Fates

3

By the time Corinthe stopped running—almost half an hour after fleeing the accident—her lungs burned and she’d nearly worn through the soles of her flats, even as the tiny firefly fluttered continuously in her palm, wings beating rhythmically like a miniature pulse.

Each time her feet connected with the pavement, spikes of pain skittered up her legs. There was no energy in this concrete place, no way for her to draw sustenance from the walls of brick and steel, the rivers of poured cement.

More than anything else, what Corinthe missed about Pyralis was the physical bond: the constant, flowing, physical sense of connection to everything and all. The energy in Pyralis was food; you had only to inhale to be nurtured.

When she’d first been exiled, she hadn’t thought she’d be able to survive. Her body burned all the time, as though every cell in her body had been ripped apart. She was sure the Unseen Ones wished her to die.

She hadn’t died, though. And ten years later, only echoes of that excruciating pain remained, a reminder of the penance she must endure because she had been too eager, too curious, too questioning. And though the pain never truly went away, she’d grown used to it—except in times of exhaustion, when the pain seemed to double in intensity and she was consumed by a craving she couldn’t name or satisfy.

Finally, she reached the massive pergola at the Palace of Fine Arts. Her footsteps echoed on the sidewalk as she slowed to a walk, sucking in deep lungfuls of air.

The soft gurgling of the fountain sounded like music. The air grew thick with the scent of flowers. For a moment she closed her eyes and inhaled. It reminded her so much of home. Regret burned her throat.

She threaded her way along the path that wound between rows of looming columns. Across the lagoon, Corinthe could see warm lights shining out of the windows that lined the buildings across Lyon Street, casting dazzling reflections over the surface of the water.

She watched it, mesmerized by the way the colors danced across the surface. This was her favorite time of night, when the day was put to rest under a sky streaked with deep purples and reds.

The sound of low voices startled Corinthe. She quickly ducked behind a column as a couple of teens wandered into view—a guy and a girl, arm in arm. A dog trotted happily in front of them, sniffing, tongue wagging.

Every few steps, the couple stopped and kissed.

Kissed. A word—a concept—she had never known until she came here, to this world.

She watched the boy’s hand move up the back of the girl’s white peasant blouse and into her hair. A strange tightening sensation gripped Corinthe’s gut. It was the same feeling she’d had when the boy touched her in the car today. She turned away and pressed a hand to her stomach.

She heard the light pitter-patter of paws on stone, the jangle of a bell, and suddenly the dog had rounded the column and stood looking at her, panting.

Corinthe broke into a grin. She crouched down and with her free hand stroked the dog’s fur, kissed its wet nose, inhaled the dog-skin.

“Hey, boy,” she whispered quietly. She could sense the life, the joy, moving just below her fingertips, flowing hot through its body, but she was careful not to draw any of it.

In Pyralis, she had known and seen many animals, but she had never had one as a pet. Nothing in Pyralis belonged to anyone else, and yet everything, and everyone, belonged to the great order. Here, in Humana, she found that animals were drawn to her. It was as though they shared a common understanding, a common language of need that couldn’t be expressed in human words.

The dog woofed as Corinthe stroked its head. From the other side of the columns, a girl cried out, “Sammy! Sammy!” And the dog peeled away from Corinthe and disappeared, responding to its owner’s call.

Corinthe straightened up and listened for the sound of their retreating footsteps. When she peeked out several minutes later, they were gone.

She hurried to the middle of the rotunda. The recessed lighting pulsed softly in the honeycomb ceiling. The lagoon winked at her through the arches, between breaks in the shrubs, and gold rippled across its surface. She began to relax.

Almost done.

She walked to the farthest arch, the one overlooking the lagoon, and stopped. A low buzzing filled the air, too quiet for any human to hear: the sizzle and pop of tiny Messengers dissolving into the water. The firefly’s wings batted furiously against the soft flesh of her palm. She breathed a sigh of relief and opened her fingers to let the small spirit free.

The Messenger zipped straight up and joined thousands of others like it. They looked like miniature shooting stars cascading from the sky as they plummeted into the still water. There was no splash as they hit—only the slight hiss of their tiny lights extinguishing. After a few seconds, weightless opaque marbles bobbed to the surface in their places and gently floated away, disappearing into the darkness.

She felt the familiar ache of a memory, and for a moment, she was wading into the river of Pyralis again, like she did all those years ago. Back then Corinthe and her sister Fates would sort through the marbles, finding the murky, imperfect ones as the others flowed past and off the edge of the waterfall. The purple twilight made her skin glow as she swept her fingers across the glistening surface, sorting through the marbles bobbing in the lazy currents.

