Chapter 57: Trapped Between Two Seals!

The footsteps echoed layer upon layer down the sloped passage, the stone walls amplifying every step to double, even triple its volume. Cecil walked slightly toward the rear of the group, Gwendolyn perched on his shoulder, her blue eyes glinting faintly in the rune‑lamps lining the tunnel walls. Ahead, Vera led Lena; Martha and Eamon walked side‑by‑side, while Victor took point at the very front.

Freddy, Lydia, Oliver, Edwin and Leon followed in succession. The eleven of them filled the sloped corridor completely, their boot soles scraping and crunching against the flagstones in a dense, steady rhythm.

Halfway down the ramp, Gwendolyn’s tail suddenly stiffened.

"Stop," she said.

Cecil halted instantly. The people ahead froze one after another, like pieces on a board hit by pause. Vera spun around, her amber eyes narrowing in the dim light. Victor, at the front, also came to a standstill. His dark‑purple bat poked half its head out from inside his collar, the silver veins on its wing membranes brightening noticeably.

"What’s wrong?" Cecil whispered.

Gwendolyn jumped down from his shoulder onto the stone floor of the ramp. Her four paws pressed against the flagstones as her blue gaze fixed on the wall around the bend ahead. The rune‑lamps on the wall still burned, yet their colour had shifted — the original warm‑white glow had faded into a faint, barely perceptible dark‑red tint. The difference was nearly impossible to spot without close inspection.

"Someone is altering the passage," Gwendolyn said. "From the outside. New commands have been layered over the original runes."

Cecil knelt beside her. "What does that mean?"

"It means this ramp was meant to lead through as intended, but someone has reset the runes at the exit end. If we keep going, we won’t emerge in the old archive. We will be diverted somewhere else entirely."

Vera walked forward and knelt beside Gwendolyn, studying the wall‑mounted runes. "Can you undo it?"

Gwendolyn did not answer right away. She stretched out a forepaw and touched the dark‑red overlay on the wall, her claw tip scraping lightly across the rune surface. A small patch of the crimson sheen peeled away, revealing the original blue‑and‑white patterns beneath. Yet within seconds, the dark‑red layer sealed the gap shut again.

"The overlay repairs itself automatically," Gwendolyn withdrew her paw. "Someone outside the exit is feeding constant magic to sustain it. I cannot reverse it, unless‑‑"

"Unless what?"

"Unless I can locate the source of the overlay and cut it off at its root. And that source is on the other side of the exit."

Cecil stood and glanced at Vera. She met his eyes, her amber irises glinting with the sharp light of rapid calculation.

"It could be Church agents," Vera said. "Flint mentioned they arrived two days ago. If they found the old archive and discovered the teleportation gate, they would likely set a trap on the outside."

"It might also be Flint herself," Victor strode back, crossing his arms and leaning against the stone wall. "When she gave us that list, she said someone would wait for us after dark. It is not yet night. She has no reason to tamper with the passage."

Eamon stepped forward from the back. Silver‑Eye rested on his shoulder, the grey hawk’s pale‑gold eyes fixed on the dark‑red coating on the wall. "Whoever did it, we cannot go forward. If people are waiting for us on the other side, stepping out would be walking straight into a trap."

Cecil fell silent for several seconds. He knelt, pressing his right hand flat against the ramp floor. Cold seeped out from his palm, spreading through the stone cracks toward the exit. When the chill reached the source of the overlay, it met resistance. The dark‑red magic ran hotter than his frost‑infused power. The two forces clashed briefly inside the stone, before his cold was pushed back.

"The source is three to five paces beyond the exit," Cecil stated. "Someone is standing there, channeling magic non‑stop."

"How many?" Vera asked.

"I cannot tell for certain. At least one."

Lydia pushed through to the front, Ivy coiled tight around her wrist, the serpent’s emerald body tensed. "If it is only one person, we can fight our way out."

"What if there are more?" Freddy countered. "If Church knights have set up a defensive line in the old archive, charging out will get us killed."

Vera paused for a heartbeat, then spoke in a calm, resolute tone. "Fall back. Return to the Trial Grounds. We will plan our next move carefully."

