Page 152 of She Who Devours the Stars

After what felt like a thousand cycles, the room started to burn. The smoke was thick and sweet, and it didn’t hurt—at least, not in the usual way. My family didn’t notice; they kept eating, jaws working through invisible food.

I turned to Zevelune, who’d finally materialized in the seat next to my mother, legs crossed, chin in hand.

“Are you going to help?” I demanded.

She blinked, slow and lazy. “Help? This is the test, darling. You walk through or you don’t.”

I forced myself to stand. My legs worked, now, but the pain followed, a hot white pressure at the back of my knees. I staggered to the table, slammed my hands down, and shouted.

No one looked up.

I flipped the table. Food and plates and people went everywhere, but the fire just burned brighter, licking at the edges of memory. My family faded out, one by one, until it was just me and Zevelune, surrounded by the sound of a world ending.

I tried to hit her.

She caught my wrist, held it tight. Her grip was cold, absolute.

“Next,” she said, and with a snap, the room vanished.

I was in the taco bar, but not any taco bar I’d ever seen.

The counter was the right height, the stools welded to the floor at just the right angle, but the only thing on the menu was blood. It dripped from the neon letters, pooling behind the glass, running in slow, thick rivers across the floor. I wanted to gag, but my mouth was full—cheeks packed, jaw aching. I spat onto my hand, expecting food, but found a chunk of raw mythlogic, pulsing and blue-white.

Behind the bar, Dyris was waiting. She looked incredible—hair perfect, suit pressed, eyes cold as the event horizon. She poured herself a shot of tequila, sipped, and watched me chew.

“Hungry?” she asked.

I tried to answer, but my throat was packed with the raw stuff. I choked, spit again, this time finding my own tongue in the mess.

Zevelune, now three stools down, laughed into her glass. “You always had an appetite, Fern. Never figured out how to feed it, though.”

I tried to lunge at her, but the bar stretched, stools multiplying, floor sliding away under my feet.

Dyris’s voice cut in, sharp: “Is this who you want to be?”

She was right in front of me, now, hands on my face, eyes so close I could see the shatter-lines in her irises. She pressed her lips to mine, and the taste was salt and blood and something sweeter. I kissed her back, desperate, and for a second, I thought maybe I could pull her out with me, escape the memory together.

But her lips burned. They scorched. She pulled away, and her mouth was gone—just a smear of mythic fire left on her chin.

Zevelune’s voice, right next to my ear: “Nice try, darling. But you’ll have to do better.”

Next, I was falling.

No, not falling. Being pulled.

I tumbled through the stone forest, the trees now so close together they scraped at my skin. Each branch that grabbed me left a memory—a real one, not a manufactured hell. The time I’d hidden under the junk pile for six hours to avoid Mom’s fashion-mandated haircut. The night I’d smashed a window just to hear what it sounded like. The time I’d kissed Gallo, then ran for two blocks because I was so scared he’d tell my dad.

I thought I could ride out the nostalgia, but the branches kept coming, each one heavier than the last, until I landed in a clearing. Zevelune was there, perched on a slab of dead stone, watching me with the patience of a cat who’d already eaten her fill.

This time, I didn’t bother to speak.

She looked me over, then said, “You’re getting closer.”

I wiped the blood from my arm, stood, and faced her. “Is there a point to this? Or are you just hoping I’ll break before the end?”

She considered that. “Either would amuse me.”

I closed the gap, got right in her face. “Why me? Why this?”