The shimmering white rift in the fog sealed shut behind Mogan with silent smoothness, and suddenly, he found himself standing upon the deck of Clonmacnoise. The ship glowed with a cold, silvered sheen beneath a sky—or what resembled a sky—an endless void of that same metallic light, devoid of stars, sun, or discernible horizon. The space was featureless, depthless, an infinite silver-white expanse swallowing everything.
And as the faint blue haze of the island still lingered in the corners of his mind's eye, Fayet appeared.
She did not step through a door. She was simply there beside him, as though she had always been part of the silver vessel. She wore a plain dress, her pale blond hair flowing motionless like strands of silk. But what drew his attention was her customary smile wide, unwavering, reaching
Mogan shook his head slowly, his stubbornness laced with an exhaustion that ran bone-deep. His eyes, which had mirrored the island's cerulean hues mere moments ago, now sank into their sockets, reflecting only the hollow silver void around them. "It's not like that, Fayet. Not when I'm... lost."
"Lost?" Fayet echoed, tilting her head with a neutral curiosity, like a scientist observing a peculiar phenomenon. "Amidst what? A forest of tangled thoughts? Or perhaps a desert without a single tree?" Her fixed smile did not waver. "Both are difficult. But knowing where you are... makes things far simpler."
Mogan stared into the infinite silver void. There was no horizon to fixate on, only a blinding whiteness that seared his vision. His voice emerged ragged, weighted with buried doubts:
"I'm... in a place without landmarks." He turned to Fayet, desperation flickering in his gaze. "I keep wondering... Are they real? Was my family ever real to begin with? What if..." He choked on the words. "What if I lost them all on that terrible day, and my mind—my wretched, grieving mind—fabricated this version of them? Whispering, 'You trapped them here, on that island, to keep them safe'?" A dry, hollow laugh escaped him. "This place—" He gestured to the suffocating silver expanse, then to his chest, "—it's strangling me."
Silence fell. Even the metallic light seemed to dim. Fayet did not step back, nor did her smile falter, but her pale blue eyes sharpened—focusing on him with an intensity he had never seen before.
"I'm—" Mogan continued, his voice barely a whisper, thick with self-loathing, "too weak to break free from this. From anything. I can't even—" He shut his eyes briefly, an image of Lona brushing her fingers against the enchanted plants flashing in his mind. "—I can't even let my daughter touch real soil. Soil that carries the scent of earth, its weight, its truth. And now... now I—" His eyes snapped open, brimming with absolute desolation. "—now I doubt her very existence."
The final words fell like stones into the silent silver lake. Mogan stood, shoulders slumped, as if the weight of the doubts he had carried within him had suddenly materialized, bending him to the brink of collapse. Fayet's wide, neutral smile was a stark contrast to the despair that now filled the space between them. She watched him—simply watched him—as though he were a complex puzzle the ship had presented for her to unravel.
Her neutral smile did not fade, but her voice took on a depth like an echo resonating from the hollow walls of the vessel itself, and the silver form of the ship shifted, morphing into a reflection of the cosmos:
"This doubt... does not make you inherently flawed, Mogan."
Her voice trembled the celestial bodies in the ship's expanse.
"Questioning the nature of their existence... is no sin. In truth, it is what makes you human. This existential dread, this relentless gnawing at certainty... is the fire of the mind that defines your kind."
She took a step forward.
"And it does not... make you weak."
A translucent finger rose, pointing to his chest where his turmoil burned.
"You are the Magician. And not just any Magician. You carry within your soul not one gift of fire... but three. Your own spirit... and two others, bestowed upon you by a love that outlasts death even if they are absent in the form you once knew. And this triad..." she emphasized the word "...is what makes you strong enough to unsettle the universe. Dangerous enough to unnerve even The Custodians."
Her wide smile merged with the sight of her face dissolving into the surrounding void.
"And why should it matter if they are 'real' in the way your skull now imprisons the word?"
Her dissolving hand traced a circle in the air, as though weaving sigils.
"Magic, Mogan, is not a response to the universe... it is the imposition of your will upon the tapestry of its story. It is your ability to inscribe your own chapter into the book of existence. No.." she leaned closer, whispering "it is your ability to rewrite the very axioms of creation itself."
A brief, heavy silence followed.
"In the end, all truths are relative..." her pale blue eyes caught the faint golden reflection of him in the void "...save for one: the truth of the Absolute beyond all truths. Except for that single idea the one you choose to believe in with enough conviction to shake the fabric of being. And you..." she pointed at him like a sovereign crowning her champion "...alone hold the key to altering those truths."
She paused, as though letting the words sear into his core. Then she added, certainty humming in her voice like the foundational note of a symphony:
"Whether they are real or not... is not something you discover.
"It is something you create."
"Do not let the universe dictate your truth, young sorcerer.
Forge it yourself."
In that moment, something shifted behind Mogan's eyes.
A silent, electric current surged through his retinas a faint golden ripple, as if a still, inner ocean had begun to stir beneath frozen depths. Slowly, he raised his hand, staring at his palm as though deciphering the map of a cosmos yet to be born. The silver air around his fingers trembled faintly, reality itself wavering under the weight of a dawning thought.
Even Fayet—with her eternal smile—seemed to pulse with a deeper light, something akin to reverence for the broken Magician in whom the seeds of rewriting had begun to awaken.