Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 1063: Testing the locked door

If asking Lucavion to open the door produced nothing, perhaps she only needed to knock.

Elara kept that thought to herself as they descended the final steps toward the western gallery.

Lucavion had already returned to something resembling his usual rhythm. His hands rested inside his coat pockets, his shoulders had loosened, and the faint irritation that surfaced during her questions had disappeared beneath an easier expression. Anyone passing them now would have found little remarkable about him.

That alone told Elara enough to abandon the interrogation.

He had given her what he could.

Or what he believed he could.

The distinction remained important.

Direct questions forced Lucavion to search deliberately, and deliberate searching appeared to produce little besides uncertainty. Selenne had achieved more precisely because she had never asked him to remember anything. She had placed principles before him, altered the language when he failed, and continued until some part of his understanding responded.

Perhaps Elara could do the same.

She glanced toward him.

”During the examination, Selenne asked you about auxiliary sequences.”

Lucavion’s eyes shifted toward her.

”I had hoped we were leaving my academic humiliation behind.”

”We are.”

”That sounds promising.”

”I only want to check something.”

”That sounds considerably worse.”

Elara ignored him.

They entered the western gallery, where the late sunlight had begun withdrawing from the windows. Long shadows reached across the floor from the stone pillars, while beyond the glass several students continued formation drills despite the approaching evening. Their instructor paced beside them with a wooden staff resting across one shoulder, occasionally striking the ground when someone allowed a spear point to wander out of alignment.

Elara slowed near one of the windows.

”What does an auxiliary sequence do?”

Lucavion gave her a look.

”We already covered this.”

”Selenne covered it.”

”And I disappointed her.”

”Repeatedly.”

”Then perhaps we should preserve tradition.”

Elara folded her arms.

Lucavion watched her for several seconds before surrendering with a quiet sigh.

”It lets part of the spell continue while the caster focuses somewhere else.”

”That is the purpose.”

”Yes.”

”What does the sequence preserve?”

His mouth opened.

Then closed.

The answer stalled.

Elara watched the change without reacting.

Lucavion looked toward the courtyard, where two students shifted their formation around a third. His fingers moved inside his pocket, though the fabric concealed most of the gesture.

”I don’t know.”

She had expected that.

This time, instead of pressing him for the missing mechanism, Elara approached the principle itself.

”A spell normally depends upon the caster maintaining its instructions. The more relationships you handle directly, the more attention each one consumes.”

Lucavion nodded faintly.

”If your attention shifts completely,” she continued, ”an unsupported instruction begins to degrade. An auxiliary sequence allows a limited command to remain active while your focus moves elsewhere.”

His brow tightened.

Elara chose her next words carefully.

”It does not rebuild the spell. It does not think for the caster. The sequence simply preserves the...”

”Instruction.”

Lucavion spoke before she finished.

Elara stopped.

For a moment, the sounds beyond the gallery seemed strangely distant.

Lucavion had stopped as well.

His expression changed slowly, amusement fading as his gaze settled somewhere between Elara and the floor.

”What did you say?” she asked.

”The instruction.”

”I heard you.”

”That makes the question unnecessary.”

”Elaborate.”

His eyes lifted toward hers.

Elara could already see resistance gathering, so she softened the demand before he could retreat behind it.

”You answered before I finished the explanation.”

Lucavion looked away.

His right hand emerged from his pocket.

The movement appeared casual at first. Then his thumb pressed lightly against the side of his index finger.

Once.

His fingers separated.

The thumb returned.

Elara’s attention sharpened.

He seemed unaware of it.

”What are you doing?”

Lucavion glanced down.

His hand stilled.

”Standing.”

”With your fingers.”

He examined them as though she had drawn his attention toward someone else’s hand.

”Apparently moving them.”

Elara resisted the urge to step closer.

The gesture resembled what she had seen inside the examination hall, though only faintly. There, his fingers had closed around empty space while Selenne questioned him. Here, the movement had been smaller, little more than thumb and finger seeking a position that carried no obvious purpose.

Perhaps it meant nothing.

Perhaps she had begun staring at every twitch because she wanted the contradiction to become something larger.

She kept her voice even.

”Did you remember the answer?”

Lucavion’s brow drew together.

”I heard your explanation.”

”I had not finished it.”

”You made the conclusion obvious.”

”That is possible.”

He looked at her then, apparently surprised by the concession.

Elara continued before he could comment.

”So say the rest.”

”The rest?”

”What happens when the caster moves their attention?”

Lucavion’s gaze returned to the windows.

”The instruction remains.”

”For how long?”

”That depends on the sequence.”

Elara’s eyes narrowed.

Lucavion noticed.

”What?”

”That answer was better.”

”A dangerous development.”

”You failed to explain the mechanism to Selenne.”

”And now you explained it.”

”Partially.”

”That may be enough for someone of my limited scholarly talents.”

