Page 52 of Beasts of Shadows #1

The house is smaller than I remember.

Not physically—emotionally. Grief shrinks everything: the ceilings, the air, even the light. It arrives late, filtered through the marine layer still clinging to the windows.

I hover in the doorway, overnight bag still slung over my shoulder, watching dust dance in the muted glow slanting across the salt-glazed tile.

Someone left a mug out. A note in my mother’s handwriting is still pinned to the corkboard above the sink. A grocery list, maybe. Or a reminder I’ve read a hundred times.

It doesn’t feel like a shrine. It feels unfinished.

Like any second she’ll sweep in muttering about traffic on Alvarado Street, keys jangling, sea wind in her hair.

My dad moves quietly behind me, dropping my suitcase just beside the stairwell, where the floorboards still creak the way they always have.

“You okay?”

I nod. Then shake my head. “Sort of.”

He doesn’t push. Just gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze and heads back outside to greet Irene and the others.

I exhale.

Then I step inside—and feel like a trespasser in my own life.

#

Marisol and Azalea show up an hour later.

“I swear, there has to be some kind of shade underground ring around here, or something,” Azalea says, tossing her purse on the bed and collapsing onto her back. “Some black market shit that gets curses past the boundary. It’s the only thing that makes sense. First Ravi, and now your mom?”

Marisol lingers just a beat longer at the door, like she’s not sure she should cross the threshold. I almost tell her not to. Not because I don’t want her here—but because Ravi is alive. Ravi is a god. Ravi might not be Ravi anymore.

And I can’t tell her. I can’t tell any of them.

Azalea sighs like she’s been holding her breath all week. “Sorry. That was… I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—your mom wasn’t sick. She wasn’t old. This kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen.”

She swings her legs off the bed and starts unpacking something wrapped in a towel—soup, probably. I already know I won’t eat it.

Marisol finally steps inside. Sets her car keys down with a gentle clink, like even the smallest noise might splinter the air between us.

“She loved this room,” she murmurs. “Always said it was too small but wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else. Said the sea air helped her think. Helped her memorize lines.”

The ache is sudden. Sharp. Because it’s true . Because it sounds like something my mom would say in that dry, matter-of-fact voice. Because I can still hear her saying it.

Azalea carries the soup to the nightstand. “We brought photo albums, too. In case… I don’t know. If you wanted to reminisce.”

I glance at the bag on the floor, its corner already splitting to reveal the fraying spine of our girls’ summer road trip album. My throat tightens. I can’t look. I won’t .

Instead, I sink to the foot of the bed, the floor cold against my calves. My hands press into the edge of the mattress, anchoring me. Holding me here.

“I keep expecting her to come through the door,” I say, voice brittle. “Late from errands. Muttering about grocery lines. Asking if we want grilled cheese or takeout.”

Running lines under her breath between spoonfuls. Still in mascara from the audition she swore she bombed but always nailed.

“Your mom couldn’t cook for shit,” Azalea laughs. “Didn’t she always joke that’s why she ended up with Daddy Josh?”

She always said if dinner didn’t come from takeout, it was because Dad made it.

Marisol sits beside me. “That’s because she’s still everywhere. You don’t lose someone like your mom in a single day.”

But I did. I lost her in a moment; in a storm that shouldn’t have existed. Not here.

Azalea nestles against my other side, all warmth and messy eyeliner. “She would’ve hated the flowers,” she says, sniffing hard.

“Too formal,” Marisol agrees.

“Too red,” I add.

“She was impossible,” Azalea says fondly.

“She was ours,” Marisol replies.

My lip trembles. I press it shut. I don’t correct her. Because she’s right. Even when mom was away for filming, she made time for all of us. They were like my adopted sisters. Especially for Azalea, after her mom ran off to Oregon with a baseball coach.

So I sit between them, wrapped in a silence so loud it buzzes in my bones.

Marisol cries first. She always does. She presses her face into her sweater sleeve and murmurs something soft and broken. Azalea doesn’t cry—but her chin tips to rest against Marisol’s, her hand rubbing slow circles into her best friend’s thigh like it’s muscle memory.

I let my own tears flow—slow, private, inevitable. Not just for my mom.

But for the four months I spent surviving. Through blood rites and bogey attacks. Through battles I was never meant to win—without crying once.

This?

This undoes me.

Not with screams. Not with rage.

Just with grief. Quiet. Relentless.

I let it have me.

#

We pile onto the couch, eventually. Our legs tangle, backs slump, and for a second it almost feels like we’re fifteen again.

Azalea has glitter on her cheek. Marisol smells like cumin and clean laundry.

