Chapter 17: Ten Years Ago

"It must be the second scroll."

He was so deeply absorbed in his calculations, his mind working through complex calculus, that he almost missed the sound coming from the central hallway outside.

CREAK.

It was the tiny sound of a heavy floorboard under a person’s weight.

Silvester’s hand froze, and his eye movement suddenly stopped.

After closing the scroll and quickly slipping it into his coat, he carefully turned off his lantern and hid himself in the shadow of the bookshelf.

Realizing it wasn’t enough, he merged into the folds of the curtain and held his breath. He slid his hand into his magic pouch and held his star-iron tool as a weapon in case someone attacked him.

A flickering candlelight appeared at the far end of the central archive aisle.

Shuffle.

Step.

Shuffle.

Step.

The sound was not from a guard or an intruder. It was the movement of an old man whose joints suffered from years of labor in the corridors.

A moment later, the old man stepped into the warm glow of the light, carrying a simple brass oil lantern in his right hand.

He wore a clean, faded butler suit made from dark blue wool with silver buttons. His shoulders were slightly hunched, and his back was bent from decades of bowing to arrogant nobles. His long hair was entirely white, and his face was lined with wrinkles from exhaustion and long nights.

It was Ignatius, the old servant of the Lerwick household.

"Who’s in here?" Ignatius called out, his voice trembling slightly with age. "Is that you, Master Sander? Or one of the kitchen helpers sneaking in for extra candles? Show yourself! The house guards are on duty tonight."

Silvester stayed still behind the curtain. He peered through the folds to see the old man.

’Why is he... older?’ Silvester thought.

He recognized Ignatius instantly. In Silvester’s mind, it had only been several months, but ten years had already passed. The time vault on the lowest floor of the dungeon had a different time scale from the outside.

Ignatius had been the only person in the Lerwick mansion who treated him with simple kindness. While Lord Lerwick ignored his existence and Lady Lerwick and his siblings complained about his useless ability, Ignatius had been the one who ensured his bed was warm and he had enough food to survive.

Silvester watched the elderly man walk closer to the marble platform.

The old man stopped in front of the restricted display, and his eyes blinked in confusion as he noticed the open glass lid and the empty velvet cushion. His face turned pale under the yellow lanternlight.

"Good heavens..." Ignatius whispered. His hand was shaking so hard that the lantern cast roving shadows across the floorboards. "The scroll... it’s gone! The lock has been opened!"

Ignatius quickly reached toward a small bell mounted on his belt to sound a house alert.

"Don’t even try to ring that bell if I were you, Ignatius," Silvester’s calm, young voice came from the shadows. "The family guards are currently sleeping on the stairs. If you sound the bell, they will run in here with their swords and likely knock over those candle sconces. They would burn the rare books just to catch a child."

Ignatius couldn’t move. His hand was half an inch above the bell.

The old butler slowly turned his head toward the curtain.

Silvester stepped out of the shadows while holding the scroll under his left arm.

Ignatius stared at the small boy standing before him. He blinked twice to ensure that he was seeing a child.

"You... you..." Ignatius’s voice cracked severely. "No... it’s... it’s impossible."

"Hello, Ignatius," Silvester said quietly. "You’ve grown older since the last time I saw you. You should really stop drinking coffee at night. It will help you get good sleep."

THUD.

Ignatius dropped the brass lantern. He didn’t care at all. He wrapped his arms around Silvester in a hug. Tears welled in his tired eyes like rain on dry stone.

"Where... where have you been, Master Silvester?" Ignatius sobbed softly. "Is it... is it truly you, my young Lord? Am I not dreaming?"

"It’s me, Ignatius," Silvester replied. He reached out his small hand and gently patted Ignatius’s back. "Still alive and kicking."

After several minutes, Ignatius pulled back and wiped his wet eyes.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, YOUNG MASTER?!" Ignatius asked frantically, his hands gently holding Silvester’s shoulders. "It’s been ten years since you vanished from your stone room and I tried... I tried to search for you everywhere! I looked for you night and day!"

Silvester frowned slightly, mild confusion written across his face.

"Ten years? Ignatius, what are you talking about? I was exiled by my family to the mountain dungeon about six or seven months ago." Ignatius froze. He didn’t know that the family had exiled Silvester all this time.

Silvester had already known the plan all along. He was not shocked that his family could do this to him.

"Months... Six months? Exiled? My lord... my boy... Look at me. Ten years have passed!" Ignatius cried out, his voice full of tragedy and disbelief.

Silvester went dead silent.

His mind began to calculate things, remembering what happened inside the dungeon.

The time vault had a spatial distortion that caused his delay in aging.

"I spent roughly six months inside the dungeon time vaults," Silvester muttered.

He looked back up at Ignatius, whose face showed that he did not understand.

"I see. The surface world moved forward ten times faster than I did. To me, I was gone for half a year. To you, I have been missing for a decade."

Ignatius stared at the boy and slowly stood up from the floor.

"When you went missing, my lord... I begged Lord Lerwick to send out the house guards to find you. But your father... he refused."

Silvester didn’t look surprised. "And my mother?"

"Lady Lerwick wept for two days. On the third day, she and your sisters went to a jewelry shop. On the fourth day, she announced that it was forbidden to say your name. After several months, your room became a guest room for diplomats."

Ignatius looked at Silvester with guilt, as if he were the one to blame for the family’s cold treatment.

"Don’t worry, Ignatius. I will make my own name and make them realize that this child is not useless at all."

"Oh, Master Silvester... you haven’t changed at all. You are way too strong on your own."

CREAK.

Ignatius smiled, but his expression turned anxious as he glanced toward the oak doors of the library.

"Master Silvester," Ignatius said urgently. "Be careful. Lord Lerwick and Lady Lerwick are upstairs. If the house guards catch you—"

Ignatius did not finish what he wanted to say. The guards had already surrounded them, their halberds with glowing yellow runes already pointed at them.

"DO NOT MOVE! WHO ARE YOU?!" the first guard asked.

"I do not answer to a guard. Let me speak to your lord," Silvester said, his dark eyes staring at the guard.

"Tie him and send him to Lord Lerwick." The second guard tied him with a magic rope embedded with spell runes that locked objects and people alike.

Silvester chuckled. He could escape if he wanted to. He could see the locks on the ropes, the armor, and the halberds. He could close them in less than a second. But he decided not to. To be completely free from the Lerwicks, he had to know the real reason behind this hatred.

Silvester’s hands were tied. Together with Ignatius, they were escorted by the guards upstairs to the office of the patriarch of the Lerwick household.