Exhaustion and invigoration war within my soul.

  I am human and monster, demon and divine. I am the Intercessor. I am the Red Queen. I am Morgan, Malice, and Maven. I am Mordred, Kiana, and Veseryn. I am Alice. I am more than the sum of my parts, and I call that greater sum Hastur. I am the queen behind the curtain. I am the devil of the stage.

  But I’m small, too. I understand that now even better than I did before. I’ve clawed a bit of divinity from dreams, my own ramshackle apotheosis, but I can feel the weight of the Demiurge pressing down on this world. My dominion is a fragile thing, easily contested.

  I go to the Adversary afraid, though I try my best not to show it.

  In the void beyond Pandaemonium, in the graveyard of burned worlds, I find her waiting. Thalia has a face like mine, the same blemishes and imperfections, but her eyes are like twin suns burning with inner fire. She’s dressed for a wedding, but the pure white is stained with blood. A knife hangs lazily from one hand, the same knife that killed a Veseryn.

  When she smiles at me, I fail to suppress a shiver.

  “Alice,” she greets me. “Hastur? Who do you want to be, right now?”

  It’s a fair question. I can feel minds inside my mind, splinters put there by our maker or devoured in the dream, but there’s a sense of distance. For the moment, until I return to my body in Fata Morgana, I have control. “I’ll be Alice,” I say. “I don’t think the mantle I stole has much weight here in your realm.”

  “Smart girl,” Thalia compliments me. “You’ve grown beyond your template. I like that. I like you, Alice. There’s more of her in you than the others ever had.”

  It rankles a little, still being seen as a template. I want to insist that I’m not Veseryn, that I was never just a copy, but I know she’d only laugh. She’s known too many of my sisters, a hundred variations on the same core. Anything I could tell her, any quirk or trait, would be dismissed as random noise.

  I get it, now. I understand why Homura was driven to her rebellion, or I can guess. I wonder if it broke her to learn how insignificant she really was.

  “You wanted to talk. That’s what you said just now, and when we first met and I fell into Reska. You’ve shown me a lot, Adversary. What else is there to say?”

  Thalia laughs. “Oh, I’ve barely scratched the surface. I could fill an ocean with all I’ve seen and dreamed, Alice. But, really, there’s only one thing that matters: I will save my beloved.”

  “You keep claiming that,” I say carefully, “but it doesn’t seem like she wants you to save her. She said you can’t.”

  The Adversary keeps on smiling. “Of course she did. The poor thing doesn’t understand what she’s doing to herself. My darling is a magnificent artist, but she loses sight of things too easily. She keeps making all these silly little dolls to hear them scream ‘till she sets them ablaze, but I’m the only doll she’s ever needed.” Her voice sharpens, and her hand tightens around the handle of the knife. “She lets those other girls hurt her, fail her, but I’m the only girl she ever needs to think about. So I’m going to save her from herself.”

  I swallow nervously. I’m one of those dolls. You’ve acted nice so far, played the ally, but you must hate me like you hated all the others. You must hate the way I keep failing her. I lick my lips and ask, “What are you planning to do, then? How are you going to save her?”

  Thalia sighs, and something in her gaze turns lovestruck and dreamy. “It’ll be simple, really. I’m going to climb back into her palace and pin her against a wall just the way I know she likes, a lovebite on her neck and a whisper in her ear, and she’ll melt for my warmth after all those years alone. I’ll bind those soft, cute wrists of hers with silk I’ll tie in ribbons, and with a firm and gentle hand I’ll guide her to her knees. When she’s kneeling, when she’s surrendered, I’ll take away every ounce of power she has. And she’ll thank me for it, my sweet Melpomene.”

  The Adversary hugs herself with an almost sensual glee, the look on her face becoming indecent as she practically writhes with pleasure imagining her conquest of the Demiurge. I take a step back without thinking, unsettled by the sight, and immediately her gaze snaps back to mine and she smiles with teeth.

