They walked up a cobblestone path and arrived at a house by a tree larger in size and whose branches extended imposingly over it and even managed to hide it. Only a few rays of sunlight shone on its wooden roof.

"Are we staying here?" Theo asked as they climbed the steps and approached the gallery.

"Until I solve a few things. It won't take long." He raised an eyebrow. "Stay behind me," he said and knocked on the door.

There was no noise coming from inside the house, so when the door suddenly opened and a big, white dog jumped out, Theo stepped back frightened. All along the muzzle and under the eyes, the animal had golden, symmetrical marks that lit up as it pounced on Hayden, who hunched to stroke the beast. Standing in the doorway and with his hand still resting on the doorknob, a middle-aged man greeted them with surprised eyes.

"Hayden," he said, looking at him from head to toe. "What are you doing here?" His interrogative tone was mixed with confusion and the trembling in his voice evidenced a certain joy, which was overshadowed by the fearful glow in his eyes.

"We are just passing by," he smiled gloomily and gave the dog one last stroke before letting it go. "I need your help."

The beast approached Theo with its head lowered like it was sniffing something in the air, and the boy, who had leaned against the railing, watched the scene without moving a muscle. Although he had never been afraid of dogs, that one, in particular, whether because of his alarming resemblance to a wild animal or because of his sparkling golden eyes, kept Theo to the edge of the railing. The dog stopped in front of him and started to growl.

"Rivel!" The man raised his voice and stepped out the house with the help of a brown cane in his left hand.

The animal stopped barking but it did not take his eyes off him, and for several seconds Theo could almost feel as if it was examining him. The man was about to place his hand on the dog's head when the light that the marks on its face were emitting extinguished, including the glow of his eyes. His hand remained up in the air without touching it even after the animal had turned around and returned to the house. The man looked up at Theo with a furrowed brow and looked at him with curiosity.

"Professor?" said Hayden, to whom the man replied instantly with a smile.

"Forgive me, please go inside," he extended his arm.

Theo followed Hayden down the corridor to what looked like the kitchen of the house, trying to wet the wooden floor as little as possible. Behind him, the man appeared with two towels in his hand and Hayden rushed to help him out and handed one to Theo.

"I don't think we've met before. My name is Oswin," he held out his hand to the boy.

"Theo," he shook his hand.

Oswin moved one of the chairs on the round table in the middle of the room and sat down.

"May I know what happened to you?" he said and pointed to the other chairs.

Theo waited for Hayden to sit down first before doing so, and wrapped himself in the towel.

"We..." he hesitated at first, looking for the right words. "We were intercepted on the way," he tilted his head as if he was waiting for a reprimand.

Oswin leaned over the table and sought Hayden's eyes.

"I didn't know that you were the one who would come," he said sternly, and after the silence that followed, he went on talking, sounding more restless than angry. "I told you to stay away from these things. What if they find out?"

"They won't," Hayden said without losing seriousness. "Even if they do, I highly doubt that they will do anything about it. They'd have to catch me first," he smiled halfway.

"You don't know what," he seemed to premeditate his words, "he's capable of doing," Oswin replied, his eyes meeting Theo's. Oswin softened his voice. "Sorry, did you have breakfast? I can make you something." He tried to stand up.

"I'll do it," Hayden stood up instead, leaving the towel half folded over the chair and taking two cups out from the cabinet. "Is coffee okay for you?" he said with an exhausted expression on his face.

"Yeah." Theo tapped his fingers awkwardly on the table and looked at the place without daring to fix his eyes on anything. "May I go to the bathroom?"

The man gave him a polite smile and the tension in the room was slightly eased when he spoke with the gentle tone of voice he had used at the beginning.

"Yes, of course." Oswin signaled to the corridor. "Go up the stairs. It's on the second floor, the door at the end of the hall."

