Page 120 of She Who Devours the Stars

Axis Alignment: Eventide, Faculty sauna

The message wasn’t even subtle this time. It showed up on my HUD as a cartoon chili pepper doing jazz hands, which could only mean one person was trying to contact me, and also that she’d lost the will to be subtle after three full mythic events. I tried to ignore it. The chili grew a face, then started screaming.

The staff sauna was on Sublevel 4, down a hallway that had been off-limits for so long the paint was actually retro. I’d never been inside; the only people who used it were ancient faculty, the kind of academics who considered minor war crimes an acceptable pedagogical tool. The hallway smelled like burned soy and despair.

When I got to the door, it locked behind me. Not with a click, but a slow, inexorable deadbolt that felt like it might never open again. The steam inside was so dense I could barely see my own hand. My clothes were instantly wet, clinging to every inch of mythship-burned skin, which was only slightly less humiliating than the alternative. I peeled off my coat and let it sag, sweat pooling at the small of my back before the heat could even finish its first lap.

The Headmistress waited, arms folded, perched on a wooden bench older than most of the Accord’s standing army. She wore a towel the color of wet cement, and her hair, usually perfect, was now a halo of defeated frizz. A pair of ancient data goggles hung around her neck, lenses so fogged they looked painted on.

I tried to bow. It just made the world spin.

She pointed at the opposite bench. “Sit before you fall,” she said. Her voice had lost none of its edge. “I’m in no mood to catch you.”

I dropped onto the bench, every muscle in my body protesting. The heat was the kind that didn’t just attack your skin; it infiltrated your bones, then sent sabotage teams up the nerves.I coughed, wiped my forehead, and waited for the opening barrage.

“You look like a recycled tube sock,” she said, nodding in approval. “Good. You’ll blend in when the Accord decides to flush the system.”

“Morning to you, too,” I managed. “Is this about the snack bar? Because that was an accident. Mostly.”

She snorted. “If it was about the snack bar, you’d be in the sub-basement eating regret with Perc.” She leaned forward, elbows on knees, towel barely holding the line. Her skin was translucent in the steam, the veins beneath a map of faded wars. “This is about your disaster.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

She let the silence ride for a moment, then: “When you were feeding students, we just had heartburn. Now we’ve got recursive erotics and missing researchers.”

A bead of sweat dripped down her cheek. She ignored it.

“Did you know,” she said, “I outlived Lioren? Sat on this bench the day they erased him, watched the city throw itself a parade. Never thought I’d see anything worse.” She smiled, but it was the kind of smile that only happens at the top of a bungee jump, when you realize the cord is frayed. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

I tried to play it off. “Wasn’t me. I was at home, watching trash drama and eating industrial cheese.”

Her glare cut through the steam. “If I wanted lies, I’d have joined the Concord.”

She let the towel slip a bit, arms crossing. “Fern. Listen. You’re the new epicenter. You know it. I know it. The Accord knows it, but they’re hoping it’ll solve itself if they yell loud enough.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You think you’re ready to be the next Lioren, but you’re not. No one ever is.”

My hands were trembling. I wrapped them in the edges of the bench, tried to play it cool. “I’m not a martyr. I’m not even a mythic. I’m just… me.”

She laughed, dry and slow. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Lioren was never a mythic, either. Just a hungry, lonely kid who wanted to fix something and ended up breaking everything else.”

I looked at her. Really looked. The lines on her face were deeper than before, like the last few weeks had aged her a decade. There were patches of her scalp that showed white against the skin, and the tattoo on her left wrist—the one they said marked the survivors of the last mythquake—had faded so much it was almost gone.

“You know what it means when reality gets thin?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Everyone gets a little more honest.”

She smiled, then shook her head. “No. It means Pandora starts making up stories to fill the gaps. And when it does, the people with the most narrative weight get to decide what comes next.” She reached into a pocket I didn’t know towels could have, pulled out a flask, and took a swig. Then offered it to me.

I drank, not because I wanted to, but because it seemed important. The taste was astringent, somewhere between mythtech coolant and citrus.

She took it back. “You’re not going to save the world,” she said, “but you might keep it from eating itself for a little while longer.”

For the first time, she looked tired. Not the kind of tired that meant she needed a nap, but the kind that meant she’d already decided not to get up tomorrow.

“I’m scared for you, Fern,” she said, voice raw. “I’m scared for everyone, but especially for you, because the last time I saw a mythic this unstable, it took three centuries to patch the hole he left.” She didn’t have to say the name.

I tried to muster a joke. Failed.