Cecil shot her a look. "If we retreat, the fragment mechanism inside the Trial Grounds is still active. The fragments were redistributed after we escaped. Going back could trigger a new round of matching."

"Let it trigger," Vera said. "Better that than walking into an ambush at the exit."

Cecil weighed the options, then nodded. He stood and waved a hand toward the rear. "Turn around. Back to the Trial Grounds."

The eleven figures wheeled about and marched back up the sloped passage. Gwendolyn leaped back onto Cecil’s shoulder, her tail draped over his collar. After roughly twenty paces, the archway at the far end came into view. Yet it was no longer as they had left it. All the rune‑lamps along the arch’s edge had gone dark. The wave‑like shimmer at its centre had turned opaque and deep‑red, like a solid sealed wall.

Cecil halted before the arch. Gwendolyn jumped down to the floor, her blue eyes locked onto the crimson barrier.

"It’s sealed shut," she said. "From the inside. Someone on the Trial Grounds side has locked the exit from within."

Vera came to stand beside Cecil. "Is there still someone inside the Trial Grounds?"

"If there is, they are the ones who remained behind," Victor replied. "When we left, roughly seven or eight people were still in the arena. They could be participants in the new matching round."

"Why would they seal the gate?" Freddy asked.

No one spoke aloud. Yet an answer took shape in Cecil’s mind: the Trial Grounds rules allowed fragments to be seized. If those inside knew Cecil held the dark‑red fragment — the key to opening the Labyrinth’s lower depths — they had sealed the exit to trap the fragment inside.

"We are trapped in the middle," Eamon said. His voice stayed steady, yet carried a heavier edge than usual. "The exit ahead has been altered. The entrance behind us is locked. This ramp is a dead‑end."

A hush fell over the sloped tunnel. The wall‑mounted rune‑lamps flickered, stretching and shrinking everyone’s shadows across the stone.

Cecil stood before the crimson barrier and pressed his right hand against its surface. Frost seeped out from his palm, coating the barrier in a thin layer of white rime. The frost was dispelled by the dark‑red magic within seconds, but Cecil could feel the barrier’s true nature: it was not solid stone, but a compressed magical shield. Its strength depended entirely on the magic of whoever sustained it. Should that power run dry, the barrier would dissipate on its own.

"This shield is not permanent," Cecil said. "It is draining the caster’s magic. If we wait, it will weaken."

"How long will that take?" Freddy asked.

"I don’t know. Perhaps half an hour, or longer."

Vera leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "We cannot afford to wait. If Church forces have located the old archive, they will send men to seal this ramp as well. Then we will have no escape at all."

Victor stepped forward. His dark‑purple bat perched on his shoulder, his deep‑brown eyes fixed on the crimson barrier. "I have a plan," he said. "But I need all of you to cooperate."

Cecil looked at him.

Victor tapped the wing membrane of his bat. "My bat swarm can emit high‑frequency sonic pulses. Focused on a single point, they can shatter magical barriers. But sound cannot travel through open air — it would scatter against the shield. We need a solid medium pressed directly against the barrier to conduct the vibrations inside."

"What medium?"

Victor’s gaze settled on Gwendolyn. "Ice. The denser the ice, the better the transmission."

Gwendolyn crouched at Cecil’s feet, blue eyes fixed on Victor, her tail swaying slowly. She gave neither consent nor refusal.

Cecil glanced down at her. Gwendolyn tilted her head upward, their eyes meeting for a heartbeat. "I can form a block of high‑density ice against this barrier. But your bat must fire its pulse the exact instant the ice touches it. Even half‑a‑second’s delay will ruin it."

"I will coordinate the timing," Cecil said.

He knelt before the arch and pressed his hand against the barrier, drawing forth frost. Gwendolyn hopped up onto his lap, her forepaws resting atop his hand. Two streams of frost‑magic — his and hers — surged forth together, coalescing on the barrier surface into a palm‑sized block of ice. Its hue ran deep, nearly navy‑blue, dense and mirror‑smooth.

"Now!" Cecil shouted.