Theo got up, feeling out of place, and turned around in the hallway to get to the stairs. As he went up, the stairs creaked under his weight. On the second floor, while walking down the corridor, he couldn't help noticing the pictures hanging close to the bathroom door. On one of them, there was a colorful drawing, which seemed to have been made by a small child, of a house and two people. The other picture showed a photo of a girl dressed in a black graduation gown holding a paper in her hand and hugging a younger version of Oswin in a suit. They both had their brightest smiles on their faces.

After leaving the bathroom, Theo walked down the stairs and followed the voices coming from a nearby room.

"And you accepted?" he heard Oswin's hoarse voice.

"I have to do it," he emphasized the first word. "I want to do it," said Hayden.

"They increased forces in the Central, did you know?" Oswin paused. "Does it have something to do with you? With that boy? God, he shouldn't even be here."

Hayden didn't answer and Oswin sighed heavily.

"Is there any way you can get out of this?" he said. "This is not a game. These people don't fuck around, Hayden. They won't think twice before killing you."

“It's already settled.”

Theo continued to walk when he heard the creaking of the floorboards getting closer to the room's door. As he passed in front of it, Hayden opened the door and barely turned his head when he saw him.

"I'll get you your coffee," he said and left without giving Theo any time to answer, leaving him standing in front of the door frame.

"Can you help me with something?" Oswin spoke to him from inside the room.

Theo looked at him startled.

"Sure," he uttered.

Oswin sat behind the desk and next to a huge bookshelf full of dark books of different sizes. The boy went across the room and dodged several piles of papers and textbooks to get to where Oswin was.

"Thanks," he put his cane against the furniture. "I've had a cramp in my leg since this morning," he said.

"Oh," exclaimed Theo. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, it happens from time to time. But I've been having a hard time staying on my feet for a long time, can you get a book for me? It's the big black one," he pointed to a section of the bookcase. Theo examined with his eyes the immense number of books on the shelves. "It's on the fifth shelf."

When he found it, Theo stood on his toes, stretched his arm, and grabbed the book with difficulty. In his hands, it weighed more than he thought it would. The cover of the book was made of pitch-black leather, and the book had metal decorations on each corner. On the cover, he noticed that "Svelar du Verstk" was written in silver letters that glowed with a faint, almost imperceptible white light. He gave the enigmatic object to Oswin, who stared at the book and then at him, with a blank expression on his face.

"You have plenty of books," Theo said in an attempt to fill the awkward silence. He wandered around the library reading the titles, or at least those he could understand, on the spines of the books: "Soulspells," "Vindicator Codex," "History of the Worlds". Theo touched the letters engraved in the book with his fingertips. "Have you read them all?"

"Mhmm, I used most of them for my classes," Oswin placed the book on his desk. "They stopped accumulating a while ago, though," he adjusted his rimless glasses on the bridge of his nose and looked down at the book. "Many of them are most certainly the last copies that survived the fire."

Theo raised his eyebrows and turned his body to Oswin, who then closed the book after marking a page. Before Theo could inquire about what he had just mentioned, Hayden burst into the room with a steaming red cup in his hand.

"Here you are," he held out the coffee, which Theo grabbed with the hand that wasn't holding the towel over his shoulders.

Oswin looked at Theo for a moment without saying anything and then turned his gaze to Hayden.

"I'm really curious about something," Oswin said in a deep, soothing voice, taking off his glasses and setting them aside. "I want to know the real reason why he's here."

"What?" Hayden frowned.

"I don't understand why you would bring him with you on this mission, knowing very well what the stakes are," Oswin folded his arms. "I don't see why you need him."

Theo didn't dare to take a sip of the coffee he was holding tightly in his right hand. Seeing that Hayden was not answering, he took a small step forward to get into the conversation.

"It was actually me who forced him to take me with him," he said unsure of where to look.

Oswin laid his green eyes on him, interested.

"Is that the only reason?" he directed the question to Hayden, raising an eyebrow. The silence was prolonged. "You told me he was human," he stood up gracefully. "But I think that's far from the truth. And you know that, don't you?"