Most destinies would be fulfilled on their own, but the clouded marbles, the damaged ones that she and her sister Fates gathered, needed extra attention. These she would give to the Messengers. Though she never knew what happened after that, she knew that she was special—that her actions, and the actions of her sisters, kept the universe in balance.

It had been their job to sort the imperfect marbles from the river and deliver them to the Messengers, but she and her sister Fates had made it a game, too: whoever could find the most in a day won.

Her sister Fates: Alexia, Alessandra, Beatrice, Brienne, Calyssa … She wondered whether they ever thought her name.

Corinthe felt the sharp tug of longing. She knew that the lagoon must contain a Crossroad, a way back to Pyralis; that was how the Messengers traveled between worlds. Often she had fantasized about swimming out, trying to follow them home.

Would her sisters cry with joy? Would they even remember her after all this time?

She could do nothing but wait. She had been banished for flouting the laws of the universe once. She could not go back to Pyralis until the Unseen Ones permitted it.

So instead, she stood at the edge of the lagoon and watched, wondering momentarily about the other fireflies, about the fates that had been fulfilled—most of them without any help at all.

During her first few days in Humana—what the humans called Earth—Miranda had taken her out to the lagoon just before the sun rose. They watched silently as two Messengers flickered green in the dawn and dove straight into the water in front of them. The light went out and weightless marbles bobbed up to the surface in their place.

“In the morning we collect them.” Miranda scooped up the marbles and handed them to Corinthe. “And at night we send back the ones you’ve fulfilled.”

“Fulfilled?” Corinthe had asked. That was before she’d heard of the Executors and what was required of them. That was before she’d learned she had become one of them herself.

Corinthe had looked at the marbles cupped in her hands. They were murky, and instantly she knew: these marbles had been sorted by her sister Fates and brought here by the Messengers. And she had known, too, that she was no longer a Fate.

“You have a new job here in Humana,” Miranda said, as though reading her mind. “There aren’t many marbles today, but some mornings there will be dozens—and those are the days you’ll need to work quickly.”

Miranda explained that when the universe was particularly in balance, there were fewer marbles arriving in the human world. It meant that destiny was taking place according to the natural order.

“Are those the other marbles in Pyralis? The ones that fall off the edge of the waterfall?”

“Don’t think about them,” Miranda said gently. “It’s not your concern.” But Corinthe did think about them—more and more as the years in Humana passed. Those marbles were deaths, and births, and falling in love; they were accidents and chance meetings.

It shouldn’t matter, really. Her job as Executor was to carry out orders, not to consider the humans affected. Still, she always found the marbles riveting. Such tiny vessels, they held immense lives, immense possibilities.

She was too curious. Too fascinated by the Messengers, by anything forbidden. That was why she’d been banished here in the first place. The Unseen Ones—the unknown beings who controlled the whole universe, and ensured that order was maintained—had cast her into Humana to do her penance. She now had to do their bidding, carrying out unfulfilled destinies.

And yet, it wasn’t just the beauty, the mystery, the power of the Messengers and the marbles that fascinated her now. She did think about the humans—about the lives impacted, and ended, and begun—which worried her as much as the blood on her temple.

Something was changing.

She was changing.

She had to talk to Miranda about it. Her Guardian had the answers to everything.

At the northwest pillar, she paused and glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching. Carved into one of the columns was a faint rectangle, barely discernible. She pushed her fingers against it firmly and heard the familiar click. A narrow door, disguised as part of the ornate panel, swung open, and she quickly stepped inside.

Within the large column, it was almost completely dark. She made her way down the narrow stairway, tracing her fingers along the stone walls as she counted thirteen steps under her breath. She knew every cool, jagged edge of the walls.

Corinthe often wondered about the other Executors. What were their homes like? Were they hidden away like her own? And did they live together, the way humans did? She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind; Miranda always said she was too preoccupied with things she couldn’t know.

The temperature dipped; she shivered. At the bottom of the stairs, the hall opened up into a series of cavelike rooms. Corinthe turned right, into the first room, lifted an arm gracefully, found the string on her first try, and tugged. Two bare lightbulbs hung from the low ceiling, illuminating the space.

