I'm in Love with the Villainess!

Trish was waiting for me at the end of the corridor.

She stood in another circular chamber, smaller than the last, with a single pedestal at its center and no bookshelves, no windows, no doors except the one I’d just walked through. Her amber eyes found mine immediately, and something in her posture relaxed.

"You’re late," she said.

"The other me was chatty."

"The other you?"

"I’ll explain later. Or maybe I won’t. Depends on how much I want to relive it."

She didn’t push. Instead, she stepped aside and gestured to the pedestal. Resting on top was another book, smaller than the first, bound in what looked like white leather.

"Yours?"

"Mine," she confirmed. "The trial was... different from what I expected."

"What did it test?"

She was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the edge of the pedestal.

"Love," she finally said. "Or obsession. I’m not sure which. Maybe both."

"Did you pass?"

"I’m here, aren’t I?"

I crossed the chamber and stood beside her, looking down at the white book. Unlike the first one, this one was already open, its pages filled with dense script that seemed to shift when I tried to read it.

"What does it say?"

Trish smiled, small and sad. "That I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be."

"That’s vague."

"That’s the archmage."

We stood together in the quiet, the pedestal between us, the white book’s pages still shifting in the lamplight. Somewhere above, I could hear footsteps. Kevin and Vivianne, maybe, or just more illusions.

"What now?" Trish asked.

"I want to ask you something."

"Right now? So suddenly...?"

"Trish... how does it feel to be in Evelina’s body?" I asked.

Trish raised a brow, clearly surprised by the question. "Cael... that’s a dumb question. I’m literally her."

"In what way? Personality, memories, or something else?"

"In... everything?" Trish said with a shrug. "Other than the way the three of us express ourselves, almost everything about us inside her feels the same."

"So when I talk to Evelina...?"

"You’re talking to me, too," Trish replied.

"Then what if I gave you a chance to be separated? To live your own life?"

Trish blinked. "You can do something like that?"

"No," I said. "Just hypothetically."

"Well... I don’t know. I don’t really care about being separated. I mean... it’s kind of hard to answer since, y’know, I’m literally Evelina."

"Right... sorry for the dumb questions."

Trish looked at me for a moment. "Cael... you’re still worried about me, aren’t you?"

"Hard not to."

"Look..." She stepped in front of me and cupped my cheeks with both hands, her appearance shifting back to Evelina.

"This is me." Then she shifted back to Trish. "And this is me. I know it’s hard to understand, and I can’t even explain it well myself... but you don’t need to trouble yourself trying to fix this. It isn’t your fault."

Then her appearance changed again, this time into Fiona. "It wasn’t your fault I was captured. I was just careless, okay?"

Then she shifted once more into Evelina.

"Just take it easy, Cael."

Then, once again, she became Trish.

"Okay...?"

Trish’s hands were warm against my cheeks, her amber eyes steady. The shift between faces—Evelina, Trish, Fiona, back again—had been seamless, almost hypnotic. Like watching someone turn the pages of a book, each version of her a different Chapter of the same story.

"Okay," I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

She smiled, small and genuine, and let her hands fall. But she didn’t step back. Didn’t create distance. Just stood there, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from her skin.

"You’re thinking too loud," she said.

"I’m not thinking anything."

"You’re thinking about how to fix something that isn’t broken." She tilted her head, a strand of brown hair falling across her forehead. "I know you, Cael. Better than anyone. Better than yourself, probably. You see a problem, you want to solve it. But this isn’t a problem."

"Three souls in one body—"

"Is a gift." She pressed a finger to my lips, cutting me off. "I get to be with you. All of me. Every version. Every face. You think I’d trade that for anything?"

I caught her wrist, gently, and pulled her hand away from my mouth.

"You’re not just saying that?"

"I’m not just saying that."

I found that hard to believe, honestly.

The footsteps above grew closer, more distinct. Kevin’s voice drifted down, muffled by stone and distance, saying something that made Vivianne laugh.

Trish glanced up, then back at me. "We should find them."

"In a minute."

"Fine, in a minute," she agreed.

Trish’s hand slipped into mine as we stood in the quiet chamber, the white book’s pages still shifting on the pedestal beside us. The footsteps above had paused, Kevin and Vivianne’s voices fading into murmurs, giving us this small pocket of privacy the archmage had probably orchestrated like everything else.

"So, what do you want to do in these few minutes?" she said.

"I’m processing."

"It’s always the same with you, huh?"

I couldn’t argue with that.

The chamber felt smaller now, the walls pressing in just enough to feel intimate rather than claustrophobic. Just smooth stone, soft lamplight, and a woman wearing a face that once belonged to someone I’d buried.

"You really don’t want to be separated?" I asked again, because I was apparently incapable of letting things go.

Trish sighed, but there was no frustration in it. Just patience. The kind of patience that came from knowing someone too well to be annoyed by their flaws.

"Cael." She turned to face me fully, both of her hands wrapping around mine. "If you pulled me out of this body, if you somehow found a way to split us into three separate people again... what would I even be?"

"Yourself?"

"Which one? Trish? Evelina? Fiona?" She shook her head. "I’m all of them now. The memories, the feelings, the scars. You can’t separate that any more than you could separate the ocean into individual drops and expect it to still be the ocean."

"That’s a very poetic way of saying you don’t know."

"It’s a very honest way of saying I don’t care." She squeezed my hands. "I’m here. I’m with you. That’s enough."

I wanted to believe her.

Maybe I did.

"So what if I say I love Evelina? That wouldn’t hurt you, would it?"

"Cael... were you even listening to what I said?"

I let out a soft laugh. "I was. It’s just..."

"Look, don’t think too hard about it. If you want, I can take Evelina’s form if that would make you more comfortable."

"No. Not yet."

"Do you still want to spend time with me?"

"Honestly? Yeah."