Fold. Cut. Fold. Press. Fold. Cut. Fold. Press. Fold. Cut. Fold. Crease. Press.

My labyrinth of Pendell needed to be bigger. Better. I could feel it with every twitch of my fingers and every hum of mana that threaded through the paper. Everyone else had their jobs for preparing against the encroachment of the Blue Ballet. Mine was simple, though no less consuming: build a city that could break invaders before they even realized they were lost.

Fold. Cut. Fold. Press. Crease. Fold. Crease. Press.

[Paper and Pencells] meshed with me in a way nothing else had—except [Lunarias]. Where other cubes sat in my arsenal like borrowed tools, these two fit like extensions of my hands. Paper bent at the flick of my will, lines carved into it breathing with potential. Ink and fold, stroke and cut—Pendell grew with every motion, alive, terrible, and mine.

Pendell needed to be bigger. It needed to be darker. The rot of flies. The wet buzzing of their wings. Faces stitched from wings and carapaces, mocking and whispering. A thousand assailants forming and dissolving like nightmares made flesh.

Ink. Inchor. Rot.

Fold. Cut. Press. Crease. Dot. Dot. Dot. Line.

I sat hunched over the table, shaping streets and alleys, creating corners where the air would feel too thick, where shadows would crawl even in light. I crafted cul-de-sacs that led nowhere but despair, windows that were really mouths, and doorways that wept mildew and ash. It wasn't enough to make the city dangerous—it had to teach. Every corridor I folded was a lesson in paranoia. Every alley a reminder that Pendell itself was alive, and it hated you.

Behind me, I could hear the others training. Wallace's shield rang as Ten struck it, her weighted chains sparking against the barrier. Sven muttered incantations, triplicating projectiles before dismissing them with a grunt. V played with salt, his detonations little crackles of thunder in the courtyard. Cordelia and Fractal debated mana flow, their words sharp, heated, yet useful. Everyone refined themselves. And I? I refined the world we'd fight in.

Pendell wasn't just a labyrinth. It was my blade. My shield. My testament.

I folded a marketplace. Not a welcoming one, but a market of silence: stalls draped in torn paper skins, vendors with faceless heads, goods that whispered hunger. Anyone who lingered there too long would hear their own name bartered away. Then I carved a chapel, its spire leaning at an impossible angle, bells that tolled in reverse, prayers etched backward across its walls. Each step away from it would feel like falling deeper.

Fold. Press. Crease.

A clocktower rose next, its gears jagged, hands stuttering forward in uneven spasms. Not just a landmark, but a judge. I bound it to time itself—every hour chime closing certain paths, opening others. No one inside would escape without obeying the clock's rhythm. A battlefield is nothing without pressure.

Pendell would teach pressure.

Still, I tempered it. Cordelia's voice haunted my thoughts: Don't make it so cruel they forget how to move. So I left narrow veins of safety. An alley that always circled back to the entrance, if you knew to count lampposts. A door painted red that never lied. An abandoned fountain that gave clean water when approached with silence. Small mercies. Few, but present.

The rest? All rot. All hunger.

Basarioel, my bird, shifted in his satchel at my feet, feathers brushing the wool lining. He chirped in his sleep, and I stilled my hand. For a heartbeat I wondered if Pendell could ever be a home, or if it would always remain a graveyard dressed as a city. My instincts told me both. Perhaps that was enough.

Fold. Cut. Fold. Press.

By the time I leaned back, the table was littered with scraps of inked paper. The air smelled faintly of mildew and copper. The labyrinth pulsed inside me, eager, waiting to be walked. Pendell was ready to grow again, ready to swallow the next intruder whole.

Fold. Crease. Dot. Line.

"Hey! Alex! They made a Glossy of your duel with that Mastiff guy!"

Fallias's voice cut across the steady rhythm of my fingers.

Fold. Cut. Fold. Press.

I stilled. The cube of paper in my hands pulsed faintly, a miniature labyrinth already smeared in ink and shadow. A half-born section of Pendell trembled in my grip like a wounded animal, eager to become but not yet alive. It was the rot I burned and folded again and again, a repetition of hunger and decay.

But larger. Always larger. Always hungrier.

I placed the cube aside with deliberate care.

"I take it you want to watch, Fally?" I asked, brushing stray flecks of black paper from my sleeve.

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She hesitated. A sharp breath, then a squeal — barely restrained, almost embarrassed. "Fally? Uhh… yeah. I do."

The name had slipped from me without thought. Fally.

"Then ask Cordelia to prepare me tea," I said. "And the maids to prepare snacks. We can sit together on the lounge sofa."

Her smile was audible even through the wall between us. A quick shuffle of footsteps retreated, light and eager.

I exhaled and let my shoulders slump.

Pendell could wait. The Blue Ballet would not strike today, and even if they did, the labyrinth was not a single night's work. It was a living city that grew only as I did. For now, Fallias had carved a crack in my discipline, and perhaps—perhaps—I wanted to see what she'd done with it.