Years ago, the rooms had been used to store the Exploratorium exhibits, but no one except Corinthe and Miranda had been down here in over a decade. Corinthe moved across the packed earth floor to the battered deacon’s bench, which took up most of one wall. Quickly, she lit an assortment of votives and pillar candles. A dancing pattern of light and shadow flickered over the walls, and she felt a warm rush of happiness.

Home. A small word for such an immense thing—just like the marbles, so small, but vast enough to enclose a whole life. This was her home for now. Miranda had done her best to find the things they needed, like the hot plate that balanced on a rickety old stand, next to a tiny sink, to heat water for tea. Or the dented wooden cupboard they managed to nail into a crack in the wall, which held a mismatched collection of jars and bottles and teacups.

A month after Miranda brought her here, Corinthe had complained that the dirt floor was too cold. Miranda found them a large, threadbare Oriental rug that took up most of the room. It wasn’t much to look at, the colors so faded they were all the same dull wash of brown, but Corinthe loved being able to take off her shoes and knead her toes along its surface. If she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could even pretend that she was walking across a carpet of soft moss that blanketed the surface of Pyralis.

One corner of the room was dominated by a huge chipped claw-foot tub. Neither Miranda nor Corinthe knew why someone would install a bathtub in an underground storage room, but the water ran hot, and it didn’t take long for them to appreciate the small luxury of a bath.

Her gaze drifted to the painting hanging on the far wall: the only decoration in the room, it had either been forgotten or deliberately left behind. In the painting, a small boy and girl probably no more than six years old had their backs turned to the observer. They were on a cobblestone pathway that wound through a manicured garden of colorful flowers. Their small hands were clasped together as they gazed out toward the horizon, which blurred into a pale blue sky.

Were they contemplating leaving the garden? Or did they find comfort in its limits? The painting’s beauty wasn’t in its composition but in that question. Corinthe used to spend hours lying on the worn rug, staring up at it, wondering.

It was the only piece of sky she could see from her new home.

Corinthe turned away and caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the small cracked mirror that hung over the copper basin sink. She stepped closer and studied her reflection, gingerly touched the dried blood on her temple. Her fingers shook.

The patron saint of lost causes. Sylvia’s words suddenly popped back into her mind. Humans and their strange beliefs.

Behind Corinthe, the tap on the tub squeaked and water began to run thunderously into the tub. Within seconds, steam filled the small room. In the mirror, Corinthe watched an outline shimmer through the steam, a graceful shape that resolved slowly into a hazy body.

Then, gradually, features appeared. It was like watching a rainbow form on the horizon, and Corinthe held her breath. No matter how many times she saw it happen, it was still magical.

A long, flowing white dress materialized first; then jet-black hair, a face with sharp cheekbones. Then, finally, the eyes. Those night-black eyes.

Miranda.

The water in the tub rose higher, until Miranda, fully formed from the steam, stepped out onto the floor, her white dress pooling around her and drying as the steam dissipated. Abruptly, the water stopped running, and the excess began to spiral down the drain.

Corinthe caught Miranda’s eyes in the reflection. “Where have you been?”

Miranda reached out and wiped away the blood on Corinthe’s forehead with her thumb. Her touch was soft, but her eyes were as dark and unreadable as stones.

She ignored Corinthe’s question. “Is the task complete?”

“Yes, just like the marble showed. But … I bled. …” Corinthe’s voice trembled and she turned away before Miranda could see the fear in her eyes. Fear was a weakness. It was a feeling. And feelings were for humans. “What’s happening to me? I’m—I’m becoming like them, aren’t I?” she blurted out. She realized the question had been raging inside her since the accident. Maybe for even longer than that.

“Shhh,” Miranda said. “You aren’t like them. You’re an Executor. This is just a small scrape, nothing to get upset about.”

“I’ve never bled before,” Corinthe argued.

“Don’t fret,” Miranda said. “You’re so close to going home. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

Corinthe bit her lip. She ached to return to Pyralis, to the twilight and the scent of flowers layered through the air, to the vast horizon of stars and the trees that whispered songs to her in the half darkness, and to her sisters, singing to the sky, running through the forests. “Of course it is.”

“Then leave it be and focus.” Miranda reached out and cupped Corinthe’s chin. “This day has been long for both of us. But trust me, it means little in the greater picture. Remember—there is a pattern to everything. This will all be a distant memory very soon, I promise.”

Corinthe nodded. Pattern. That word always made her feel a little happier, a little more secure. There was a meaning and a reason for everything in life—as a Fate, she knew that inherently.