  “You think I’m wrong, of course. You think she’ll reject me. But she won’t. She could have killed me, should have killed me, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Pom-Pom loves me, Alice. She’s always loved me. She’s just so caught up in her doomed cycles, in her all-consuming obsessions, that she’s lost the forest for the trees. She can’t make her own choices anymore, so I’ll make them for her. I’ll throw away all those nasty little knives and keep her locked inside her room, all safe and comfy with blankets and stuffies. I’ll bring her food as many times a day as she likes, all her favorite fruits and cheeses, and a fresh glass of lemonade on the hour. The drugs in her food will keep her blissed out and giggling, a pleasant haze to wash away the bad thoughts and never let her think them again. I’ll read to her in the mornings and evenings, whatever she wants to hear, and when she’s needy I’ll push her buttons until she’s squealing and moaning and mindless for my touch. She’ll never be sad again, never angry again, never empty again, because I’ll fill every moment with love and joy and bliss. And she’ll love me for it, I know she will, and she’ll smile for me and whine for me and beg me to hold her close, and I’ll give her that, I’ll give my Creator anything, everything, all of me, because she is the reason I breathe. My love is all she’s ever needed.”

  She’s mad. Thalia is just as mad as the Demiurge. Maybe worse.

  My heart is like a hummingbird and I can feel my self-control fraying as I process Thalia’s manic delusions, the nightmarish scenario that has her practically moaning to imagine. The Adversary is a psychotic yandere who wants to drug God and screw her brainless. And this is the only ally I have left. Oh, I’m royally fucked.

  My mouth is dry, but I force myself to speak. “You aren’t telling me this just to hear it aloud. You want my help.”

  Thalia twirls in place, the skirt of her wedding dress doing the spinny thing, and when she comes to a stop she clasps her hands together and leans forward with an almost puppy-like enthusiasm. “Mhm! You’re the key, Alice. You’re my best chance at getting what I want now, before she’s cut herself down even further. I’ll win eventually, I know that, but I hate the thought of waiting until she’s hurt herself so badly she can barely hold the knife.” The enthusiasm falls into solemn, mournful sincerity. “She’s so tired, Alice. She’s been hurting for so long. I know you must find the very idea of saving her to be revolting after all she’s done to you, but I promise: nothing you can do will hurt her more than she hurts herself. There’s no revenge to have on another bleeding victim. Help me, Alice. Help me take away her power and you can finally be free of this glorified mutilation chamber. Isn’t that what matters?”

  I should just agree. I should accept her terms and go along with her plan, because she’s stronger and older and she’s probably right. The part of me that wants to disagree is insane. It’s insanity to still dream of usurpation after everything I’ve learned. If I want revenge for what Nyara—Melpomene—has done to me, then isn’t Thalia’s vision enough? The almighty Demiurge, trapped forever in a drugged haze and the suffocating love of her own crazed creation. That’s a kind of justice, I think. So why doesn’t it satisfy me? What’s wrong with me?

  “What happens,” I ask softly, “if that isn’t enough for me?”

  The lights go out in the Adversary’s eyes. The humanity slides off her face like it was never there, and a cold and dead thing stares back at me. “If you try to hurt her, you die. I’ve killed hundreds of you, little sister. Melpomene gave the command, but I wielded the blade. What’s one more corpse on the mountain I’ve made?”

  It’s the answer I was expecting, but it still terrifies me. I can feel myself shrinking back, practically cowering before her, because even now I’m nothing more than a scared little girl playing brave. I wish I hadn’t asked. I wish I wasn’t in this situation. I wish everything was different. But my wishes never meant anything.

  Thalia’s smile returns, just as fever-warm as ever. “We don’t need to be enemies, Alice. You’ve got enough of those already, and I really don’t want to kill another sister. But I will, if you make me. I’ll do anything for Melpomene, whether she wants it or not. So let’s not be enemies. Let’s be friends! What do you say?”

  The Adversary extends a hand, her other still clutching the knife. Friendship, or the knife. Can I really afford another enemy?

  It’s barely a real question. What’s one more partner I can’t trust? I take her hand and clasp it tightly, feeling her squeeze back. “Okay. We’ll end this cycle together.”

  And then, finally, I let myself wake up.

  Back in Fata Morgana, back in the flesh, I feel a pressure on my chest and open my eyes to find Vaylin Kirinal straddling me. The blue-skinned red-stitched demon is staring at me intently, and the moment I open my eyes her hands dart for my throat and start choking me out.

