"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair," Rana murmured, half in jest, as she leaned against the cool stone of the window frame.

The line from the fairy tale had once been a bitter joke. In the previous loop, it was the story that inspired her father to lock her in this magic tower, following the attack at the cottage. However, it wound up being the best thing that ever occurred to her. Thus, in this loop, she had urged to be placed here herself, and her father, predictably overjoyed by the excuse, had wasted no time in purchasing the tower and relocating her here.

Her gaze stretched outward, past the thick glass and into the endless forest. From the thirtieth floor, the world looked deceptively serene: a sea of green treetops with fluttering birds under the early summer breeze, with an endless blue arching sky above.

The tower provided her with a full circle of windows, with pines in the north, cypress in the south, parasponia in the west, and an abundance of fruit trees in the east. But ultimately, no matter which direction she turned, the view was forest, forest, and more forest. Not a single other building or human contraption in sight.

The revolution in Laupia might have been tearing cities apart, but here in the mountains—at the heart of an extinct volcano—the world remained calamity-free. Magic wards and veils of protection, too ancient to comprehend, still hummed faintly through the stone, having been layered by powerful mages, long gone. However, even that was not enough for her father. He further reinforced the walls with his own magic wards and then stationed the usual guards at the base of the mountain and around the tower for good measure.

It was, she admitted, one of the most secure prisons in existence for a prince to attempt breaking her out of.

Rana smiled wistfully.

The tower was an ideal retreat: remote, beautiful, and stocked with every piece of equipment she could need to advance her training in Morphomancy. Here, surrounded by silence and endless forest, she could experiment without interruption.

And yet, the isolation pressed in.

Rana sighed, lowering her head.

"I suppose I brought this upon myself," she murmured.

The freedom to practice her craft was welcome. The change in scenery as well. But Rana hadn't anticipated how quickly the absence of human conversation would gnaw at her. The lack of anyone—anyone at all—to talk with was an unexpected and massive drawback.

Her eyes drifted to one of the guards circling the base of the tower below. The guards obeyed her requests to fetch supplies or dig up plants, but beyond that, they acted as if she didn't exist. There was no small talk. That, too, was her father's order.

He could have at least hired men who were easier on the eyes.

Instead, they all looked like they'd been carved from the same sack of russet potatoes. She suspected the choice was intentional.

With a resigned sigh, Rana turned toward the worktable cluttered with her current "companions": two dozen potted plants she'd had the guards dig up from the surrounding mountainside. Their leaves swayed faintly in the draft from the window.

"I only have you lot to talk to," she said, stepping closer.

Her gaze flicked to the tall, ornate mirror leaning against a stone wall, and she moved toward it. "Any longer like this, and I'll end up like that crazy cat prince…"

The words left her lips more easily than she liked to admit. It had become a habit to talk aloud to herself. Silence had stretched too far and pressed too heavily. And she desperately wanted to hear someone talking. Even if it was herself. Moreover, if she didn't speak aloud, she feared she'd lose the ability to form words altogether.

Maybe Chase will show up unprompted again?

The hopeful thought crossed her mind before she urgently scratched it out, having walked over to the mirror and had a chance to take in her current appearance properly.

Absolutely not. Not right now. No way.

A week of solitude had dissolved what little vanity she had to her. Without the social pressures of interacting with at least the village children, she had entirely abandoned concerns about her personal appearance. And she cared not what the guards thought of her. Her curly hair was several days unwashed and bundled up into a messy bun. Her last bath had been the previous morning, and she already felt sticky. But Rana lacked enough of an incentive to do anything about it.

She sniffed one armpit and grimaced.

"Could be worse," she muttered. "Still… I shouldn't let myself rot away like this. If I get used to this, there'll be no going back to society."

"Ughhhh." Rolling her neck, she addressed the plants again with mock gravity. "Next loop, I'm staying in the village. For my social skills and sanity, if nothing else."

Knock. Knock.

Rana's body froze, and a buzz rang in her ears. Her hair stood on end, as her eyes flung to the plants whose appearance she had modified far beyond what was found in nature, through the use of the cellular manipulation of Morphomancy.

Panic jolted through her.

"One moment!" she shrieked, dashing forward.

Dad is early! Why is he here?