“First, we fix you up.” Miranda moved to the row of shelves roughly constructed of cinder blocks and planks. The shelves were packed with a variety of dusty bottles and mason jars. She eyed the collection carefully and finally selected two small jars, then brought them back to the sink. Taking a cotton ball, Miranda dipped it into the clear bottle. The cotton soaked up the translucent liquid quickly, and Corinthe flinched when Miranda smeared it across her wound. “To clean off the blood … I’m sorry it hurts. I should’ve warned you it would sting.”

Corinthe shook her head, bearing the pain in silence. Miranda smiled encouragingly as she cleaned the wound. As Corinthe watched Miranda’s careful hands work, she felt relieved and grateful to have a Guardian who was this thoughtful, this diligent. Without Miranda, she could not possibly have survived her exile.

Miranda then tipped a second bottle over her palm, and several dead butterflies fell out. With her thumb, she crushed them and rubbed the dusty powder into the wound on Corinthe’s face. For a moment, they stood in silence, and Corinthe forced all of her questions and doubts—still thudding in her chest, behind her rib cage—down and back. All except one.

“How much longer will it be?” Corinthe asked. “I’ve been stuck here for years.”

Miranda turned and blew the last of the powder from her fingers. Then she quietly said, “I’ve heard whispers between worlds. If the Unseen Ones are happy with your next two assignments …” She let her words trail off, let the hint hover between them. She smiled as she reached into her pocket. “Your new task. Tomorrow, at the Mission Creek Harbor.” She held out a marble.

Corinthe took the marble and gazed into its murky center. Would it be a new death, she wondered, so soon after the last one? Inside the marble, images swirled: Lots of teenagers laughing. A party. Tiny lights winked—the harbor seen from a distance. Boats bobbed in the dark water. The image shifted again, and Corinthe saw two humans kissing.

Corinthe didn’t understand assignments like this—coincidences, encounters, romance. Death was cleaner, more direct. But love? The concept eluded and confused her. As far as she could tell, the feeling humans termed love brought uncertainty. But her job was not to question, only to perform her duty.

“A party will be fun,” Miranda said with a smile. “You are a teenager, too, you know.”

Corinthe knew Miranda was teasing her. She was not—would not—be like the humans she dealt with.

Miranda squeezed her shoulder. “You can wear one of your new dresses.”

As much as Corinthe loathed many aspects of this world—the constant noise, the acrid scent of human desperation—one thing she did love was the way humans dressed: the colorful patterns; the shoes of different heights and styles; the looped, beaded, and jeweled bracelets, necklaces, and rings.

In Pyralis, the Fates all looked the same. They wove white dresses out of flower petals. By human standards, Corinthe supposed the Fates were beautiful. But humans liked color. And, Corinthe realized, so did she.

Not at first, though. Initially, this world had seemed blinding and chaotic. In the beginning, Corinthe had worn a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses everywhere she went in San Francisco—even on the foggiest, darkest days, and even though the lenses were far too big, at the time, for her small face. But that was just one of the many subtle things that had changed about Corinthe during the past ten years. Over time, she’d somehow gotten used to the sun, to the buzz of constant movement and bright lights. Her eyes had become less sensitive. Lately, she’d even found that she liked the electric energy of mornings; the calm, flat gaze of the noon sun; the long, open yawn of a summer afternoon; the dark silence of midnight.

She wasn’t just getting used to Humana—she was fitting into it. Taking on more and more human traits. Possibly even, she thought with a sudden pang, becoming one of them. But being here, in this world, still hurt her; she still felt a near-constant ache for Pyralis.

She closed her eyes, willing away the thought.

“You look tired. Have you been stitching in the gardens lately?” Miranda asked.

“No,” Corinthe admitted.

“Go, then. I’ll be here when you come back.” She gracefully skirted a beat-up table in the center of the room. “And bring me a handful of echinacea and some Brahma Kamal petals.”

Stitching. It was a word all their own, infused with a meaning only Miranda and Corinthe knew. As a Fate in Pyralis, Corinthe had been connected to the world around her. The air, sky, plants—everything held vitality, a force that nurtured her body. But in Humana, the earth hurt. The first time she secretly tried to draw strength from it, the suffering had been so painful it had paralyzed her for days. She had been convinced she was being punished.

But Miranda tended to a small, previously neglected garden on the north side of the rotunda that she coaxed back to life. Flowers bloomed and deep green leaves stretched out to the sun. Its brilliance had called to Corinthe, and when she found it, she ran her hands over the surface of the ground, feeling the slight vibrations emitted from below. She had sunk her little fingers into the ground, pressing hard enough to feel the cold soil fill the space under her nails. Slowly, her senses had sharpened. The vibrations grew louder and turned into a gentle, swelling hum.