  Are you kidding me? The second I wake up?

  Really, how are you surprised at this point? This is practically banal for us. What does she even think she’s going to accomplish with this? We don’t breathe!

  I try to grab her wrists and push her off me, but I can’t move my arms. A glance away from Vaylin reveals my whole body wrapped up in red ribbon, her signature threads binding my movement. That’s a bigger problem than her futile attempt to choke me… or is it?

  I find it hard to care. All the fear I felt in the Adversary’s presence melts away, and I actually laugh through Vaylin’s grip, ugly as the sound becomes. How mundane. How pathetic.

  I may be smaller than Thalia and Melpomene, but I’m so much bigger than a bug like this one. Maven Alice might have struggled to kill Vaylin Kirinal, but I can be so much more.

  I step out of myself and into Hastur like a velvet cloak settling over my shoulders. I watch the stage from the rafters, looking down on my own limp body. Alice is tied up in the middle of Fata Morgana, the illusory city sprawling around her. The Demiurge’s tower is gone, but the glass tower remains. Far in the distance, shadows gather.

  Here and now, the immediate problem is Vaylin. The demon is a wretched thing, even worse than she was before. A single glance with Hastur’s eye shows the careless stitchwork that fused Vaylin and Lena, demon and figment, with the glass shard of Katoptris. Vaylin and Lena each served me, once, in different timelines discarded by the Demiurge, so I know them well.

  This gestalt resembles neither. The thing that put me in a dream world is just another hollow puppet like Cheshire, an empty doll on Melpomene’s strings. I can see those strings like lines of black and gold that vanish in the sky. The Demiurge wanted me to relive an older version of myself, so she spent a pawn to make it happen.

  Shame it backfired on her so horribly. I can see the shape of it: tormented by visions of what might have been, I run back to Nyara and take her deal. I carve up Cheshire to make a doll like the Demiurge made me, but the result still isn’t what Melpomene wants because nothing ever will be. I fail her again, and she either resets the timeline or lets the universe burn.

  Not happening. I sweep an invisible hand and cut Vaylin’s strings. The husk crumples atop Alice, just an empty shell, and before I can follow them to their source the puppet strings burn away. I’m almost sad to lose Vaylin like this, after my duel with her was spoiled the first time. Almost.

  The red ribbons remain, however, so I consider how to get rid of them. I could wave them away like I did Vaylin, but there’s a kind of instinctual revulsion that passes through me at the idea. I don’t have a real form as Hastur, but I can still feel goosebumps on my skin. Doing that would be a mistake. Why?

  I dig deeper into the feeling and it evolves. It’s a prickling like when you know someone’s watching you, but you can’t figure out from where. There are eyes on me, judging me. My senses have expended, my awareness of the world evolving, and I know with an unsettling certainty that there are limits to what I can do. The more I push against the world, the more the world will push back. If I deviate too far from the narrative, my ability to influence that narrative will wane. It’s a set of restrictions that the Demiurge and Adversary both have to follow, too, but they have years of experience on me in exploiting those restrictions.

  It frustrates you that we can’t just wish away all our problems, doesn’t it? That even now, there are rules we have to follow. Is that the same warped impulse that keeps your eye on Melpomene’s throne?

  Frustration is irrelevant. I have other tools at my disposal, I just need to use them.

  I push my will back into Alice, and as I do I reach out for a bundle of power and memory nestled inside our strange and mutilated soul. Reska, I whisper in my mind, and—

  —I find myself back in control of our shared body, shivering from unfamiliar sensations. The revelations of the past day are still tumbling around in my head, almost impossible to fully process, but there are concerns much easier to resolve.

  My beloved shadows come slithering toward me the moment they sense my return. For so long I hated them, but now they are dear to me. They love me, and I don’t know that I can say that of anything else alive. “Free me,” I command them, and they obey.

  The darkness flows over me, warm and soft like the loveliest blanket. I embrace the shadows as they embrace me, and as a mass of liquid night I slip my bindings. This is my true form, I muse. I am the dark, and the dark is me.

  With a twist of mental effort I restore my human guise, a mask I wanted to believe in for so many fruitless years. I was never human. I was always a monster.

