Arie knew exactly where the Turtle Palace was.
He had known from the moment the trial gate closed behind them. The location sat in his memory with the same clarity as everything else from his first life — fixed, precise, impossible to mistake. He could have walked straight to it the moment they were separated without any detours and hesitation.
He didn't though.
He took his time in the forest. Dealt with what needed dealing with. Found Baron and finished that. Only then did he start moving toward the palace, keeping a pace that would put him there after Demi.
At least, that had been the plan.
He wasn't completely sure she would beat him.
That was the honest part of it. He had accounted for her — her way of seeing patterns, the way she processed things faster than most people realized — and he had slowed himself deliberately. But there was always a gap between expecting something and being certain of it.
Demi had a habit of closing that gap.
He stepped out of the last stretch of dense forest and stopped.
The palace was there.
He had expected it. He'd heard descriptions before from the few people who had made it this far and come back talking.
None of that mattered though.
Seeing it was different.
The grand and uncanny palace felt like it didn't belong here.
That was the first thought that stuck.
A structure that large, rising out of a dead forest like it had always been there and everything else had simply failed around it. The stone was pale, almost bone-like, shaped into something that didn't quite follow the rules of architecture. Too many curves where there should have been straight lines. Surfaces that looked… wrong if you stared at them too long, like they shifted just slightly in the heat haze.
The archways alone were massive. Built for something much larger than people.
The forest around it felt small.
The palace didn't. Sitting at the base of the main archway, cross-legged with her notebook open, pen moving steadily—
Demi.
She looked up when she heard him.
"You're late."
"You're early."
She made a small sound, half dismissive. "Same thing."
Her eyes dropped back to the page.
"Rosh came through about twenty minutes ago. Spectre ten after that. I've been here for forty." A pause. "The turtle's inside. It doesn't move. You have to go to it and you'll be thrown out".
"You didn't go in?"
"I was waiting."
He studied her for a second.
She was writing in that precise way she used when she was recording, not planning. Small, controlled strokes.
"For the others?" he asked.
"For everyone."
A beat.
"Where's Baro?"
The question didn't sound casual.
"I lost him after the separation," Arie said. "Haven't seen him since."
Demi's pen slowed.
Just slightly.
"He's good in a fight."
"He really is."
"He'll make it."
"Probably."
She looked at him then.
It wasn't just a glance but a full look. Focused. Careful. The way she did when something didn't line up but she couldn't explain why yet.
He met her gaze easily.
Didn't give her anything to work with.
After a moment, she looked back down.
"Go in," she said. "I'll wait a little longer."
The inside of the palace felt… wrong in a different way.
The outside had been overwhelming. The inside was something quieter, but no less unsettling.
The ceiling stretched high enough that it disappeared into darkness. The soft, gold light came from nowhere he could see, just existing along the walls without a source.
The floor was a single piece of stone, patterned in a way that almost looked like it moved if you didn't focus on it directly.
And the air—
Cool.
Completely separate from the heat outside, like stepping into a different place entirely.
The turtle sat in the center.
It was large.
Not massive compared to the palace, but large enough that calling it a turtle felt insufficient. Its shell matched the walls — the same pale stone, the same patterns worked into it.
It didn't move.
Just… sat there.
Waiting.
Its eyes were open.
Watching.
Arie walked towards it with no hesitation.
He placed his hand against the shell.
There was a response.
Not an obvious and immediate one. Just a faint vibration that traveled up his arm and settled somewhere deeper, something that registered without being something he could describe properly.
The palace disappeared.
He was back under the grey sky.
Open ground.
The shift hit the same way it always did — slightly off, like the world had skipped a step.
Rosh was there, sitting on a rock with his gauntlets off, working through heat damage with steady hands.
Spectre stood a short distance away, exactly as he always did — present, but not quite part of anything.
"Demi still inside?" Rosh asked without looking up.
"Mm. Waiting for Baro."
Rosh nodded once.
Went back to his work.
They waited.
Finally demi came out about ten minutes later.
Notebook closed. Expression unreadable in that specific way that meant she had already decided something and wasn't ready to say it.
Her eyes moved over them quickly.
Counting.
"He didn't come through," she said.
No one responded.
"We should go back in," Rosh said, standing up, already pulling his gauntlets back on.
"The trial doesn't work like that," Demi said. "Once you've made contact, you can't re-enter."
"Then we sweep from outside."
"The forest resets too. Once all participants clear or—"
She stopped.
The word didn't need to be said.
Rosh looked at her.
Then at the forest.
"There's an extraction protocol," Spectre said quietly.
They all looked at him.
He rarely spoke.
"Administration runs it if someone doesn't come out." A pause. "They'll retrieve what's left."
Silence again.
Arie stood with them, looking toward the forest, his expression exactly what it needed to be.
It took forty minutes.
When the team came back, they were carrying Baro.
Rosh made a sound and turned away.
Demi didn't move.
Arie looked at the body.
Everything was right.
The injuries matched. The story held and nothing was out of place.
He had made sure of that.
Clean.
He didn't react.
Didn't need to.
Demi looked at him. Not with suspicion or accusation.
Just that same careful attention — like she had added something to a list she hadn't finished going through yet.
He met her gaze.
Held it.
After a second, she looked away.
"We should head back," she said. "Rest. Then decide what comes next."
"Agreed," Arie said.
They walked back in silence.
Rosh's look on face was heavy. Obvious.
Spectre's didn't change.
Demi's was quiet, but active — the kind of silence that meant she was still thinking.
Arie walked with them.
Kept pace.
Said nothing.
He thought about Keisha.
Two days.
That was enough.
Grief needed shape.
Once it had that, it could be worked around.
Two days would be enough.