Victor’s bat launched itself from his shoulder. The dark‑purple silhouette hovered for a split second in mid‑air before releasing a sharp, nearly inaudible pulse. The sound travelled through the air and struck the ice block dead‑on. The ice vibrated, channeling the sonic force straight into the barrier.

Cracks spider‑webbed across the crimson surface, radiating outward from the point of contact like shattered thin ice. A second pulse struck moments later, widening the fissures by half. After the third pulse, a fist‑sized hole tore open at the barrier’s centre, its edges crumbling away.

Light spilled through the opening — the familiar warm‑white glow of the old archive.

Cecil scraped the ice block free from the rim of the hole; it crumbled to fine shards in his palm. He squeezed through the gap, his shoulder brushing the broken barrier, and landed on the flagstones of the old archive. The rest of the group filed out one after another. Victor’s bat flew out last, folding its dark‑purple wings and settling back on his shoulder inside the dim archive.

Cecil stood in the heart of the old archive, surrounded by toppled bookshelves and mould‑ridden volumes scattered across the floor. Moonlight streamed through a high broken window, casting silvery patterns across the stone. Yet along the edges of those patterns lay fresh prints: muddy boot marks, leading in from the archive’s side door, stopping roughly five paces from the teleportation gate they had just emerged from.

Someone had been here. More than one person.

Gwendolyn crouched on the floor at Cecil’s feet, her tail rigid. Her blue eyes locked onto the trail of footprints, her nostrils flaring faintly.

"Church men," she said. "Leather boots with iron‑stud soles. Standard issue for Church inspection knights."

Cecil’s gaze followed the prints toward the half‑open side door. Flickering torchlight shimmered in the corridor beyond.

"They haven’t left," Vera stood beside him, her voice lowered to a whisper only their group could hear. "They likely left men posted outside to watch."

Cecil nodded. He glanced back at the eleven‑strong group crammed inside the archive. Every spirit‑beast stayed perfectly still, not a single sound escaping. Lena cupped her butterflies in her palms. Freddy clamped a hand over Turner’s muzzle. Ivy lay motionless wrapped around Lydia’s wrist. Oliver’s Robin folded its wings tight. Edwin’s rust‑beetle shrank deep into the collar of his jacket.

"We go through the back," Cecil whispered. "There is a crack in the archive’s rear wall leading to the old storage warehouse outside. That is the first address on Flint’s list."

Vera gave him a sharp look. "Are you certain that path is not blocked?"

"I cannot be sure," Cecil admitted. "But it is better than charging straight out the front."

He bent down and lifted Gwendolyn onto his shoulder. Her cool presence pressed steady against the side of his neck. He took the first step toward the archive’s rear wall, and the ten others followed, their footsteps muffled to near‑silence, like shadows moving through the night.

The crack in the back wall was narrower than Cecil remembered, fresh chipped stone littering its edges. He squeezed through, his shoulder scraping rough rock, while Gwendolyn leaped across to wait for him on the other side. He landed on the dirt floor of the old warehouse. Moonlight poured through a hole in the warehouse roof, painting an irregular silvery circle across the ground.

All eleven people squeezed through the breach. Cecil stood in the centre of the warehouse, listening to sounds from outside: distant footsteps, sparse but unmistakable. Torchlight flickered through gaps in the warehouse side‑windows.

Gwendolyn sat on his shoulder, tail resting on his collar. Her voice was soft. "The North."

Cecil nodded. He pushed open the warehouse’s rear door. Cold night air rushed in. Moonlight bathed the woodland behind the academy, the trees standing denser and darker than they appeared by day. A faint trail wound northward, vanishing deep within the treeline.

"Move out," Cecil said.

The eleven of them vanished into the forest. Their footsteps were swallowed by soft fallen leaves and decaying humus, leaving only quiet breathing and the faint rustle of clothing. Cecil led the way, Gwendolyn perched on his shoulder, her pale‑blue‑and‑white scales glinting under moonlight like an unextinguished small lantern.

The ten others followed close behind. The trail curved north, the forest thickening on either side. The distant silhouette of the academy faded behind the treetops, until it vanished completely from sight.