I'm in Love with the Villainess!

Chapter 270: Reminiscing

The archmage leaned forward.

Not casually this time. Not with the relaxed boredom of a man who had seen everything and found most of it lacking. His blind eyes tracked the changes in Evelina’s appearance with an intensity that made the air in the room grow heavy again.

Her white hair darkened to a deep chestnut brown, the color spreading from the roots like ink bleeding into water. Her crimson eyes shifted too, the red fading to a warm amber that held none of the succubus’s predatory gleam.

Even her features softened. The sharp, aristocratic lines of Evelina D’Arclight gave way to something rounder, more approachable.

Trish.

"You’re different," the archmage observed.

"I’m the same," Trish said, and her voice was different, too. Lighter, less guarded. Despite also being an assassin like me. Trish was still surprisingly soft. "This is just... a different face."

"Different?"

"I was Trish before I was Evelina, or maybe Evelina before I was both. It’s hard to explain." She touched her cheek, her fingers tracing the curve of her jaw. "Just think of it as another soul."

The archmage was silent for a long moment. His cane rested across his knees, both hands folded over it, and his expression had gone completely unreadable.

"Two souls," he finally said, taking her words far more seriously than expected. "From another world. Housed in the body of the most dangerous family alive."

Most dangerous family alive? Didn’t think the name D’Arclight would even still mean something in a place like this.

"That’s... one way to put it," I said. "But technically, three souls."

"Three...?" The archmage laughed, then just brushed it over. "Same world?"

"Does it matter?"

He tilted his head, and for a moment, I thought he might strike me for the impertinence. But then he smiled, thin and sharp.

"Perhaps not. But the mechanics of it interest me. Soul transference across planar boundaries is supposed to be impossible. Well, I’m paraphrasing, more like I didn’t even know the existence of another world until you two came along."

"You didn’t think they’d be one?"

"Maybe a few centuries ago, sure." He tapped his cane against the floor. "I’ve spent years studying the nature of existence. The flow of magic. The architecture of reality. And yet, here you sit, confirming a theory I long since abandoned."

"Strange world, huh?" Trish said. "You have infinite time in your hands. I think building a death trap of a library should be the last choice you could have made."

The archmage’s smile widened.

"Even I don’t have the patience for that."

Trish’s hand found mine again, her fingers warm and solid. Her transformation was complete now, the last traces of Evelina’s white hair fading into brown. She looked smaller like this, but no less dangerous.

"So," the archmage said, settling back in his chair.

"You’ve entertained me," he said. "Genuinely. That hasn’t happened in... decades, at least. Possibly longer. I lose track."

"Does that mean we live?" Trish asked, her amber eyes narrowed.

"It means I won’t kill you. Different thing entirely." He gestured with his cane toward the far wall, where a door was already beginning to materialize, wooden, ordinary, utterly out of place in this room of pillars and thrones. "That will take you to the next trial. The real one. No more fake gatekeepers or painted illusions."

"More trees?" I asked dryly.

"No trees." He almost smiled. "Something worse."

"Comforting."

"I’m not here to comfort you, boy. I’m here to be entertained. And you’ve promised me more of that, whether you meant to or not."

He tapped his cane one final time, and the pressure vanished entirely. The air lightened. The colors in the room seemed to breathe again, gold veins in the broken throne flickering like candle flames.

"Go," he said. "Your friends are waiting. And do try to survive. It would be such a waste if you died now."

I wanted to ask what he meant by that. What waste? What did we matter to an immortal archmage who saw people as entertainment?

Don’t tell me he actually liked us. If so... I would’ve definitely loved to make use of that. Entertainment in exchange for power, but...

I’m definitely being too optimistic.

"Let’s go, Cael."

Trish was already pulling me toward the door, her grip urgent, and I could feel it too, the sense that his patience, however expansive, had limits.

We reached the door, and I pushed it open.

Beyond, a corridor stretched into darkness, the walls lined with bookshelves that reached up into the shadows. Not a hostile forest, nor a painted garden. Just a hallway, old and dusty, smelling of paper and something else.

It looked like the library’s central chamber before we even entered the trials.

"Thank you?" I said, looking back.

But the throne room was already gone.

Behind us, only a plain corridor remained, stretching back into darkness as far as I could see. The archmage, his chairs, his pillars, his broken thrones, all vanished like a dream upon waking.

Trish’s hand tightened on mine. She hadn’t shifted back to Evelina yet, her brown hair still falling across her face, her amber eyes still soft.

"Cael," she said quietly.

"I know."

"We can’t trust him."

"I know."

"He let us go because he’s curious. Not because he’s kind."

"I know."

She looked at me, and some of the tension in her shoulders eased. "You say ’I know’ a lot."

"I know."

A laugh escaped her. Reluctant and almost surprised.

"Y’know, why haven’t you transformed back yet?" I asked.

"To be honest, I don’t know myself. Guess my other me just wanted this form to take control for now."

We started walking down the corridor, our footsteps echoing softly against the stone floor. The bookshelves on either side were filled with volumes that seemed to shift and move in the corner of my eye, their spines rearranging themselves when I wasn’t looking.

"You’re the same person, can’t you ask yourself?"

"Fine... I guess Evelina just wanted me to experience this. Give me some time to hang out with you, for old time’s sake."

"Really? She isn’t jealous?"

"Cael, I’m still Evelina, you idiot. I wouldn’t get jealous over myself."

"Right..."