She began shoving the most incriminating of the two dozen pots behind the nearest shelf, her heart pounding out of her chest. There was the little fern whose leaves had sprouted tufts of white fur. A sulfur flower with translucent yellow petals that pulsed faintly like an old light stone. A cactus that had grown thin, fingernail-like tendrils to replace its thorns. Even the lupine that once looked normal now had three dozen tiny, blinking eyes scattered across its purple vertical petals.

Lotus rot! I should have prepared for this situation.

"Don't come in!" she called, her voice cracking.

She pounced from one end of the room to the other, dirt spilling over her white sandals as she tucked the plants out of sight.

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The table was another problem. Soil smudges everywhere, glass vials half-filled with glowing green liquid, scalpels and needles scattered about like surgical tools.

No, that's simple enough to explain away. Gardening. Tea-making. And ointment mixing.

Rana was sure she'd craft an appropriate excuse if a question came up.

"To the pits of Duat…" she muttered under her breath.

Rana noticed her reflection again and the unfortunate state of her appearance. There was little to be done now, but she yanked out her messy bun and retied it, making the knot at least look intentional.

Then she lunged at a peppermint and basil plant and tore off a handful of leaves. She crushed them between her palms and then rubbed them briskly under her arms. It wasn't remotely as effective as a bath, but at least the sharp scent helped mask the self-neglect.

"Sorry to keep you—"

Rana's mouth hung open in shock; the words got stuck in her throat.

Standing in the doorway was not her father.

It was a stranger. A young man, tall, slender, and handsome. His black hair was styled, his white silk shirt crisp, golden cufflinks glinting in the afternoon light.

Another prince?

"Ah, hello. Rana, right?" he said with a smile that extended to his golden eyes. "My name is Luca. I'm a fellow Awakened and came to pay my greetings. I apologize for the unexpected visit—"

Slam!

Rana instinctively slammed the door on his face.

"Lotus rot! Sekhmet's fury!" Rana hissed in a hushed voice, pressing both palms to her cheeks.

Heat rushed to her skin, and her thoughts spiraled into chaos. Every swear and curse her father had ever muttered in her presence stormed through her head in rapid succession.

Her gaze shifted back to her reflection with ever harsher critique.

If her hair was passable—hardly presentable, but at least bound into some semblance of a bun—her clothes were utterly damning. A dirt-streaked green tunic hung off her shoulders, stained with brown smudges and the faint smear of sap. Her linen trousers, once white, were splotched in orange. In the worst of locations. This was her most battered uniform, worn precisely because she didn't care if it caught more soil or potion-spatter. Comfortable, practical… and entirely unfit for this.

Her father seeing her like this was one thing. He expected her to be elbow-deep in plants and soil in her so-called gardening hobby.

But a stranger? A handsome stranger? An Awakened one who would remember her regardless of the loop?

Rana groaned again, pressing a dirty palm to her forehead.

"Why now?" she muttered under her breath. "Why today? Why not tomorrow, when I might have washed my hair, bathed, and not smelled like salad dressing?"

But of course, the one time someone showed up at her tower door, she looked like she'd been dragged through Duat backwards.

Her hands curled into fists at her sides, pride warring with mortification.

But then, her brows furrowed.

Tower door?

Her pulse quickened as realization struck. This young man wasn't just at her door. He was standing inside the tower. On the thirtieth floor. No alarms triggered. No guards stirred. Not a single protective ward had so much as hummed.

Her head cooled enough that her thoughts moved toward the more practical issues at hand.

Chase Daylan had pulled off something similar at the cottage, yes. But even he would have struggled breaching the layered protections of this magic tower.

Rana propped the door open again, her eyes narrowing on Luca, who still stood where she'd left him.

"You," she said, her tone cool now, edged with suspicion. "How did you get in here?"

Luca lifted the basket in his hands, a smile still on his face despite having a door slammed in his face. "How about we chat over tea? Apart from the tea leaves, I brought cookies from a famous bakery in Genise."

Rana eyed him. He was certainly suspicious, but whatever the smell was wafting from the basket had her enchanted and practically salivating.

"Very well, but you came at an inopportune time. I need to get changed," Rana explained, keeping the door closed enough so that he wouldn't have been able to catch sight of her disheveled appearance again. "Meet me two floors down from here. I utilize that room as the kitchen and dining area."

Luca nodded.

