not gracefully. Not smoothly. Just—stopped, mid-thought, mid-gesture, like someone had reached into the conversation and snapped a thread he hadn’t realized he was standing on.
Because my expression had changed.
I hadn’t moved much. A slight pause. A subtle stillness. But it was enough. Llyod’s hands slowed, then stilled entirely, his enthusiasm bleeding out of the moment as he registered that something was off.
We stood there in mutual stillness for a few seconds while my brain caught up to what my ears had just processed. Victorian era. He’d said Victorian era. In a world that didn’t have Victorian anything because Queen Victoria had never existed here, the entire British Empire was a historical non-entity, and the specific architectural stylings associated with that period were completely absent from this reality’s design vocabulary.
Llyod’s composure began to crack at the edges. A faint sheen of sweat appeared along his hairline, catching the light as he swallowed, eyes flicking over my face like he was trying to read a language he suddenly didn’t understand. "What—uh—what’s wrong?" he asked, voice edged now with something uncertain. "Did I say something concerning? Because if the aesthetic choices are off, I can absolutely redesign the—"
"What do you mean by Victorian era?" I asked with deceptive casualness, tilting my head like I was simply curious about the terminology rather than having just stumbled onto something potentially enormous.
His face betrayed him immediately.
Color drained, then rushed back, then fled again in quick succession, a fascinating cycle of internal panic attempting—and failing—to disguise itself as composure. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again, clearly scrambling for an explanation that wouldn’t unravel whatever thread he’d just exposed.
"I—well—you see—it’s just a term I use for—for that particular style of—architectural ornamentation with—"
"What other projects have you worked on in the city?" I pressed, leaning forward with growing excitement. "The ones you’re most proud of. Your signature pieces."
Llyod hesitated, clearly debating how much to reveal. His gaze flickered, calculations firing behind his eyes as he weighed discretion against inevitability. For a moment, it looked like he might deflect, retreat, construct something vague and suitably unimpressive.
Instead, he sighed.
Not the sigh of a man inconvenienced, but the sigh of someone surrendering to a truth that had already decided to come out. "I designed the central hot springs," he admitted quietly. "Also... Oberen’s casino."
The world snapped into place.
I pointed at him with the sudden, feral triumph of a detective who had just connected the final, incriminating thread. "I knew it!" I shouted, the declaration cracking through the theater like a gunshot. "I fucking knew it! You’ve been reincarnated!"
Llyod’s eyes went wide. Not mildly surprised, not politely startled—wide
The entire theater grew still. Conversations died mid-sentence. Hammering ceased mid-swing. Even Hodor’s low, constant snarl faltered into silence as if the air itself had paused to listen. Every head turned.
Every eye locked onto us with varying degrees of confusion, curiosity, and the unmistakable sense that something deeply interesting had just detonated in the middle of an otherwise productive evening.
"Wait, what?" Willow’s voice cut across the space from the stage, sharp with disbelief. "Reincarnated? Llyod, is that true?"
He exhaled slowly, shoulders sinking as the last remnants of his carefully maintained secrecy collapsed like a poorly supported structure. Years of quiet concealment unraveled in the span of a few seconds, undone not by interrogation or force—but by pattern recognition and my complete lack of restraint.
"Yes," he admitted with quiet resignation. "I’m reincarnated. Died in my previous world and woke up here as an infant with all my memories intact." A pause. Then, with the faintest trace of exhausted bitterness. "Happy now?"
My mind immediately began cataloging information, organizing facts about reincarnation that I’d accumulated through careful observation and selective questioning over the years I’d been alive in this body.
Reincarnation was quite rare in this world—not unheard of entirely, but uncommon enough that most people went their entire lives without meeting someone who’d experienced it. The gods apparently had their reasons for occasionally stuffing souls from other realities into new bodies here, though what those reasons were remained frustratingly vague even to the reincarnated themselves.
