The first light of dawn crept across the garden, casting pale reflections through the trees and over the dew-damp bushes. I stood there, gripping the bottle, breathing in the crisp morning air, unsure what to do next. Was this still the same night? It felt as though I’d been imprisoned for ages.

  After checking for the n-th time that I had all my limbs, my ears, my tail - yes, all accounted for - I let out a quiet sigh and finished what little remained in the bottle. The cork was long gone, so down it went. One problem solved: the opened bottle was now empty, and what could be saved, had been saved.

  Satisfied, I left the empty bottle behind and slipped into shadowmeld. Wrapped in silence, I glided toward my room, the first rays of sunlight brushing the path ahead.

  Frankly, after the roller coaster that had been the last summon, I needed that liqueur—which was now gently burning its way down my throat.

  My thoughts were still tangled in what had happened, trying to make sense of it all, when a piercing shriek shattered the morning air just as I approached the terrace—nearly giving me a heart attack... assuming that’s even possible in shadow form.

  ...The blasted demon alarm!

  Fucking fuck. I’d completely forgotten about it.

  I materialized instantly on the terrace, pulling my aura back on reflex, ready to transform... only for the shrill sound to cut off just like that.

  While shadowmelding, I usually navigate by magic-sight, which meant my aura had been fully spread. Now, with it retracted, everything went still.

  I froze, listening.

  The alarm had stopped. Silence returned to the palace like nothing had happened. No footsteps in the garden. No shouting. Somewhere, there had been a faint pop, but I couldn’t locate its source.

  I resisted the very strong urge to flare my aura again just to check. No sense in triggering that damned thing twice.

  Could it really be that simple? That the alarm was tied to aura spread? If so… all I had to do was keep my presence tightly folded while inside the castle. It was a bit annoying, but manageable.

  Muffled voices drifted through the halls now, someone had probably been woken by it, but no guards came running, no questions shouted through the corridors.

  I took a steadying breath and stepped quietly into our room.

  Yolanda’s soft, steady breathing rose from the bed. She was still asleep. Good. Maybe the alarm hadn’t been as loud as it had seemed to me.

  With a shimmer of light and a whispered thought, I let the magic shift me back into human form.

  I felt… different.

  Curious, I turned toward the mirror. Was it just a feeling? Or had something truly changed?

  No wounds. Not that I expected any: I felt fine. More than fine, actually. But the reflection that greeted me still made me pause.

  Every curve, every line of muscle looked sculpted to flawless precision, like smooth white marble carved by an artist's dream. My skin was utterly pristine, soft, and impossibly smooth. No freckles, no scars, not even a wrinkle. Just flawless flesh glowing in the silver haze of dawnlight.

  The light caught me just right, wrapping my form in a dim shimmer, like a goddess veiled in shadow and moonlight.

  I chuckled. Then grinned. I looked… stunning.

  Instinctively, without thinking, I cast Identify on my own reflection—just as I might on anyone I was sizing up.

  And then my mind froze.

  << h???????????????????????_?????a???????????????????_???_????????????????????l???????????f????????????????????????human, s????????????????????????o?????????????r?????????????????????????c???_e???????????????????????????????????r??e????????????????????????ss??????????????????????????????????????????, , ??? >>

  What. The actual. Fuck.

  This was wrong.

  I tried again. Same glitching, unreadable horror. Was it corruption of some kind?

  All right—at least "human" still showed up in there somewhere. Kind of. Maybe.

  But why the gibberish? And what were the three question marks?

  I was so stressed I snapped back into my demon form—then immediately cringed, bracing for the alarm to blare again.

  But nothing happened.

  Right. Aura still constrained. Keep it that way, Lores.

  I cast Identify on myself again.

  <>

  Well, shit. My Identify skill was broken.

  I turned to look at the peacefully sleeping girl in my bed. Really? Just to be sure…

  <>

  Okay. Sleeping beauty had Ju’s ring, and my skill worked just fine on her.

  Which meant the problem wasn’t with Identify.

  The problem… was with me.

  I took a deep breath.

  Okay. What exactly was going wrong with me?

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Besides the question marks and unreadable garbage, Identify told me nothing useful. No race, no class—not in any way that made sense.

  Wait a minute. Did this mean no one else could identify me as a demon, either? That... might not be bad.

  But Fiona's alarm had triggered. So something still registered.

  Damn it!

  Okay, okay, okay. Keep calm, Lores. One problem at a time.

  I needed to test my skill on more people. And get Mike to Identify me too. Then I'd know more.

  But assuming the skill wasn’t broken—just unable to process me—what would others see? That corrupted mess? Three question marks?

  Probably confusion at best... panic at worst. The wiser ones might just bolt.