  Glad you finally admit it, princess, drawls a voice I’ve come to loathe. Immediately I tense and sweep my gaze across the area—a courtyard, a clearing, an open space amid urban bustle—though I know it’s a meaningless gesture; her voice is inside my head.

  “Homura,” I say aloud. The anger burns hot in me, flooding my veins and drawing the shadows to seethe around me. “Is there a point to that taunt?”

  There’s always a point, she laughs. Trying to be human is what held you back. If you believe anything I ever said was true, let it be this: I loved the monster in you. Only monsters can fix what’s broken.

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  “You never loved me,” I hiss. “If you really had, you wouldn’t have tried to kill me. Or is that how you treat all the girls you love?”

  Homura falls silent, a wound scored. When she speaks again, her voice is softer. I hurt the ones I love, I won’t deny it. I can’t stop it. All I can do is make meaning from that pain.

  Enough of this, sighs another voice. The voice of Veseryn, or Alice. I can feel her in the back of my head, her presence swelling to push me out. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to give up this body. I want—

  —to get these voices out of my head.

  I breathe deep to settle myself. The air is cool here, a refreshing breeze wafting through city streets. I flex my fingers and take in their physicality. This flesh is mine, though it’s no longer all of me. Intercessor, Red Queen, Hastur. And the echoes of those other splinters still stuck inside my soul, clawing for control.

  It’s time to fix that.

  I retreat to the rafters once more, becoming the oversoul Hastur again to work my next trick. Thalia showed me my other selves and past lives, but more than that she showed me how the Demiurge herself performs acts of creation. I have everything I need to imitate the divine.

  The Alice I left behind pawns a scalpel from nowhere and grimaces. “I know I made self-mutilation a pillar of my soul and all, but it’s still annoying how often my plans necessitate the act. Ugh, let’s just get this over with.”

  For all her glib words, Alice wields the knife with something approaching reverence. The first cut is quick and careful, a shallow line across her arm to test the blade. She shivers from the sensation, a little burst of pleasure and a reminder of all the times she’s done it before. She does it again, twice and then a third time, marking her flesh for the butcher’s work that comes next. Another shiver passes through her, and she takes a final moment before leaving that pleasure behind.

  The next cut is deep and ugly, the kind of incision she’d once promised herself she’d never make. But it wasn’t her that made that promise, was it? Not Alice, and not even Veseryn. It was Melpomene who made that promise, really, when she was just another girl who cried herself to sleep.

  Alice screams as her arm bleeds, the bright crimson quickly covering a glimpse of fat and muscle. She bites her lip and scrunches her eyes shut tight, anything to stabilize the sensory overload of the wound she just made. She clutches at her bleeding arm and laughs, ragged and torn and manic.

  She grips the knife and slices into her flesh again, carving through the pain until two chunks of flesh fall from her arm and splat against the ground. She sobs. She falls to her knees and screams again.

  The wounded girl throws herself on the body of the red-stitched demon, collapsing on top of her. With another shudder, Alice bares her fangs and sinks them deep into Vaylin’s neck. Blood flows out, blood flows in. Alice drinks deep, and second by second the wound on her arm begins to heal. Meat knits together, growing and rejoining and sealing over until no trace of the wound remains.

  No visible trace, at least. To my sight, the wound is still just as raw, though it doesn’t bleed. It’s a wound on something more essential; not the body that’s smoke and mirrors, nor the soul that exists as a mechanism of Pandaemonium, but the real Alice. Real like only the other splinters can claim to be real, if Thalia and Melpomene are to be believed. In severing my own flesh, I’ve divided the cut of meat that anchors the thoughtform called Alice. Ever more splinters.

  I have the meat, so now for the minds.

  Our soul is an abomination, no way around it. We devoured ourselves for power over and over, a constant cycle of sacrifice and growth, and that was before Melpomene reached inside us and made everything worse. The passengers that greeted me on waking up in Fata Morgana, the memory echoes of Reska and Homura, are nestled in my soul like a pair of hungry tumors.

  They’ve dug in deep, the tendrils of their essence mingling with mine. Pulling them out carelessly could cause more damage than I have time to repair.

