Chapter 173: Lysandra’s illusion

They were trying to take him by the collar and drag him out of the room and into some other place, the sky above the tower, or the sea below the cliff, or a closet at the bottom of the world.

The pull reached the edge of a pale light that had spread across the floor around his boots, and it stopped.

The seams flickered. Then they collapsed one by one, as if somebody had pressed a hand over a flame, and Sorin staggered back with his mouth open.

However, Guardian’s dominion was still active, and no matter how much they tried, none of their attacks could ever reach him.

’And still, this isn’t guardian’s dominion at its fully capacity, hehe.’ Leon laughed within himself.

He could make the dome a lot stronger and wider than this, but since he didn’t plan on going all out in this fight, he simply used it at its minimum capacity.

"It will not take him," Sorin whispered. His thin face was streaked with sweat. "I cannot move him. I cannot move anything that is inside that light."

"Then keep the folds tight!" Garrick Dole said sharply. "Do not let him walk out of the box, and do not hurry. Hurrying is how Maelis fell."

The old man had not moved from the edge of his crater. He stood with both hands on the head of his cracked cane, and he did not put a single ounce of weight on anything.

He only watched, and Leon could see that he was counting the steps that his people took, and the distance that they kept from the green metal, like a man crossing very thin ice.

Vesper lifted one hand, and every shadow in the room leaned toward Leon.

The black tide that had pulled back to her feet surged forward again and poured over the floor, up the broken walls and across the folded layers of the room.

It swallowed the light as water swallows a candle, and the chamber went dim. Leon’s own shadow, which lay under his boots in the bowl of broken stone, bulged and swelled and stood up by itself.

A pair of long black hands rose out of it and closed around his ankles, and they were as cold as a grave.

"Hold him!" Vesper called, in a voice that echoed from three places at once.

The hands closed, and they squeezed.

Then they went limp. They ran like ink from his boots and sank back into the floor, and Vesper blinked.

She lifted her hand again, and the shadow rose again, and again it touched the edge of the pale light and fell apart.

"Why," she said hoarsely. "Why will it not hold? Shadows hold everything. They have always held everything."

"Lysandra," Garrick said, without lifting his eyes from the boy. "Now."

Behind the pale veil, Lysandra drew a long breath, and she lifted the cloth.

Her eyes were white. They were perfectly white, like the eyes of a statue, and as soon as Leon looked into them, their surroundings disappeared.

He was standing in the same room, but the light had changed. The glass dome overhead was whole again, and it had turned a deep, quiet blue.

The broken table lay in splinters at his feet. There was no sound. The ten S-ranks stood in a loose ring around the center of the floor, and none of them were hurt.

Seraphine had her coat on and her red hair long. Ilsa held her braid in one hand. Maelis was perfectly dry, and his hair was standing up as usual, and he looked as though he were about to say something clever.

Nobody was looking at Leon.

They were looking down at the floor. Slowly, as if the movement hurt, Leon followed their eyes.

A boy lay on the white stone in the middle of the ring. He was lying on his back, with one arm stretched out and a fallen pillar across his chest, and his eyes were open and fixed on the ceiling. His jacket was torn.

His face was calm, and it was the face that Leon saw in the mirror every morning.

"It is done," Garrick Dole said softly. "It took longer than I expected."

"He fought well," said Haldor.

"He did."

"Poor fool," Bram murmured. "To come here, of all places."

’Leon,’ said a voice that sounded very far away.

He did not answer. He stood looking down at the body. A cold feeling spread slowly from the base of his spine, and he found that he could not move his feet.

"You are dead, Leon Allistar," said a soft voice at his ear. It was Lysandra’s voice, and it was kind, and it came from everywhere at once.

"It was quick. You did not feel it. There is no need to fight any longer. Lie down beside yourself and rest."

’Leon.’ It was closer now, and sharper. ’Leon, that is not real. Listen to me. She has found a thread in your mind, and she is pulling on it. Pull back.’

He looked at the dead boy’s face for a long moment.

It was a very good copy. It had the same nose and the same mouth, and it had the same tired shadows under the eyes. But something was wrong with it, and he took a moment to understand what it was.

’Feel your heartbeat,’ Medusa said.

He did.

It was slow and strong and steady, and it was beating in his chest at that moment, quite loudly, as it had been for as long as he could remember.

"A dead man does not hear that," Leon said aloud.

The ring of S-ranks flickered.

"It is a lie," he said. "It is a very good lie, and it was kindly told. But a man who is dead does not stand over his own body and argue with the person who killed him." He closed his eyes. "Medusa."

’Gladly.’

The gaze of the Gorgon opened inside the Aegis, and the world turned to glass.

The blue light cracked from the floor to the rafters. The ring of S-ranks shattered into a thousand silver pieces.