Snow began to fall before dawn. When Cohen Elias woke, the world outside his window had changed color. White. The surface of the Greyvan River, the rusted roofs of the abandoned factories, the cobblestones of Boundary Street——everything was covered in a thin layer of white. And he was in Al-Rashid Zayed's arms. He'd stopped counting how long this had been happening. Since that night in Episode 5——the night when human presence lingered at the outer wall——Elias hadn't been able to return to the basement. In the second-floor living space, that narrow room where books consumed every wall, he couldn't sleep unless Zayed was beside him. He'd realized this three days ago. He'd admitted it yesterday. This morning, his body had finally accepted it. (How pathetic.) That's what he thought. And yet——his body wouldn't move. Zayed's arm wasn't heavy. If anything, it was light. But if he pulled away——something would fall. Zayed wasn't asleep. Elias could tell. The rhythm of his breathing was different from sleep. The rhythm of a conscious creature. Dark skin, short-cropped black hair——not in his line of sight now, but its presence transmitted through body heat. The 188-centimeter frame, back against the wall, bearing the weight of Elias's head. How long had he been watching his sleeping face? Elias didn't voice the question. "[cold]……It's falling," Zayed spoke first. Looking out the window. Elias followed his gaze. Snow. In his four years in Greyvan, he'd never seen the first snow come this early. There were no words between them. That was fine. Not like the silence before——the void between tool and master, waiting only for commands. This silence carried weight, premised on their mutual existence. Elias slowly sat up. Zayed's arm naturally released him. Neither said anything. --- Past noon, Elias turned to his desk. A copy of the Gehenna Codex, Volume Three——the latter half of approximately 120 pages from the forbidden manuscript allegedly compiled in twelfth-century Iberia, which Elias possessed——spread across the surface. Page 61. A section where Aramaic and Arabic intertwined so complexly that it demanded the most time to decipher. This wasn't the first time he'd opened to this section. He'd opened it, closed it. Opened it again, closed it again. Knowledge was necessary to counter external threats——the sensors left in the abandoned factories, the movements of those humans. He understood that. There was no longer any reason to postpone the translation. So today, he opened the page once more. Page 62, 63, 64——. Elias's finger touched the edge of page 65 and stopped. What was written there wasn't barrier reinforcement or sensory-blocking formulae. It was the preamble to the conditions for breaking a summoning contract. The opening passage written in Aramaic entered his vision: "When the summoner's declaration of free will and the summoned one's response align——" He closed the book. The sound was low, dull. Only after closing it did he realize his hand was trembling. Zayed was at the far end of the room. Standing by the window, watching the snowy landscape outside. He didn't turn around. But Elias knew——that man was seeing everything about him with eyes that weren't looking at him. Which page his hand had stopped on. How his fingers had trembled. What the speed of closing the book meant. Elias withdrew his hand from the book. --- Zayed, watching the snow, was organizing the past months. A slap across the face. Being called a tool. The night he severed the incantation of the subjugation-strengthening formula. The chains binding him to the experimental table in the basement. The sensation of ribs breaking repeatedly. The face of Elias when he first said "you're mine"——all defenses collapsed. All of it remained as fact. It wouldn't disappear. But now, when he tried to contain the reason he was here in the single word "hatred," something didn't align. He'd been telling himself all week that it was responsibility toward the one he'd broken. But Zayed knew that word wasn't precise. Last week, on a sleepless night, Elias had sought his arms. Without a sound, just his body drawing near. He hadn't refused. That was all——he wanted to think so. But something inside him had reacted in a place unrelated to calculation. (Can I escape?) The shackles of the summoning contract were now barely functional. If Elias read page 65 of the Gehenna Codex and completed the procedure for breaking it, he could choose. Leave or stay. There were reasons to flee. Months of humiliation. Months of anger. None of it was a lie. But his feet showed no sign of moving. Zayed confirmed that fact within himself. Deliberately avoiding giving a name to the emotion. --- As evening came, the snow intensified. From across the Greyvan River, toward Southbank, a faint Adhan drifted through. Not the call for Friday prayer——a deep, temporal sound woven into the snow. Elias held a glass of whiskey, set it on the edge of his desk without drinking. "[serious]Do you want to be free?" The words came out. He was