Life pulsed from the ground, weakly at first, and seeped into her body. Corinthe could still feel the pain of the trees and plants outside this small, sheltered space, but it was muted. Still, the relief was indescribable. She could hear bees humming, could smell the delicate rosebushes at the edges of the garden, could feel the earth’s pulse thrumming under her fingers.

She had sat for what felt an eternity before Miranda found her.

“What are you doing?” Miranda wore that same enigmatic smile Corinthe had seen so many times since.

“I—I was just … just stitching.”

“Stitching?”

It was one of the newer words she’d learned in Humana. To thread a needle, then weave strings back and forth until they made something beautiful. It was the best word she could think of to describe a process that had always been innate, intuitive. She had stood up, suddenly ashamed, determined to explain. “Something … passes through me when I’m here. Like strands of color. They come up through my fingertips, stitch everything in my body together. I feel … stronger here.”

“It’s not wrong to do,” Miranda said gently. “We take, then we give back.” She tipped her pitcher over a cluster of yellow flowers poking out of the ground.

Now, when Corinthe needed strength, she knew she could go there without shame. It didn’t feed her the same way Pyralis did, but at least Corinthe was able to stitch enough energy to do the jobs she was tasked with.

Exhaustion caused her steps to be heavy as Corinthe made her way out of the room and turned right, down a short hall that led to a shorter flight of steep steps. On the landing, a thick wooden door, barely a foot wide, swung open on silent hinges. The sun was gone. The sky was an inky nighttime blue, and the stars were beginning to float out of the dark.

The door opened directly into a small garden. The space was tucked at the back of the rotunda, away from the wide pathways for tourists and joggers. The garden was concealed from sight by a wall of tall, thick hedges that Miranda had planted years ago.

Though Corinthe sometimes heard voices pass close by, no one had pushed their way through the thick foliage to discover her yet. At least, not while she’d been there.

Her oasis was small, maybe five feet by five feet, but it was bursting with life. Brilliantly colored flowers crowded the ground, snaked up the trellises, burst like miniature songs from the deep, long grasses. Here, it smelled like heaven—another human concept Corinthe had learned only recently.

It smelled like Pyralis. Its scent defined who she once was, and who she would be again.

Another thing she had to thank Miranda for.

“Hello,” she whispered, and sat down in the middle of the garden, where a small circular clearing had been made, just large enough to accommodate Corinthe. She brushed her fingers over delicate blossoms and inhaled the heady scent her touch released.

She only took enough strength to survive, and only from the plants she tended to.

Stealing from nature without giving back was against everything she believed in.

When she felt better, Corinthe gathered the petals Miranda had requested for her tonics, thanked the plants, then squeezed back through the narrow door.

In the kitchen, Miranda sat at the table, surrounded by vials and dried leaves. She ground something between two small flat rocks, so engrossed in her task that she didn’t even look up when Corinthe set the petals down next to her.

Quietly, so as not to disturb her Guardian’s work, Corinthe made her way to her bedroom. It wasn’t a very big space, maybe half the size of the main room, but she had managed to make it her own. An old lamp, draped with a piece of gauzy red material, sat on a battered nightstand next to her bed. The floor was covered with oddly shaped scraps of rug. It should have been hideous—oranges and greens and pinks all mixed together—but somehow, it worked. Corinthe kicked off her shoes and kneaded her toes into the plush rug.

She’d tacked an old sailcloth to the wall over her bed. She’d found it discarded at the Marina, tossed aside because of a small tear in the fabric, and had known at once what she would do with it. Now the plain white cloth was covered in bold blue-and-green swirls around a starburst of yellow that formed an abstract sky.

A dark, jagged steeple dominated the left side of the canvas. A postcard was taped to the wall next to the makeshift canvas: Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. The painting reminded her of Pyralis, where the perpetual twilight stained everything purple and blue.

It was a crude rendition, but it was hers, and she loved it anyway.

Ten years ago, when she had opened her eyes and found herself on a strange rooftop in a strange world, the stars overhead were the only things she recognized. She’d stood, alone and terrified, staring up at the sky for hours, watching it begin to glow, with a mixture of fascination and dread.

