Page 133 of Academy of the Wicked: Year Three

"Ready?" I ask, though the question is really for myself.

"Always," they respond in unison that would be creepy if it wasn't so reassuring.

Then I turn the handle.

The door opens with the sound of spring arriving—ice breaking, flowers blooming, birds returning from whatever warm places they hide during winter. Light spills out, golden and warm and so different from the harsh burning of the Infernal Realm that my eyes water with relief.

Beyond the door is a garden.

But not just any garden—this is every garden, all gardens, the Platonic ideal of what garden means. Flowers from every realm grow in harmony that shouldn't be possible. Trees bear fruit from different seasons simultaneously. Water features flow upward and downward and sideways, following patterns that please the eye rather than physics.

And in the center, on a blanket that looks woven from clouds and starlight, sit two figures.

Nikki and Nikolai.

Both of them.

At the same time.

Not shifting between forms but existing simultaneously, translucent enough that I can see through each to the other. They sit facing each other, hands clasped, foreheads touching, and they're crying.

No—that's not quite right.

They're sharing tears, each drop transferring between forms like liquid mercury, carrying pain from one to the other and back again. The cycle continues endlessly, neither able to fully release the emotion because it belongs to both of them.

"The trial of unified suffering," Mortimer breathes, understanding immediately. "They can't process trauma separately because they've never been truly separate."

"Every hurt belongs to both of them," Zeke adds, his voice unusually soft. "But healing requires individual processing, which they can't do while occupying the same space."

"So they're stuck," Atticus concludes with vampire pragmatism that doesn't hide his concern. "Endless loop of shared pain with no way to release it."

"Unless," I say, understanding arriving with the force of revelation, "someone else enters the cycle."

That's why the door accepted all of us. This isn't a trial for Nikki and Nikolai alone—it's about understanding that healing sometimes requires external intervention, that not all wounds can be self-treated, that asking for help isn't weakness but wisdom.

"We go to them," I state, already moving into the impossible garden. "All of us. We help them process what they can't process alone."

"But won't that just transfer their trauma to us?" Atticus asks, though he's following without hesitation.

"Shared among six rather than trapped between two," Cassius answers, shadows already reaching toward the crying figures. "Diluted. Manageable. Survivable."

As we approach Nikki and Nikolai's translucent forms, I see Gabriel materialize beside them—not solid but not quite ghostly either, existing in the same in-between state they occupy. He's trying to reach them, to break through their cycle, but he can't do it alone.

None of us can do this alone.

But together?

We might be victorious in breaking this endless cycle.

The Revelations Of Wickedness

~GABRIEL~

Iwatch from my in-between state as my sister and her bonds approach the crystallized forms of Nikki and Nikolai. The sight makes my chest constrict with something I refuse to name—concern, perhaps, or the echo of emotions I've spent centuries avoiding.

They stand like fountain statues in the center of the impossible garden, their translucent forms overlapping in ways that defy physical law. Each breath they take is synchronized, shallow, barely disturbing the air around them. Their hands remain clasped between their forms, creating a circuit of shared suffering that feeds on itself endlessly.

Lost in whatever nightmare oasis has pulled them together.