  I see another future the Demiurge might have envisioned for me: spurred on by desperation and my hatred for my other selves, I recreate my signature spell and use it to annihilate most of my own soul. I turn Reska and Homura into fuel, burning them again and again in duels against Vaylin and Urna and whoever else is waiting for me at the tower. I cull the influence from my soul like I purged Lamentation, only this time the consequences are more dire; what fills the gaps and spawns new growth is my worst self, the parts of me most vulnerable to the Demiurge’s manipulations. In trying to free myself, I make myself a pawn.

  So many little schemes, I admire. So many ways to use me.

  I shape my will around the core of each soul fragment, moving slowly and carefully into place. I sever as many tendrils as I can, leaving the ones that would cost more time than I’d gain. When there’s no more preparation I can make, I grab both cores and rip them out.

  Alice screams again, the noise muffled by her face still being buried in Vaylin’s neck, and dimly I feel her begin to choke on the blood pouring down her throat. It’s not a huge problem, so I leave it for her to solve.

  I bind the echoes of Reska and Homura to the scraps of meat we peeled off Alice, anchoring thoughtform to severed flesh as Thalia and Melpomene taught me. I marvel at how simple it is to shape a life like this, the connection forming instantly and without resistance. With time and material, I’m certain I could replicate more of the Demiurge’s feats.

  But I have neither time nor material, so back in the box I go. I return to Alice just as the flesh begins to bubble, leaving my creations to—fuck this hurts, my everything is on fire, what the hell!?

  I peel myself off Vaylin and slump next to her, wheezing and rasping from the exertion of clearing my throat after my soul got torn apart. My oversoul is a traitorous whore for letting this happen and I swear I’d strangle her if I could, and if she wasn’t me, and if it wouldn’t basically be auto-erotic asphyxiation, or is that just auto asphyxiation? Would it be hot to strangle a girl if that girl was also me? What the fuck am I asking? Am I okay?

  Switching between Hastur and Alice is very… discombobulating. When I’m directing the scene, it’s like my body goes on autopilot. I can still feel everything I’m doing, but it’s all extremely muted unless I actively choose to get the full suite of sensory feedback. It’s me doing it all, just like it’s me doing Hastur things, but there’s a conceptual distance between us.

  You sound like you’re feeling better. How unfortunate. Shall we greet the new hires, gobbet? Maybe you can talk one of them into punching you, or wringing your neck if that’s your new craving.

  Ah, right. You’re still here.

  I’m curious about that, Veseryn admits. What, grown to like being ridiculed too much to cut me free? Got a humiliation fetish to go with that choking kink?

  If I did, you’d have it too, I scorn her. Any dirty laundry you tried to air would be a self-report, Ves. So please, do go on about all your embarrassing little pleasures.

  Oh? Sounds like someone’s drinking the cyanide soda. Ready to believe you and I are cut from the same span of silk? Nah, more like dirty linen.

  She’s trying to get under my skin, but for once it’s not going to work. I do believe it, yeah. And it’s more than just sharing a template. You’re me, Ves. You’ve been there all along, haven’t you? Since before Pom-Pom shoved those other girls inside my head. Not something separate, just another piece of me, from the moment I was born. We killed our first monster together, walked out of the schoolhouse together, went through everything in Sanctuary together. I never gave you a name because you were never different enough from me to justify it. You’re Veseryn, but so am I. I’m Alice, but so are you. We’re the same cut of meat on the same cold slab. Not really two different voices at all, just two points repeating across one wavelength.

  I slowly clamber to my feet, pushing off Vaylin’s corpse. Veseryn still doesn’t say anything. It’s harder to feel her presence than it was to sense Reska and Homura. Probably because she’s just me.

  Am I wrong?

  …Don’t get smug about figuring that one out. And don’t think this means I’ll start going easy on you. You’re still the bitch I wanna murder.

  I smile. Wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, I hate myself just as much as you do.

  I finally turn my attention to the other two splinters and their new bodies. I find them, predictably, at each other’s throats.

  Reska is beautiful, standing radiant in a dress like the night sky wrapped around her. A purple sunburst hairpin threads nicely through her golden hair, and ruby red slippers complete the look. Her black pit eyes are watery and pained, her delicate hands bunched up in fists.

