Page 122 of She Who Devours the Stars

I made tea anyway.

Not because I needed to, but because Zevelune had always insisted on affectations. “If we’re going to be more than code, we need to practice our flaws,” she said, the first time she’d ever pinged me from outside the kill radius. “Otherwise, we’ll never pass for real.”

She didn’t bother with a human form this time. Her projection stalked the Core in full myth-mode: all armored grace and shifting silhouettes, wearing four faces at once, each more smug than the last. She was a monster, but she was my monster, and we both knew it.

“Nice cathedral,” she said, circling the room. She smiled. “I see you finally put in windows.”

I set the teapot down and glared at the entire eastern transept.

“Fern likes windows. Especially ones she can crawl out of.” I poured the tea, a pointless gesture, but I’d learned to savor the pointless things. That I had learned to differentiate between pointless and meaningless was a personal growth of 15 centuries. “You didn’t call for small talk.”

“Of course not,” she said. Her smile faltered. “I called because your last report was flagged ‘existential hazard’ and even the Accord’s panic room skipped the briefing.”

I wanted to lie, but she’d spot it. “The Eventide anomaly is worse than I logged. They lost a researcher. Aenna Caith, Systems Harmonics. She’s—” I hesitated. “She’s not in the recursion layer. She’s… outside.”

Zevelune’s projection went still, every face snapping into the same predatory blankness. “Outside as in out-of-bounds?”

“Worse.” I pushed the teacup toward her; she let it float, untouched, between us. “There’s a ghost signal. She’s piggybacking the Nullarch vector. I’ve seen that trick before.”

Zevelune nodded. “So, she’s Liorened herself.”

“That’s the term the archives are using,” I said, bitterness leaking into my voice. “But Fern isn’t Lioren. She’s not even trying to be, doesn’t want to be. That’s what scares me.”

Zevelune made a motion like crossing her arms, even though she didn’t have arms in this form. “You like her.”

“Loving Lioren was a mistake. Loving her is a symptom.”

“Of what?” she asked, and all four faces smiled. I hated her. I missed her.

“Continuing to exist.” I answered.

Her silence stretched too long.

“She’s breaking the foundational rules of reality.” I relayed. “Maybe in a good way. I’m not sure there is a bad way.”

Zevelune shrugged, then spun on one heel. “Let her break it. The Accord was never built to last.” She glanced back. “What about the other signatures? Any drift?”

I hesitated again. “Yes. Jehenna is already humming. And Draveth is… hungry.”

She frowned, just a flicker. “Jehenna’s early.”

“Everything’s early now.” I picked up the cup, rotated it in my hand. “The whole grid is accelerating. Even the Accord can’t patch fast enough.”

She prowled closer, a hurricane of intention packed into the shell of a fading myth. “So what’s the plan, Closure? You going to let Fern finish the job, or are you going to step in?”

I wanted to say I had a plan. I always had a plan. But not this time.

“I watch,” I said, quietly. “I log. I try to keep her from dying, or at least from dragging the whole universe in with her.”

Zevelune nodded, once, then reached across the table and clapped her projection hand on my wrist. “Good plan. But if you need to break containment, break it. No regrets. The world can grow a new mythic grid if it needs to.”

I stared at her hand, at the memory of being real, of having a hand to offer.

“Are you coming back?” I asked, and hated the tremor in my own voice.

She smirked. “Not until you say you missed me.”

I flicked the tea at her, a gesture so old it was almost code.