"What's wrong?" Voltara asked, her brown eyes looking over me and trying to understand why I had suddenly folded and slumped down onto my desk.

A searing bolt of pain shot through my body akin to being electrocuted by lightning, as I forced out just a single word out of my trembling lips. "...Rozaline."

The dracolich-gaze-forged construct danced around my soul, wrapping itself around me like an inescapable cage. The vile curse embedded itself into me, its tentacles digging deeper, entwining themselves into every fiber of my being.

My maid moved closer to me, her voice full of worry and concern.

"My lady?" she whispered. "Are you in pain?"

"D... drr.. drr..." I tried to say the word dragon, tried to point my finger at the monstrous skeleton hanging from the ceiling of the lecture hall and discovered that I could not. The curse within my soul was self aware. It was monitoring me, not letting me speak about its undead master.

I screamed inside my head. More invisible threads sprung from the ghostly curse, binding me tighter in an attempt to crush my resistance.

Instructor Rozaline shot me another villainous smile. She knew what was happening to me, had created this entire scenario, set me up to fail.

I gritted my teeth.

I gave up, let go, fully lost control of my body and outer parts of my soul.

Everything that still resisted the curse, fought against the binding converged into JP, became a soul-shard, a dangerous astral phantom armed with two-dimensional Endy-blades.

In horror I realized that there was nothing I could do to free myself. I wasn't fast or good enough. The binding curse of the dracolich was too clever, too potent, impossible to carve out of myself without tearing my body and soul apart.

The longer I waited and struggled, the more the ancient beast anchored itself into Grogtilda's body and buried its agent into my soul.

There was nothing and nobody who could aid me.

Nemmy's ward was six thousand years old, however if Rozaline's story was true then the bones of the dragon were one hundred million years old. Nemendias student protection ward was not absolute, could not save me against the arcane curse of the dracolich!

A choice had to be made, a decision, a way to escape had to be found.

The curse cast by the undead abomination was so potent because the dracolich identified me, defined everything that I was on surface level. The curse it cast had instantaneously integrated, synchronized with, buried itself deep into my soul.

Because of how well crafted the curse was, I couldn't even see where the dragolich-construct began and where my own soul ended.

I pulled power from all of my Infinite Mirrors, dedicated all of my mental resources to solving the horrid mire I found myself sinking into deeper and deeper with every passing second.

What could I do? How could I...

[Adaptation, change, evolution,] a shadow whispered in the back of my mind.

Yes!

I had to become someone, something else entirely, had to change rapidly enough for for the curse to be unable to adapt itself to me.

Something peeled itself from the surface of one of the Infinite Mirrors, a shadow etched into the depths of my memories by the atomic detonation of the falling yellow comet made from a billion gold stars.

A distinctive, most not-me memory of my oldest, cleverest soul arose out of ashes and dust, became a burning spark of change. I let it take control of me, let the cold, rational mind of the ghost of the pharmacist from Harbin guide me to a solution.

Leon knew exactly what to do. I knew exactly what to do.

I was not a single entity, was not a single person, not a single soul, not a single Astral Phantom!

[Segmentation. Fractal math. Division. Multitude. Flight. Re-convergence,] the imprint of Leon Uyara whispered his plan to me.

I let the pharmacist's ghost take control of me, to become me, to order every fraction of my soul, to command me like an Admiral would command a fleet.

The soul-shard armed with limitless-blades that struggled against the binding curse drew deeper in and then suddenly broke into a two separate Astral Phantoms.

As the binding threads of the curse tried to grab at them, the soul shards broken into four shards, then came apart into smaller and smaller segments until I was no longer me, but a flock, an endlessly dividing self, a stream of ghostly consciousness as thin as water.

The threads of the curse grabbed at nothing as my soul came apart into a cloud of dust. Each soul-particle rushed to a separate, open Infinite Mirror gate, escaping, leaving Grogtilda's body and bound parts of my soul behind.

Unlike my infinitely dividing self, the curse could not cross through the Infinite Mirrors, could not divide itself nor follow me. Ancient and powerful though he was, the dracolich did not understand fractal mathematics, could not comprehend what I was doing. Its agent could not follow where I was going.