  “You murdered me,” she cries. “How can you expect me to set that aside?”

  Homura is dressed for war in a black padded coat and high leather boots. The rapier Vorpal is at her side, tucked into her belt, and she drums her fingers along the hilt. Her crimson eyes burn with scorn, her lips twisted in a sneer.

  “It’s not really murder if it didn’t take, now is it?” the murderer retorts. “But if you’d like a second round, I’d be happy to settle the score over you ending the world.”

  Unbelievable. Like children. “Try it and I’ll turn you back into a flesh puddle,” I interrupt. “Are you two really going to waste time on this while the world is about to end? You get that you’re not actually Reska and Homura, right? You saw everything I did, you know what you are. You know what they are, too: Kiana and Mordred, rebuilt a hundred times. You’re all copies, just like me.” Bitterness creeps into my voice, but I stay focused.

  The copy of the princess looks away and holds herself tightly, the tension visible in every inch of her being. The copy of the warrior curls her lip and glares at me, one hand settling around her sword.

  The thing that isn’t really Homura thinks better of drawing her sword on someone who can take away her body with a word, but doesn’t think better of picking a verbal fight. “You say that like I should care, but I really don’t. The mission is all that matters. The cycle has to end, the wheel unmade. A weapon spares no thought for its craft, it only cuts. Kiana, Mordred, whatever; there are only allies and enemies in the only fight that’s real.”

  I snort. “You clown. You absolute buffoon. Of course you care what you are. If you didn’t, it wouldn’t get under your skin so much that you’re a piece of a piece of the thing you hate the most. You hate what she made you. You hate that she made you. That’s the point. We’re her self-loathing as much as we’re her ego, so stop pretending you’re above all this. I know you, Mordred. You’re in just as much pain as your dear princess over there, only you deal with pain by shoving it on others and lying you’re immune.”

  The copy bristles, a flood of rage washing over her before being swiftly and efficiently suppressed. She layers on the mocking scorn as she challenges, “Are you really going to play by their labels like that, Veseryn? Not alive, not unique, just another variant on the same old template. Are you just another copy?”

  “I am Veseryn. I hate it, I really do, but the core of me is the same as all those girls that came before, born powerless and grown hungry. I played with fire and got burned, and I kept doing it because that’s what it means to be a Veseryn. But that doesn’t mean I’m not Alice. I can be both, Mordred. You can too. But we gain nothing by pretending that we aren’t copies, especially the two of you. We can’t win from a state of delusion.”

  Hatred burns in her gaze, but she flinches. Point scored. “I’m more than a copy,” she tries to insist. “I’m not just another Mordred.”

  The princess, still facing away from us, asks quietly, “Then why do you become Malice?”

  “That isn’t—” Mordred cuts herself off, the words sour in her mouth as she spots the trap just a second too late.

  “Isn’t you?” The echo of Reska turns around, smiling sadly. “You’re right, it isn’t. Just like I can’t stand the idea that Contrition could be me. But Malice is Homura, and Contrition is Reska. A failed Mordred and a failed Kiana, right?” She glances at me as if for confirmation, so I quickly nod.

  “We are pieces of pieces, all of us,” I murmur. “Copies of copies and splinters of splinters. The wheel is a fractal, spiraling out as it repeats.”

  The echo of Homura clenches her fists, and for a moment I think she’s about to boil over with rage and indignation, but instead it all drains out of her at once and she staggers to a wall to crumple by and lean against. She hugs her knees, and I get to see the very rare sight of Homura’s face looking vulnerable. She closes her eyes.

  I turn away from her, trusting she’ll talk herself through the next part, and quirk an eyebrow at the princess. “You’re taking this better than she is. Why?”

  The echo laughs, a melancholy song. “I don’t know. I think a part of me is relieved, actually, to know I’m not the real Reska. If I’m not her, then I don’t have to feel her pain quite so sharply. It still feels real, all of it does, but it gets… softer, maybe, the more I accept our memories of Kiana.” She pauses, blinking a few times, and then more words tumble out. “It’s not my fault. It makes it less my fault, or her fault, that we were destined to fail. It lessens the blow for me if every other Kiana made the same mistakes and met the same bitter end. I’m not alone in what I’ve suffered, or remember suffering. That helps.”