When the sun had finally crested the horizon in a burst of light, she’d scrambled to hide in the dark recesses of the roof. She’d never seen the sun rise before, except in marbles. The world around her had brightened until it was blinding, until she had cried for the first time, from terror and anguish, and felt the pain of those hot tears and the humiliation of snot running into her mouth: all of it new. Miranda had found her there, cowering in the shadow of a water tank. She had spoken to her, explained, coaxed her out of hiding. She’d given her a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses and slipped them coolly over her face, bringing some relief to the intensity. Together, they’d sat in the sunlight and Corinthe had squinted through the tinted plastic lenses, watching the world around her emerge.

“Am I the only one?” tiny Corinthe had asked suddenly, peering up at Miranda with sudden curiosity.

“No. There are many of you,” she’d explained.

“Where are they? Why can’t I see them?”

Miranda had smiled. “They’re all around, but you can’t see them because they blend in. That’s what they’re meant to do—to live among humans as one of them. And that’s what you’re meant to do from now on, too.”

Corinthe could still remember how those words had washed over her consciousness like an icy wave: exiled here, in this foreign, terrible world full of obscene noises and blasts of light.

Only the stars in the sky were the same. The stars remained constant in every alternate world, the same constellations dancing across the darkened sky. It had always fascinated Corinthe to watch them move. When she was a Fate, she could commune with the Unseen Ones simply by standing at the river of knowledge and asking a question with her heart. She had asked them once if the sky moved or if Pyralis did. The answer had come back to her in silent pulsing waves:

We exist nowhere and everywhere; therefore, we move with all and none.

The statement felt so profound that Corinthe had spent endless energy trying to make sense of it, trying to find the beginning and the end of the universe in her mind.

She knew such thoughts were pointless, though; there were infinite realms in the universe, all connected by one membrane: the Crossroad. She’d been through it once and it had nearly torn her apart.

She finished undressing and slid into a soft pink robe. Silently, she padded back out to the kitchen, where Miranda now worked over a pot of steaming water, humming. Miranda always hummed when she was lost in a task or deep in thought. Next to her, on the table, were several crumpled ticket stubs, which Corinthe recognized vaguely as belonging to the city’s transportation systems. That meant Miranda had been riding again.

“Why do you ride the buses?” Corinthe asked suddenly. She had always wanted to know, but Miranda hardly ever answered a question directly.

Miranda didn’t look up. “You never know where an opportunity will arise.”

“Opportunity for what?” Corinthe asked.

“For anything and everything,” Miranda said with a smile.

Corinthe shook her head. Miranda had strange habits. She’d been known to ride around on the city buses for hours, speaking with humans. Corinthe had tried this once, hoping she might come into contact with other Executors. But it had forced her to interact with humans—and talking to them had proved too confusing. Miranda, however, seemed invigorated after these outings. Corinthe had never understood why. Perhaps it was like Corinthe’s interest in clothing—unexplainable, a fluke, a small bit of Humana that appealed to her.

Corinthe drew a bath, as hot as she could stand it. The water turned her skin pink, and she scrubbed her whole body carefully: between her toes, under her fingernails, behind her ears. Death had a way of clinging to skin, and Corinthe hated the way it felt—like her whole body was wrapped up in a cold, clammy grip.

Later, as Corinthe sat on her bed, towel drying her long hair, Miranda came in without a sound and set a steaming cup on the nightstand. She moved behind Corinthe on the bed and began to run a comb gently through her tangled waves. Miranda’s fingers brushed over her scalp as she worked the sections into a neat braid.

Corinthe missed the way her hair would wind itself daily into a long, perfect braid in Pyralis. Somehow, she could never seem to tame the wild mane here in this world.

“It’s getting harder to remember,” Corinthe admitted.

Miranda didn’t ask what or why. She just squeezed Corinthe’s shoulder tenderly, stood up, and left her alone with her thoughts.

Corinthe pulled on her favorite pajamas and lay back on the bed. This was the closest she came to actual sleep, something neither she nor Miranda actually needed—not like humans did, anyway. The bed was simply a place where she liked to sit and remember.

It was here that the memories of Pyralis resurfaced—mossy, dimly lit, sweet, like the gardens themselves.

The longing rose up, threatened to choke her.

Corinthe blinked her eyes open. The ceiling was strangely blurry.

“I’m ready to go home,” she whispered.

The room was silent.

Corinthe closed her eyes and tried again to picture Pyralis Terra. But this time, instead, she saw a pair of brown eyes gazing at her, and felt the single skating touch of a hand, like a butterfly’s wing against her shoulder.