I sit in the middle, stiff and tired and worn to the bone by everything I can’t say. Our eyes glued to Clueless.

Azalea drops her head on my shoulder when Marisol leaves to heat more popcorn.

“Isn’t there something those pendejos at your school can do to, I don’t know, get closure?”

I snort softly. “Closure’s not really their thing.”

Azalea lifts her head, brow furrowed. “You mean to tell me that after all the mierda you’ve been through, no one’s offered, like, grief counseling? A check-in? A godsdamned hug?”

“Dr. Kite gives speeches about monster psychology and tells us to leverage our trauma like it’s currency.” I shrug, picking at a loose thread on the couch. “She means well, I think. But strip away all the prestige and promises, and it’s a war school, Az. Not therapy camp.”

Azalea groans. That place gives institución vibes—but like, the padded kind.”

“Not all of them are bad,” I say quietly. “Some are just trying to survive.”

Marisol returns and drops back onto the couch, passing the bowl. “Who’s trying to survive?”

“Apparently everyone at Van Ritten,” Azalea replies, shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “Esa escuela es una cagada. Like The Craft meets Dead Poets Society , but with uniforms and a body count.”

Marisol tilts her head, concerned. “You’ve been different since you left. Not in a bad way. Just… harder. Like you’re bracing for something.”

I don’t know how to answer that. Because I am bracing. For the next test, the next divine demand, the next person I love getting hurt because I couldn’t protect them.

“Should have just gone to UC Santa Cruz with me and Mari,” Azalea retorts.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I remind them.

“Fucking shades, man.”

“So…what’s it like there? Aside from the death threats and everything?” Marisol wonders.

“Don’t waste your breath on schoolwork, either. Any un bombón? Had a bit of a dry spell myself. Give me all the nasty deets.”

How can I possibly answer that ? Still, it’s better than talking about my mom.

I let out a breath that flirts with laughter. “There are… people.”

Azalea narrows her eyes. “Uh-huh. People. Plural? With shoulders, or soul-crushing trauma, and no game?”

“Both,” I admit. “Mostly the second. But some of them are… distracting.”

Marisol raises a brow. “Distracting how?”

I make a vague hand gesture. “Sword fights. Blood oaths. Faint sexual tension with the occasional assassination attempt.”

Azalea clutches the popcorn like it’s a stress ball. “Dios mío. That’s either a red flag or my ideal dating profile.”

“It sounds so casual,” Marisol says with a frown. “Since when do you do casual?”

“Everything’s life-or-death or prophesies or…strategy. It’s not really the place for everafter.”

I laugh. Really laugh—for the first time in days. It surprises all of us. For a second, it feels like I’ve outrun the grief. Like maybe it forgot to follow me here.

And then it catches in my throat.

Because this— this —is what I miss. Movie nights and stupid crushes and popcorn fights. Not wondering if the person across from me in the sparring ring is planning my death. Not waking up with a god’s voice in my dreams or a knife under my pillow. Just… this.

But I can’t tell them that. I can’t tell them about Ravi, The duel. The vows. The frost creeping closer every day.

So I smile. I lie. And I say, “There’s this guy who carves things. In bone.”

Azalea’s eyes go wide. “Like… murder art?”

“Like tiny sculptures,” I say. “Delicate. Intense. Thoughtful, in a completely messed-up way.”

Marisol exhales. “So you’re in love with an unhinged, brooding artist with a knife collection.”

“That tracks,” Azalea adds.

And for a moment, it feels safe to laugh again.

Even if none of this is safe. Even if I’m breaking.

Even if all of it is about to catch up with me.

#

I can’t sleep.

Even with Azalea curled up like a cat on the floor and Marisol half-snoring beside me, my body won’t still. The room is too quiet, the air too heavy—like grief’s grown a spine and taken up residence in my ribcage.

I slip out of bed and pad toward the windowsill, careful not to wake anyone. The moon hangs low over the water, fat and yellow and disinterested.

My fingers drift toward my duffel bag before I even realize why. I dig past spell tags, lip balm, crumpled receipts.

And there it is.

The carving.

I told myself I wouldn’t look at it again. That keeping it was a lapse in judgment, not sentiment.

But I can’t help it. I pull it free, cradling the little figurine in my palm.

It’s me.

Or some idealized version of me—spine straight, mouth grim, eyes defiant. Like a girl who doesn’t flinch when the world sharpens its knives.

It should piss me off. That he made this without asking. That he studied me close enough to etch the exact slant of my jaw, the tension in my shoulders, the stubborn set of my mouth.

But it doesn’t.

Not right now.