His smile returned, though the humor did little to erase the slight tension around his eyes.

Elara studied him.

She could force another question.

She could name a secondary principle, change one piece, or ask him to explain why the command degraded.

That would be tempting.

It would also ruin the usefulness of what had just happened.

One response meant very little.

If she pushed until Lucavion understood what she was testing, everything afterward would become contaminated by expectation. He would begin watching himself. He might unconsciously manufacture familiarity where none existed or suppress a genuine reaction simply because he disliked being observed.

She needed repetition under cleaner conditions.

Lucavion tilted his head.

”You are looking at me like I have become a particularly suspicious equation.”

”You would be easier if you were.”

”I am wounded.”

”You recover quickly.”

”So I have been told.”

They resumed walking.

Elara allowed the subject to rest for several moments, although her thoughts continued assembling possibilities behind the conversation.

He could have inferred the word.

The explanation had strongly pointed toward it.

Selenne had also used similar language during the examination, which meant Lucavion might simply have recalled something from several hours earlier.

Either explanation was reasonable.

Then there was the hand.

Elara glanced toward his pocket.

The movement bothered her because it had arrived before Lucavion seemed aware of it. Yet she possessed too little evidence to assign meaning.

That was precisely why she needed more.

A single principle could lie.

Patterns were harder.

”You said earlier that the commoner students knew more terminology than you because they paid attention,” Elara said.

Lucavion gave her a sidelong glance. ”I believe you said that.”

”You objected to my comparison.”

”With good reason.”

Elara acknowledged that with a small incline of her head.

Her earlier assumption had been careless. Mireilla, Caeden, Toven, Elayne, and the other common entrants hardly represented ordinary education. They had survived the selection required to enter the Imperial Academy. Using them as evidence for what every provincial child should know had revealed more about Elara’s upbringing than theirs.

”You were right about that,” she said.

Lucavion nearly missed a step.

Elara looked at him.

His eyebrows had risen.

”What?”

”I was appreciating the moment.”

”Do not become accustomed to it.”

”I would never disrespect its rarity.”

She ignored the smile that followed.

”Still, that only changes the comparison. It doesn’t make your foundation coherent.”

Lucavion’s expression eased.

”I never claimed it was.”

That answer landed differently now.

Elara thought again of House Thorne.

A minor military house would hardly train its children like Tower scholars, yet noble education still carried expectations. Lucavion should have learned enough cultivation theory to understand his own Art, enough formal language to communicate with instructors, and enough foundational magic to recognize what another practitioner was doing around him.

Whatever House Thorne had taught him, the result should have possessed a shape.

His knowledge did not.

One subject collapsed beneath a basic term while another survived several layers deeper than expected.

Elara remembered the western library at House Valoria. Lucavion seated beside the window. The same book still open when she passed again much later.

She had never cared what he was studying.

That ignorance frustrated her now.

Perhaps the volume had contained magical theory.

Perhaps military doctrine.

Perhaps estate ledgers so dull that stubbornness alone had trapped him there.

The subject mattered less than what she remembered about him.

He had remained.

The younger Lucavion had possessed patience for things he found difficult.

The present one treated academic ignorance like another opportunity for a joke.

Something had changed between those two images.

How much of that change belonged to memory remained impossible to tell.

Lucavion glanced toward her.

”You are doing that again.”

”Thinking?”

”Quietly judging me.”

”I can judge you aloud if you prefer.”

”I appreciate the offer.”

Elara’s lips curved faintly.

She let the amusement pass and looked ahead.

The gallery ended near another arch, where the path divided toward the residential courts and the central library. Students crossed the junction carrying books, practice weapons, examination papers, and whatever relief remained after the day’s assessments.

The library caught her attention.

Books.

Diagrams.

Terminology.

Different schools using different language for similar structures.

The thought arrived without urgency at first.

Then it connected itself to the moment behind them.

She had given Lucavion part of a definition and received an answer.

Perhaps an inference.

Perhaps memory.

She had no way to distinguish them because the exchange had been accidental.

That could be changed.

Lucavion followed her gaze toward the distant library entrance.

”What?”

Elara looked back at him.

”Nothing.”

He narrowed his eyes.

”That answer has become suspicious.”

”Then perhaps you should stop asking questions.”

”A cruel philosophy.”

Elara continued walking, though the idea had already begun gathering structure.

If she changed one condition at a time, the uncertainty would shrink.

A term first.

Then a practical description.

A diagram without names.

An Arcanian form beside an older Lorian equivalent.

She could watch where his understanding appeared and where it vanished.

More importantly, she could do it without asking him to remember anything at all.

The locked door did not need to open.

She only needed to learn which knocks received an answer.

By the time they reached the next arch, Elara already sort of knew exactly what kind of excuse would allow her to keep trying.

’Ah.... Maybe that can work.’