surprised at himself. Not a command, not a test. Just——a question. In his twenty-nine years of life, this might have been the first time he'd asked another being about their will. There was no need to ask a tool about its will. Zayed didn't answer immediately. He remained still, looking out the window, for several seconds. What moved in those seconds——Elias couldn't read it. Zayed's face was turned away, and the expression in his jet-black eyes was invisible. Then Zayed turned around. "[cold]Do you want to give me freedom?" He was asked in return. Elias couldn't answer. It wasn't about wanting to give——it was about wanting to know whether he would disappear if he did. But he couldn't voice that. If he did, it would confirm what he was afraid of. The silence stretched. That silence falling between them was different from the silence of domination and command that had come before. A question, time to choose an answer, a moment to confirm each other's existence——the very fact of it proved how this relationship had transformed. --- That night, Elias opened the Gehenna Codex again. Page 63, 64——page 65. His finger stopped. Holding the edge of the paper, it wouldn't move to the next page. Only his breathing continued, shallow. The temperature in the room was dropping. Cold air from the Greyvan River seeped through the gaps in the brick of Cohen Lab. Zayed stood behind Elias. Looking down at the open page on the desk from above. Elias didn't turn around. Couldn't turn around. He knew what Zayed was seeing——his trembling hand. The silence continued. "[whispers]Translate it. I'm not running away," His voice was quiet. Stripped of emotion. But those words pierced through the center of Elias's body. A lie or the truth. There was no material to judge. The shackles of the summoning contract were now barely functional——Zayed was choosing to be here without them. That fact alone remained as evidence. Nothing more, nothing less. That was all. And yet tears spilled from Elias's eyes. There was no sound. No sobbing. Only tears tracing down his cheeks. Different from how he'd cried on the experimental table in Episode 5's basement——that had been the sound of everything breaking. This came from somewhere deeper, quieter. His body knew that there was a part of him that needed another person——and that fact, somehow, couldn't be stopped from pouring out. Zayed didn't wipe away the tears. Elias didn't wipe them away either. His trembling hand turned to page 66. The continuation was written there——the specific conditions for breaking the summoning contract. A declaration of free will from both parties. And the beginning of the description of what the summoner would pay as the price for breaking it. Elias hadn't yet read the full text. But his hand didn't stop. Whether Zayed's words were true mattered less than the fact that those words existed——that he could turn the page because of them. That fact now filled the air of this room. --- At the same hour, 1.5 kilometers north from Boundary Street. In the corner room on the third floor of Riverview Inn, Toll Margaret sat before an energy detection display. Dark brown hair tied back, gray eyes sharp as they traced the waveforms on the screen. The small earring in her right ear dully reflected the room's light. Tonight's waveform was different from before. A composite waveform where two energy sources interfered with each other——she'd confirmed this pattern over the past few weeks. But tonight's pattern showed those two sources in a state of stronger cohesion without eroding each other. Not defensive posture, not offensive. Static equilibrium. Margaret ran her pen across her notebook. "Target's internal state has changed. External aggression decreased, internal cohesion strengthened. Optimal timing for contact is not now." She stopped writing. A notification had come from headquarters——the full investigation team would arrive within 72 hours. The sensors Nathan had left in the abandoned factories continued transmitting data tonight. The detailed record of the demon-species energy pattern flowed as signals through Greyvan's snowy night. She picked up binoculars. Aimed them toward Boundary Street. There was light in the window of number 47. Snow particles fell on the lens, and the light blurred. What was happening beyond——Margaret couldn't know. But what the waveform showed as "internal cohesion strengthened" meant——that question, for the first time tonight, caught on something inside Margaret separate from the mission record. Not emotion. Curiosity. That was all——Margaret told herself. In the darkness of the abandoned factories, Nathan's sensor quietly continued transmitting data. The copy of that data, passing through a relay server tonight, was reaching a different recipient——something Margaret didn't yet know. The snow continued to fall. The Greyvan River traced white, Boundary Street fell silent. A night when no one emerged from the buffer zone between the two communities. The light in the window of number 47 didn't go out.