  Wait. I still had that skill—Veil of Inscrutability! I could cast it on myself and no one would see... whatever this was. Cala had lived just fine with it up all the time.

  I took a deep breath and activated the skill. A soft glow shimmered around me for a heartbeat as the magic took hold. Then I cast Identify on myself, expecting it to fail gracefully—that was, after all, what Veil of Inscrutability was meant to do.

  But it didn’t exactly fail.

  Not quite.

  <>

  I blinked. Once. Twice. As if blinking would clear the display or bring it into focus. But the strange result remained.

  Uneasy, I sat down, a bit too hard on the edge of the bed. Yolanda moaned and rolled to her other side. I winced, annoyed with myself, but didn’t move again. Better not wake her.

  So what was I even seeing? What on Earth—no, what on Aldea—was going on?

  Another skill failure? Or was this something worse?

  I emptied my lungs in a long sigh. OK, Lores. One thing at a time.

  I’d accepted the summon to get rid of my demotion. Well—mission accomplished, it seemed. I was no longer demoted. So… success?

  Except now, some of my skills didn’t seem to work right.

  Shadowmeld worked. So did my transformation. In fact, both felt smoother, more seamless than before.

  Identify worked fine on Yolanda: I could read her just as clearly as ever. So the problem wasn’t with the skill itself. It was with me.

  The gibberish I’d seen had replaced my race and class, and the triple question marks stood in for my level. Why? What had changed?

  Could it be that my Identify spell could no longer read me? Was I beyond its range? Did I gain levels somehow? But… how?

  I hadn’t done anything to earn them.

  All I’d done was fight against that cursed containment field, thrashing, screaming, burning, and somehow, surviving. Could that count?

  Could someone actually gain levels just by escaping a damn trap?

  Especially at these high levels, where every step forward was exponentially harder?

  So... what level was I?

  Cala had been level ninety-five, and her Identify skill had been maxed out. It should’ve worked fine on monsters at least ten levels above her. Which meant that, if it glitched on me, I had to be at least level one hundred five.

  That was my best estimate. But how much higher than that? I had no idea.

  Still reeling, I pulled out Julietta’s ring - the one she had given me at that relay station not long ago - and slipped it on. It had a masking enchantment that altered my identification signature. Testing it, I got:

  << ??human, warrior, level 19 >>

  Those question marks near human usually meant I wasn’t entirely human. Well… no surprise there. The horns alone would raise eyebrows. But nothing too alarming. Most people would just shrug it off.

  I let out a sigh. This would have to do.

  The ring’s magic should hold up under casual scrutiny. Anyone with an Identify skill below level ninety wouldn’t notice a thing. Those above that might catch a whiff of something odd, some gibberish, a few extra question marks, but nothing concrete. Just enough to make them hesitate before doing something stupid.

  Aaah! Maybe that was it! Maybe the Veil of Inscrutability skill didn’t scale well either. I could be too powerful now for its current tier to mask me properly.

  Could I even level up a scroll-learned skill?

  Gods, I hoped so.

  And then, to crown my disappointment with all the glitching skills, daylight finally arrived, and with it, reality.

  I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and pouted.

  Under the moonlight, I’d looked like a goddess. Now? I looked tired. I had dark circles under my eyes and my skin was pale - white marble, yes, but the kind that belonged in a crypt.

  Sigh. I definitely looked better in the moonlight.

  The veins on my hands were clearly visible. They had been under moonlight too, I supposed, but I hadn’t noticed their color before. A dark gray, almost like charred ink, spreading faintly along my arms and legs.

  That dimmed my enthusiasm about this “flawless” new look.

  Why had I thought I looked so amazing?

  I covered the windows with a mirror, drawing the shadows back into the room. And just like that, the illusion returned, shadows draped across my body, sculpting me into something sultry and unreal. Alluring. A creature born of dusk.

  Then I turned back to the daylight.

  Nope. Just a pale, shadowless girl with weird veins.

  “Mmmmh!” Yolanda murmured, her head rising from the pillow as she stretched. Then she opened one eye and glanced at me.

  Gosh, I’d woken her up.

  “Oh, it’s already day? Morning! What’s wrong? Can’t sleep?” she asked.

  I sighed.

  “Morning. Nothing truly wrong. I was just checking how people see me when they use Identify.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I see you as ‘human warrior, level nineteen.’ Is that what’s keeping you up?”

  She yawned again and glanced toward the window, where light from the two suns filtered through a soft carpet of clouds.

  “Oh, it's about time to get up!” she declared, springing out of bed with surprising energy and a cheerful smile. “I’m first to the bathroom!”

  I could never understand how some people were so full of energy in the morning. I always needed a strong coffee just to reboot my brain. I yawned, flopped onto the blanket, and fell asleep instantly.