The real importance of reincarnated individuals came from what they brought with them—knowledge from worlds with different technologies, philosophies, artistic traditions, scientific principles.
A reincarnated person with memories of advanced engineering could revolutionize construction. Someone with knowledge of Earth’s medical practices could save lives through techniques this world hadn’t discovered. The potential was enormous, which was exactly why most reincarnated people hid their true nature from everyone around them.
Because power attracted attention. Attention attracted exploitation. And being revealed as someone with knowledge from another world was the fastest way to end up locked in some noble’s laboratory being interrogated about every scrap of information you possessed until they’d wrung you dry and discarded the husk.
Better to blend in, use your knowledge subtly, claim any innovations as personal genius rather than imported memory.
Llyod was clearly processing similar thoughts because his eyes suddenly narrowed with dawning comprehension. "Wait. If you recognized those architectural styles..." His voice trailed off as realization settled across his features. "That means you’ve been reincarnated as well!"
I didn’t even try to contain it.
The joy hit like a detonation in my chest—bright, overwhelming, almost painful in its intensity—and I grinned so wide my face protested the effort. I actually bounced on my toes, a ridiculous, unfiltered reaction that I would have mocked mercilessly in anyone else, but which I embraced wholeheartedly in that moment.
"Yes! Gods, yes," I laughed, the sound spilling out of me with unrestrained relief. "I’ve had suspicions for days now—the way you designed things, certain phrases you used, the way you organized your crews using management techniques that felt distinctly modern—but this confirms it!" I grabbed his hands with both of mine, squeezing with excessive force. "Do you have any idea how lonely it’s been? Being the only person who remembers Earth? Having all these references and context that mean nothing to anyone else?"
Something softened in his face then, the guarded edge easing into something warmer—recognition, perhaps, or the quiet relief of finding oneself no longer alone in a room that had always felt slightly wrong. "How did you die?" The question came out gentle, curious without being intrusive.
I paused. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough that someone paying very close attention might notice the slight hitch in my breathing, the brief flicker behind my eyes. Then I forced a laugh that sounded almost natural.
"Hit by a truck," I said, waving it off with practiced ease. "Very cliché, I know. I was crossing the street, distracted by my phone, didn’t see the vehicle coming until it was too late. Woke up screaming in a crib with memories of being an adult crammed into an infant’s brain. Took months to adjust to the sheer wrongness of it all." The words came smoothly, almost too smoothly—polished into something presentable, something easy to accept.
Llyod’s expression suggested he didn’t quite believe me—there was something in his eyes that said he’d noticed that tiny pause, that fractional hesitation—but he graciously decided not to push.
"Construction accident for me," he explained with matter-of-fact acceptance. "Scaffolding collapsed while I was on the fifteenth floor of a building project. Fell fast enough that I barely had time to register what was happening before impact. Then darkness, then... this." He gestured vaguely at himself. "Spent my childhood being very careful not to demonstrate knowledge I shouldn’t possess. I nearly slipped a few times before I learned to self-censor."
And just like that, the distance between us collapsed.
We talked for hours.
Not cautiously, not awkwardly, but with the kind of effortless momentum that only came from finally speaking a language someone else understood without translation. We traded experiences—the disorienting horror of being mentally adult in a body that couldn’t even hold its own head up, the quiet frustration of watching people struggle through problems you already knew how to solve, the strange, lingering grief of losing a world that still felt more real than the one we now inhabited.
There was humor in it, too, threaded through the shared absurdity of it all—because if you didn’t laugh at it, you’d probably break.
The rest of the crew had long since returned to their work or departed entirely by the time we finally wound down, the theater growing dark around us in their wake.
Tomorrow would be the grand start of our play, the moment everything we’d built toward would either succeed spectacularly or collapse in equally spectacular fashion.
But tonight—just for these few stolen hours—I had someone who understood what it meant to be caught between worlds, carrying memories of a home that existed only in our heads.