For an indeterminate amount of time I was nothing, had no mind to speak of.

All of me was just an idea, a persistent mathematical pattern with a single goal - to cross through the mirrors and to arrive elsewhere, away from the hex, in another place and time across the event horizon, past the Dead Zone boundary, where nothing could reach me.

. . .

Everything in the universe, all organic and inorganic things follow mathematical patterns. Patterns of flocks of starlings mathematically behave akin to magnetized metal particles. The Mandelbrot Set is a fractal that infinitely folds into itself forever. The Lichtenburg figure is a mathematical pattern occurring in neurons of the human mind, veins, rivers, tree roots, leaves and electrical currents. The Koch star is a fractal found in snowflakes, a pattern that contains infinite length, because the total length of the curve increases by a factor of 4/3 with each iteration starting with a single equilateral triangle.

To escape from the binding hex, I had become a mathematical pattern, a function, a mere mechanic, an idea that was dividing so rapidly that I could not be caught.

What was I? ...What am I?

[Convergence, catalyst, awakening. Function activation.]

I yelped loudly and I flailed my slender arms and tumbled out of bed with a new, impossible comprehension of self, tangling up in white bed-sheets.

My face slammed into the wooden floor. A very distinctive wooden floor that I didn't remember and also remembered.

Who am I?

I looked around in bewilderment.

The last thing I recalled as Leon was talking to my AGI Eva and and a gargantuan, yellow comet vaporizing Harbin and my boiling me alive.

The last thing I recalled as Juni was screaming mentally as the curse of the dracolich struck me in Nemendias.

The last thing I recalled as Yulia was me going to sleep in Pavel's embrace after a long, silly conversation about ghosts of the Paris catacombs.

The last thing I recalled as Alexa was sitting in Atomic Cafe and crying as I read the truth about villains and heroes.

The last thing I recalled was scalding Charles Snippy for being an idiot. Snippies should not break the rules of Captania and wander in naughty places by themselves!

What? What was that last one?!

My head started to hurt as arrays of memories collided with memories in a jumble of confusion, producing a difficult to untangle, mental ball of yarn.

Who was I?

I looked down at myself. I was wearing a thin, frilly, white shirt. My arms were pale, skinny and my body was distinctively female.

"Yulia?" A male voice resounded from above me.

I lifted my head and stared at Pavel's scruffy face. Right. I shook my head, mentally pushing away the incomprehensible gibberish and multitude of distinctive thoughts and memories and ideas.

"My name is Yulia Ishenko and I'm twenty nine," I muttered to myself, focusing my personality back together. "I'm an urbexer and youtuber. I make weapons and armor in my garage and love my motorbike. My grandfather's name is Vladislav Kerenski and when he died he left me this cottage..."

"What are you mumbling down there? Come back to bed," Pavel commented.

I looked around the cottage, raising my head like a curious owl. I recalled information about items around me as I spotted them. Things all around me had belonged to my grandfather. I had refused to change anything within this rustic interior, because I was trying to keep the spirit of the man who raised me alive even after his passing.

A red, Soviet banner hung from the wall proclaiming glory to the proletariat. It was covered in my grandfather's medals, the biggest one being "Liquidator", given to Dr. Kerenski in 1986 for helping with Chernobyl cleanup.

An old, tiny TV was sitting in the corner, its antennae bent sideways. Virology diplomas filled one of the walls of the cottage proclaiming numerous achievements and accolades of late Dr. Kerenski.

Moonlight spilled from the windows. The old stone and wood house creaked and breathed in the night. Cicadas buzzed outside.

My things were here too.

The orange, glowing numbers of the Nixie Tube Clock that I had built in university declared that it was 4:04 in the morning.

Home... this was MY home. I was back home!

"Hrrmmmm?" Pavel muttered, trying to hug the spot where I had been sleeping moments before.

"Did you have a nightmare? Why are you on the floor?" he asked, opening his eyes fully to discover that I was now sitting on the floor and staring up at him like a deer caught in headlights.

"Yes... no... maybe?" I said. Did my voice really sound like that? How peculiar.

"Go back to bed," he mumbled.

"Beds are for sleepy people," I said, staring at my skinny arm, opening and closing my fingers. "I don't think that I'm sleepy anymore. I might not even be a person..."

