"The attack inside the Bureau wasn't random," Fenric was making connections. "When they infiltrated the medical wing and tried to extract Winter's prophetic fragments."
Zane's face hardened. "They weren't trying to kill her. They were trying to see if the markings would activate under threat."
The memory of that day came rushing back, the cultist with the knife, Zane appearing like an avenging angel to save me.
"So I'm a magical crash-test dummy," I deadpanned.
"At least you didn't explode this time?" Milo offered hopefully.
Rook's answering growl made the windows rattle.
Milo straightened from where he'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor, his usual playful demeanor replaced by something I'd only seen glimpses of before, the serious scholar who'd spent years studying the darkest corners of necromantic lore.
"The Oracle of Endings," he began, his voice taking on a lecturer's cadence that seemed borrowed from some long-ago classroom, "isn't like other dead things I work with. They're not a ghost, not a revenant, not even a lich in the traditional sense."
He stood, pacing as he organized his thoughts, one hand gesturing while the other absently touched the spot over his heart where his mark connected him to me.
"Most things that die stay dead, even when I bring them back. There's a clear before and after. But the Oracle...," he trailed off, searching for words. "They exist in a state that necromancy wasn't designed to handle. They're consciousness without true death, purpose without form. Think of them like, " he paused, looking at his tiny skeleton crew, "like Jeffrey, but if Jeffrey could remember every choice he never made when he was alive, and still had the power to unmake those choices retroactively."
Jeffrey clacked indignantly at the comparison.
"No offense, buddy," Milo assured him before continuing. "The bones aren't remains in the way we usually think of them. They're fragments of will. Each one still carries a piece of the Oracle's purpose, their drive to shape fate."
I touched the new mark on my forehead, feeling it pulse warmly beneath my fingertips. "So when the mini skeletons brought me that shard..."
Milo shook his head. "The bones themselves decided. They're acting independently now, with their own agenda."
"Which is?" Rook's voice was tight with controlled anger.
Milo's expression grew troubled. "To find a new Oracle. They've been programmed, for lack of a better word, to seek out someone who can fulfill the role their original owner abandoned. When Winter's prophetic markings manifested with enough intensity." he gestured helplessly at me, "they woke up. Started searching."
"Searching from inside a triple-warded vault?" Fenric's skepticism was evident.
"The bones exist partially outside linear time," Milo explained. "That's part of what makes the Oracle so dangerous. They could see and affect futures that hadn't happened yet, pasts that had already been sealed. The physical bones are locked away, yes, but theirwill… that operates on a different level entirely."
Zane shifted against the wall, his mismatched eyes narrowed. "You're saying these skeleton delivery boys aren't breaking out of prison. They're reaching through dimensions?"
"Exactly," Milo nodded enthusiastically, warming to his subject despite its grim nature. "The Oracle's consciousness is fragmented across their remains, but those fragments can still act with purpose. They sent that shard to Winter as a message, a warning, maybe even a test."
"A test of what?" I couldn't keep the edge from my voice.
Milo's eyes met mine, sympathy and fear mingling in their depths. "To see if you're strong enough to carry what they couldn't. To become what they refused to be."
The weight of his words settled over the room like a physical presence. Horrace made a soft, discordant note from my shoulder, his tentacles tightening slightly around my neck.
"But the Oracle said they gave me a choice," I touched the inverted spiral on my forehead again. "The Harbingers don't want me to have it. What does that mean?"
Milo chewed his lip, thinking. "The original Oracle had to make an impossible choice. Become the perfect arbiter of fate and lose everything human about themselves, or refuse and watch reality tear itself apart without guidance." His curls bounced as he shook his head. "They chose a third option: imprisonment. Removing themselves from the equation entirely."
"And this mark?" I gestured to my forehead.
"That's where it gets weird," Milo resumed his pacing, his academic excitement breaking through despite the dire circumstances. "The inverted spiral isn't just a symbol. It's a key. The Oracle used it toterminateprophecies when necessary. To literally end fate lines that had become too destructive or corrupted."
Fenric's fingers stilled on his tablet. "You're suggesting Winter now has the ability to end prophecies? Including her own?"
"Maybe," Milo spread his hands. "I'm theorizing here. But think about it, the Harbingers want to control Winter, to transform her into their perfect Oracle. But what if she could just turn off the whole system? End not just her own prophecy, but the entire structure the Harbingers have built?"
The implications crashed through me like a tidal wave. "That's what the Oracle meant. The choice they don't want me to have. I could destroy it all."
