Chapter 115
[ 1,060 words ]
Chapter 116
Elliot
I wake up to my ceiling doing the thing I told it to do, being a sky instead of a ceiling. Stars drift slow as jellyfish. The comet I programmed takes its lazy lap, tail smudging light like chalk. The room hums the song I made for it ages ago: part music box, part wind chimes, part heartbeat. It never forgets. Something warm is tucked against my side. I turn my head and almost forget how to breathe. Macey. She’s curled up facing me like a paw- sized wolf, one hand fisted in my blanket, the other wrapped around Fergus’s ear so he can’t escape his duties. Her hair is a mess, the good kind. She makes a tiny whistling noise every few breaths and her nose scrunches when the comet passes, like she can feel it through her eyelids. Macey has never been to the Underworld. For a second I think I’ve dreamed her here, the way you dream food after a day with no snacks. But her skin is warm, and when I slide my fingers very carefully to her wrist, her pulse taps my fingertips: hello, hello, I’m real.
“Hi,” I whisper anyway, even though she’s sleeping. Fergus stares at me like a bodyguard.
Rude.
The room listens to me when I think at it. I ask the stars to be a bit softer so they don’t
wake her. They dim around the edges and fluff into bigger, sleepier shapes. The music tucks itself down another notch. The floor. dark and not–quite–water, warms under my
toes when I slide one foot out. How is she here? Levi did the neat lines on my door, the
proper warding, the kind that keeps bad things out and lets good things in if I say so. I wrapped my own pattern through his like vines around a fence: teeth, blankets, stars, me. If something hollow tries to tug at the edges, I feel it like a cold breath in the back of my skull. I reach with that part of me and taste the room. The wards are purring. No frayed places. No cold teeth at the seams. There’s a thread I didn’t put there, though, thin and silvery, tied to Macey’s shoulder like a ribbon trailing off into dream–stuff. It tastes like cinnamon sugar, sunshine, and pizza grease. Not the brittle, thirsty kind we felt at the fence. This one feels like… home finding a person. Not a trap, then. Not a test. Just something that heard “together” and decided to behave. My shoulders drop. I didn’t know
they were up around my ears until they aren’t. I think about last night in a quick flash, Mum’s arms full of Macey, Daddy Noah carrying me, moving like thieves who only steal back what’s theirs. The portal opening like a page turning. The room lifting its head when we came in. I remember them putting us down side by side so Macey wouldn’t wake up
and be scared, and I guess I fell over right after, because here we are and nothing in the
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world has ever been more correct. Layah is a dark curve at the foot of the bed, eyes half-
lidded, pretending to sleep but watching everything. Her tail thumps once when she
notices I’m awake. I press a finger to my mouth and she huffs like, fine, but if anyone sneezes wrong I will eat them. I lay back down and shuffle closer so Macey doesn’t have
to reach for the blanket edge. She makes a tiny sound and scoots into me like she was just
waiting for permission. Fergus ends up with one eye against my chin. He’s braver up
close.
“Do you know where you are?” I whisper, not expecting an answer.
She mumbles something that might be “stars.” Her fingers twitch, searching, and I offer
mine. She catches them in her sleep and holds on. My chest does a soft, stupid flip. You shouldn’t be this happy about something so small, I tell myself. I am anyway. A ripple brushes the outside wards, faint, polite, like someone sniffing from very far away. The
lattice Levi left hums once, sharp. My vines tighten, soft. I feed the whole net a spoonful
of warmth the way Envy showed me, careful not to scorch, and the ripple slides off and goes looking for someone else to bother.
“Not tonight,” I tell it, and the room agrees with a satisfied little purr.
I think about telling Mum right now, calling through the bond like, hey, something nosed
the edge but I tucked it back to sleep and decided on morning to deal with it. She promised to love me even when the scary parts show their teeth. I promised to tell her
everything. I will. After breakfast. After she sees us like this and smiles that soft way she
does that makes my ribs feel bigger. I change the sky for Macey. Not much, just enough that the stars make a shape that looks like a wolf pup chasing a comet. The comet goes
slower so it won’t outrun her. The music pulls in a little heartbeat I didn’t know it could
make until now. Maybe the room is learning me like I’m learning it.
“Hey, Mace,” I say to the top of her hair, because secrets are lighter when you say them to someone even if they’re asleep. “If you ever want to come here again, I’ll make the door open the right way. I’ll make the scary things small. And I’ll share Fergus if he signs the forms. ”
She breathes out against my collarbone. It tickles. I try not to laugh and fail a little. Layah’s ear flicks like, quiet, gremlin, and then settles again.
I close my eyes with my hand still around her wrist so I can count her pulse if I want. The comet drifts. The room sings. For once, the only hunger anywhere near here is mine for
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Chapter 116
pancakes when I wake up. If the hollow things out there are still listening, I let them hear it this time, as clear as I can make it: She’s under my sky. Try it and find out.
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