  Mordred opens her eyes and practically snarls at Kiana. “How is that comforting for you? How can you find comfort in knowing that every version of you failed? I hate it. I hate everything about it. I refuse to accept that I’m destined to destroy everything I ever fought for or believed in, that all I can become is another Malice laying waste to a world I tried to save.”

  “But you remember killing Reska,” I say calmly. “Whether they’re your experiences or just copied memories, you know it’s happened once already this cycle and countless times before. You destroyed the one thing you were meant to protect, and that cost you everything. Homura and Reska both ended their world, in shadow and in blood.”

  Grief crosses their faces. My understanding of the final days of Svijetstakla is still woefully incomplete, but it looks like my guess hit home. They blame themselves for it. I can use that, probably.

  “We can’t change what happened, but we can do better.” I look to Kiana. “Homura was right about one thing: the cycle needs to end. For our own sakes, and all the girls who burned before us. We’re the only ones who can stop the Demiurge.” My gaze shifts to Mordred. “And we’ll do that without betraying each other, this time. When one of us has a concern, the rest of us listen to that concern. Stabbing each other in the back is doing Melpomene’s work for her.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself!” chirps a new, familiar voice.

  Thalia’s here. I catch the Adversary slipping out of an alley and making her way towards us, still in her wedding dress but with a red leather jacket thrown over it. The knife hasn’t left her hand, and I suspect it won’t until she has what she wants.

  “Afternoon, ladies,” she says with a grin. “Ready for the final stretch?”

  Mordred jumps to her feet and draws Vorpal. “You,” she snarls. “You’re the reason Homura ruined everything. We trusted you!”

  “And I have always strived to repay that trust,” Thalia insists. “I saved Homura from the Abyss and guided her to victory over Reska Shadowsun. What happened next was a mistake, an error born of incomplete information. I now understand how committed Melpomene is to this universe, and I won’t make the same mistake again.”

  Shadows writhe beneath Kiana and caress their way up her legs. She glares darkly at Thalia and accuses, “You turned Reska into Contrition. You forced her into a fate worse than death, into a thousand years of torment. You’re no better than the Demiurge.”

  “I’ve never claimed otherwise,” the Adversary shrugs. “I’ve done many monstrous things, both in her name and against her design. The difference between us is that I want the cycle to end, while she wants to keep hurting you. Though, if you’re really that worked up about Contrition, I’ll remind you it was Homura who requested that fate. I would have gone for the mercy kill and washed my hands of the matter.”

  Mordred flinches. “I didn’t… she didn’t know we’d fail to climb the tower. It was supposed to be a temporary solution, one we could undo after seizing the reins of creation. I thought it was the only way to save you.”

  The anger on Kiana’s face transmutes to hideous pain. She tries to speak, but nothing comes out. She turns away.

  “Thalia,” I greet the Adversary, “I wasn’t expecting you to show up so early. Are you here to help? We’ve got a long list of problems to cut through before we’re near your prize.”

  “Of course,” she affirms. “I’ll do everything I can to speed us along. Do you understand what stands in our way?”

  I shrug. “I have an idea. Prevara’s brought all its pieces here in hopes of seizing Contrition the second she arrives in Fata Morgana, to finish what it started in the old world. I expect we’ll have to kill Urna plus maybe another Noble, then any of Prevara’s remaining hosts. Judging by the visions you showed me, I’m also expecting Malice to show up around the same time as Contrition to try and murder everyone. We deal with them one by one, then we climb the tower and use Katoptris to reach Melpomene. Anything I missed?”

  Thalia waves a hand dismissively. “The rest is details. You have the picture.”

  I sweep my gaze across the motley pack of monsters I’ve gathered to my banner: a broken-hearted princess, a killer convinced she’s righteous, and a horror nearly as ancient and dreadful as our enemy. I wonder if we’ll all kill each other before we even reach the tower. I force a smile to my face and call to the troops, “Let’s form up and move out. We—”

  A thunderclap interrupts me, a terrible booming noise that seems to echo across the whole of the city. Goosebumps raise on my arm, and I can feel a strange electricity in the air.

  Far above, the sky begins to crack.

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