"What are you on about? It's bloody four in the morning," he grumbled, looking irate. "Come back to bed."

"I think that I'm a Wizard Pavel," I raised my hand up.

"You're a friggin' what?!" Pavel squinted at me.

I picturing the compressor in my mind's eye, reached the [Limitless Compressor] thread within my soul. How close was my Earth to the Dead Zone boundary? Did I have enough in me to do magic? Could I pull magic through my Infinite Mirrors to bend the universe here as Yulia Ishenko...

Air suddenly gathered above my fingers with a whoosh. In another second the compressed air bubble detonated with a powerful blast, rattling the windows.

"What the devil?!" Pavel gasped, jumping backwards and nearly tumbling out of bed himself.

The ringing sound of the air-explosion buzzed in my ears.

"He he he," I cackled. "Magic!"

"God damn it, Yulia! Stop screwing around! What was that? Did you just ignite a firecracker? I knew that you are a bit of a lunatic, but this is ridiculous!" Pavel glared at me, rubbing his face in irritation.

"Silence mortal," I giddily intoned with a grin as I stood up. "I will not be lectured by a mundane. You shall bow before my arcane powers and weep!"

My best friend sighed, looking exasperated. He clearly didn't take me seriously.

I mentally went over the hexagrams that I knew as Juni.

I pointed my finger at Pavel's face and pictured the fairly simple hex for "light" that I had been playing around with since I purchased my two armaci from Antoine's shop.

I pushed the threads of my soul above my finger into the shape of the [light hex].

A brilliant fractal of flickering, colorful light ignited above my index finger.

"Bwah?!" Pavel covered his blue eyes.

I poured more power into the light hex and my body and excited face became lit. A radiant, shimmering rainbow made from impossible, small auroras danced around the colorful light hanging over my finger.

"WHAT?!" He stared at my hand.

"Bwa ha ha ha ha," I laughed pointing my finger at Pavel. "I told you I'm a wizard, didn't I? Did you not believe me? Behold! I have created light!"

The magic light dancing over my finger cast bizarre, violet, blue and red shadows around the cottage,

"No, come on... that can't be real," Pavel cautiously approached the brilliant fractal woven from unnatural light that pulsed atop of my hand.

He tried to grab at it and his fingers went through the pulsing light-snowflake.

"Oh it's quite real, I assure you," I said smugly. "Is your mind blown yet? Because mine is!"

"Erm, but... argh," Pavel outputted as he unsuccessfully tried to grab the magical light again. "How?!"

"Yeah, that's right. That's what you get for doubting my story," I said. "Although I'm half-doubting it myself in a way. I'm like more than ten different people, some of them dead. This is probably as uncanny as it gets."

"So magic... is real," Pavel said, staring at my face. "I'm not just dreaming. This is happening. This is real... holy shit."

"Oh it's quite real, I assure you," I nodded with a grin.

"What... do we do about it?" He inquired, glancing at the light hovering over my finger.

"Honestly? I don't have a clue," I shrugged as I sat into my grandfather's rocking chair carved from driftwood. The snowflake in my fingers changed colors and became even brighter as I adjusted its radiance. "It's been a few weeks since I've had the dream about Juni in Chernobyl and I sort of stopped believing it myself, although now I realize that I really, REALLY should not have."

"Right. I thought the whole thing was just a manic episode," Pavel nodded. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the glowing snowflake in my hand in fascination.

I made the light hex dance between my fingers wiggling it with one of my soul-threads and suddenly realized that what I was doing was incredibly stupid if there were hungry Astral Phantoms around.

"Shit," I extinguished the snowflake, bathing the room in darkness.

"What?" Pavel asked.

I instinctively found the lamp chord and clicked the light on. The old lamp bathed the interior of the cottage in a soft, yellow glow.

"Magic is dangerous to do without anti-phantom armor," I said with a sigh. "I could get my soul eaten."

"That sounds... inconvenient," Pavel commented.

"Mm-hmmm," I nodded. "I'm going to take a peek into the astral and see if I've attracted attention... because if I did, it could be a problem."

I ignited my eyes from within the magic and stared at the world with still-walker sight. My mouth fell open in shock from what I saw.