"Of course. It was rude of me to barge in unannounced. Please do not rush, I'll wait for you there," Luca bowed his head and turned around to head down the staircase.

Once Rana was certain that Luca had made the two necessary rounds about the stairs, she darted out herself to get to the floor below, to wash up and get changed.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

~Master, what is with that strange smile? You've had it ever since you met Rana Sol.

[[ Have I really? ]]

I set the basket down and settled into one of the chairs at a mosaic-tiled table by the west-facing window. The sun had dipped past the forested rim of the extinct volcano, filling the room with a twilight-like relaxing light.

[[ Well, it's something you'd be smiling regarding too. ]]

The room itself bore the marks of age and new habitation alike. A tall bookcase pressed against one of the curved stone walls, its middle shelves crammed with freshly stacked tomes while the dust-dulled upper tiers lay forgotten. A rusting iron cauldron slouched by the hearth, cold and forgotten, while a shiny new kettle and a mismatched tower of cups suggested more recent use. Potted plants clustered every available windowsill—half cooking herbs and spices, half oddities that I couldn't quite pinpoint.

The room was cozy, but it felt less like a well-tended residence and more like a long-forgotten space abruptly reoccupied. Which is what it ultimately was.

I ran my fingers across the intricate mosaic art of the table; a single tree bearing the fruit of several varieties.

[[ We may have just found someone who can help with the children—the ones the Alchemist mutated. ]]

~That girl? Apophis hissed into my mind, his emotions evidently mixed.

I nodded, recalling the text that had appeared above Rana's head.

[ Rana Sol is a Morphomancer, Level 3 ]

The Random Character Checker had rolled to completion when the door abruptly closed on my face. While a little startling, her abrupt disappearance gave me enough time to ask the System what a Morphomancer was. I had recognized the word, having a faint recollection of seeing it in the intro to magic book at Lisa's, but I hadn't read that section.

[ Morphomancy is the magical discipline of altering living forms at the cellular level. Early stages allow healing and reshaping, while higher mastery enables correcting mutations or even redesigning life entirely. Practitioners are called Morphomancers, sometimes also referred to as Cellular Shapers or Fleshweavers. ]

The word 'Fleshweaver' had caught my attention foremost. It was The Alchemist's specialty.

[[ She's a Morphomancer. ]]

I told Apophis, lifting the kettle from its hook and filling it with water. The sound echoed against the curved stone walls.

[[ She's only a Level 3, but since she's an Awakened, she should progress quickly. ]]

~So the daughter of that damned bastard learned the treacherous craft of that wretched woman. How appropriate.

I smiled at his venomous reaction.

[[ Perhaps Rana is better morally aligned than her. Besides, whatever your feelings regarding her father, Rana is our best chance of undoing the mutations. ]]

~And if she proves just as twisted?

The kettle clinked atop the heating mana stone, and I scattered loose black leaves into a clean glass teapot I found.

[[ Then my training in Chaos will have come in handy. ]]

I replied, but I really did not wish for the pendulum to swing in that direction. The Alchemist was already a mana bomb I preferred to avoid until I could find a way to diffuse her. Another unfriendly Morphomancer, Awakened no less, was the last thing I needed to go up against.

The kettle whistled, shrill in the silence. I poured the boiling water over the tea leaves, and the sharp scent of tea filled my nostrils. Setting two cups down on the mosaic table, I unwrapped the Ashford cookies onto a platter, the potent scent of their buttery sweetness released into the air.

~So that's what was in the basket, Apophis hissed from my left shoulder.

[[ A gesture of goodwill. ]]

I arranged the platter at the center of the table and eased into the chair as the fading light painted the room in pale gold.

Knowing what I now knew about Rana, making a good impression and forming an alliance was not merely a nice-to-have, but of the utmost importance.

I'm glad I had prepared this much to meet with her.

My eyes drifted to the stairwell.

But how long is she going to take? The tea will turn bitter if she takes too long.

~And how exactly do you plan to navigate the issue of her father?

I didn't answer. That was a puzzle I hoped to solve after I gauged Rana herself.

Instead, I stood up, reaching for the kettle to prepare a fresh pot—when a sharp buzz suddenly filled the walls of the magic tower. A bang sounded from somewhere below.

Apophis's coils tightened on my shoulder.

~Master… we may not be the only ones who have come to seek her audience.

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