By the time I entered the lounge, the lights had been drawn lower. The hearth crackled with fresh kindling, warm shadows painting the room in amber and gold. Fallias was already there, perched on the edge of the velvet sofa like a bird too excited to fold its wings. Her hair caught the firelight, her fingers clutching the Glossy cube to her chest as if it were treasure.

The maids had worked quickly. A low table was set with porcelain cups, steam curling from the pot Cordelia must have coaxed into perfect bitterness. The plate of snacks balanced elegance with excess—sugared nuts, spiced wafers, honey-drizzled fruit, even little paper-thin pastries that crumbled at the touch.

"You came!" she chirped, patting the space beside her.

I sat. The cushions yielded beneath me, softer than the wooden chair I had spent hours hunched upon. For a moment, the hum of Pendell quieted in the back of my mind.

Fallias rolled the Glossy cube between her hands, then glanced at me with bright eyes. "You're really okay with watching yourself fight?"

"I prefer the truth of the blade to the truth of an audience," I said. "But… yes."

She grinned and tapped the cube. It unfurled into air, refracting light until the lounge filled with the duel's echo.

There I was, standing across from Karhile. his body a wall of muscle scarred by old wars. The Glossy caught every bead of sweat on his forehead, every twitch in my fingers as I adjusted my stance. The memory reeked of iron and dust.

Fallias leaned closer, her shoulder brushing mine. "You looked so small compared to him."

I arched an eyebrow. "That is meant as a compliment?"

"No, it's meant as truth," she teased. "Small. But sharp."

Onscreen—or perhaps above us, shimmering in the Glossy's projection—I lunged. Paper blades flared from my hands, white and black sheets folding midair into jagged edges. Mastiff roared, his hammer cracking stone tiles, sparks leaping like furious fireflies.

Fallias gasped at every strike, her hand inching toward mine on the sofa's cushion. She didn't quite touch me. Not yet.

"You didn't even flinch," she whispered. "Look—when he swung there? That would've crushed your ribs if you were even half a step off."

"I measured him," I said simply.

Her laugh was a nervous flutter. "You're terrifying when you say things like that."

I turned my gaze from the Glossy to her, studying her profile. Firelight softened the line of her cheek, the curve of her lips. She caught me looking and quickly tilted back to the projection, ears flushed.

Onscreen, Mastiff stumbled. Paper wrapped around his legs, twisting into chains that bit like teeth. I pressed my attack. The Glossy shimmered with my own face—cold, focused, utterly unlike the warmth of the lounge.

Fallias held her breath as Mastiff fell. Then the duel ended, and silence reclaimed the room.

The Glossy dimmed. Only the fire remained.

Fallias released a long sigh. "You were brilliant."

"I was efficient."

"Efficiently brilliant," she insisted, eyes sparkling.

I reached for the teapot. Cordelia's blend filled the room with dark fragrance, astringent yet grounding. I poured us both cups, the steam painting faint swirls in the low light. Fallias accepted hers carefully, cradling it in both hands.

"Alex…" She hesitated, staring into the liquid surface. "Do you ever… like watching yourself? Not just fighting, I mean. Seeing how others see you?"

"No." The word was blunt, but honest. "I live in the doing. The watching is for others."

She smiled faintly. "Then let me be the one who watches."

I blinked. She took a sip of tea, her gaze flicking up to meet mine over the rim of her cup. For a heartbeat, I felt something shift.

The night lingered. We spoke of little things—her studies, the way Cordelia always oversteeped tea unless I asked, the odd expressions Sven made when he thought no one watched him prepare spells. Fallias laughed often, her voice a relief against the heavy silence that usually clung to me.

Somewhere between sugared nuts and the second cup of tea, her hand finally brushed mine. A light touch, tentative, as if testing whether I would fold away like paper.

I didn't.

Her fingers lingered, then rested fully against mine. Warm. Steady.

"I… like being here with you," she said softly.

Pendell stirred faintly in my chest, as though the city disapproved of this distraction. But I silenced it. The Blue Ballet would come soon enough. Tonight, I allowed myself the weakness—or perhaps the strength—of company.

"You called me Fally earlier," she murmured.

Heat pricked my ears again. "Slip of the tongue."

She giggled. "Then slip more often."

I couldn't help the faint smile tugging at my lips.

Later, when the fire had burned lower and the maids had long since withdrawn, we sat in the hush of embers. Fallias leaned lightly against my shoulder, the Glossy cube forgotten on the table.

"You know," she whispered, half-asleep, "Pendell's always watching you. But I want to, too."

I glanced at her, at the way her eyes fluttered shut, her breathing steady. Carefully, I shifted the blanket from the sofa's back over her shoulders. She murmured something, curled closer, and slipped into dreams.

I remained awake. Watching the last ember fall. Watching her.

Fold. Cut. Press. Crease.

Even in silence, the rhythm endured. But tonight, it was not Pendell I shaped. Tonight, it was something smaller, softer, and infinitely harder to build.

What was the easiest to build, was the courage to place my lips into hers, letting our tongues dance just like the ballroom.

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