Chapter 16: The Ancestry Of Pecola

The air in the chamber buzzed like it knew a secret. A delicious secret. Queen Sentient's hand hovered above the vortex, fingers curled like a seductress drawing back a curtain.

Her voice rang out, melodic and heavy with meaning. "Pecola," she said, her words smooth as silk over bare skin, "the answers you seek lie within the echoes of your past. Prepare yourself."

Pecola swallowed hard. Behind her, Antic rolled the brim of his oversized hat down further, muttering a curse that sounded almost too flirty for the moment. "Great. Glowing trauma hole. Can't wait."

Grin tried to smirk, but it twitched sideways on his skeletal face like a haunted emoji. Dolly, for once, was quiet, her doll-like lips parted in rare serenity—as if even her chaos knew this moment wasn't hers to steal.

The vortex pulsed like a heartbeat, green and breathing, its swirling light licking the edges of the room like flame. It wasn't just magic—it was memory with teeth.

Pecola stepped forward, the air brushing against her face like a forbidden lover's breath. The moment her foot crossed the threshold, the world shattered into color.

Swirling. Stretching. Collapsing.

And then—stillness.

They stood in a realm of impossible beauty. The hills glowed with an amber hue, the sun low and lazy as if seduced by the sky. Wind curled through the grass in sultry motions, stroking the stems of iridescent flowers that trembled under invisible fingers. Floating creatures zipped past, trailing luminous pheromones.

"Evergreenia," came Queen Sentient's voice on the wind, barely a breath. "A realm of senses… long devoured by time. Here lies the beginning, Pecola. Your true beginning."

A vision began to unravel—too vivid to be a dream, too perfect to be real.

Pecola saw her. Herself, but not.

A woman with hair like cascading ink and eyes that glimmered like twin universes cracking open. Her body moved with a sensual grace so fluid it made the wind blush. She wasn't blind. She wasn't shy. She was Elara.

And she was a fucking goddess.

Elara's home nestled in a tangled grove that moaned with enchantment. Her fingers danced through the air and the forest bloomed in response. Magic pulsed from her skin. She controlled the senses—enhanced them, distorted them, devoured them. A kiss from her could send a man spiraling into soundless ecstasy—or into a silence so profound it would drive him mad.

And she loved. Gods, she loved.

Theron. A woodcarver with eyes like twilight and hands that could turn timber into symphonies. When he looked at her, it wasn't just admiration—it was worship. Their chemistry was raw, electric, and hilariously tender.

They flirted like teenagers who'd read too much erotic fanfiction.

"Carve me something useless," Elara teased, straddling his lap beside the hearth. "Like your excuses for not kissing me."

"I was carving you a hairpin," Theron grunted, wood shavings on his shirt, "but you're far more dangerous with your hair down."

She bit his shoulder and whispered, "Exactly."

But bliss never lasts.

The forest darkened. Malkor came like a disease in a lover's bed. Twisting, poisoning, whispering promises to the flora and stealing their color. He wanted Evergreenia's magic—but Elara was its heartbeat.

She fought with unrelenting ferocity. She twisted Malkor's senses, made him deaf to his own screams, blind to the daggers flying at his back. But each spell cost her. Each enchantment bled her magic like a leaky wine cask. The woman who had once danced through light now stumbled, her eyes dimming, her voice thinning.

Then came the final stand.

Pecola watched—helpless—as Elara stood beneath the moon, her senses flickering like dying stars. Theron held her, trembling. She touched his face as if memorizing it through fingertips alone.

"I'll remember you… in silence," she whispered, before unleashing a cataclysm of pure light that swallowed Malkor whole—and took her sight with it.

The vision bled away, leaving Pecola gasping, her legs barely holding her up. Antic caught her by the waist, his grip firm, grounding.

"Hey," he murmured, unusually gentle. "You good, Blindside?"

Pecola nodded, though her throat was too tight for words. His hand didn't leave her waist. His palm rested just a moment too long. She didn't move away.

Queen Sentient appeared beside them like a shadow with mascara. "Elara was your mother," she said, eyes glowing soft. "And your blindness is not a flaw. It is the echo of her final act of love."

The words hit Pecola like hot sugar over a bruised heart. Her mother. A woman of immense power. A woman who loved and bled and bit shoulders.

A legacy, carved in light.

"Pecola," Antic said softly, tugging her aside as Dolly and Grin gave them space. His voice dipped into that rare frequency: sincere mischief. "You've got her spine, you know. I mean, you're way moodier. But… still."

"I have her eyes too," she whispered, smiling sadly. "Even if they don't work."

"You work." He moved closer. "And I—"

Whatever he was going to say died on his lips. Instead, he leaned in.

Their kiss didn't crash. It unfolded. Soft at first, tasting of magic and nostalgia and something long overdue. Then deeper. Greedier. Pecola clutched his coat, dragging him closer, needing—craving—the contact.

It was less a kiss, and more a conversation with their mouths: about pain, about legacy, about the fact that this was real, godsdammit, and no amount of past trauma or cosmic destiny was going to dull the heat they'd stirred.

He kissed like he told jokes—quick, clever, and occasionally offbeat. But his hands didn't joke. They found her hips and held them as if he'd known the curve of her all his life.

But before the kiss could spiral into something too dangerously intimate—before they lost themselves entirely—Grin cleared his throat in the most awkwardly polite tone a skeleton could manage.

They broke apart, breathless. Antic looked dazed. Pecola looked... powerful.

The moment had ended—but something had awakened.

The colors of Evergreenia bled away like wet paint on a lover's shoulder. The vibrant golden light dimmed, replaced by hues of withered parchment—greys, browns, and aching silences. The air turned cooler, whispering a different kind of magic: old, tired, and thick with sacrifice.

The rolling hills collapsed into the shadowed cradle of a hidden valley. Here, beneath trees that looked older than time and just as bitter, sat a small cottage—less a home and more a secret the world had almost forgotten. The place smelled of wet bark, midnight tea, and memory.

Inside, Elara sat hunched in a wooden rocking chair, her eyes hollow with sleepless devotion. In her arms, cradled close to her breast, was a newborn—Pecola.

No magic sparkled in the air now. No shimmering flora. No symphonies of the five senses. This place was not Evergreenia. This was exile.

Elara whispered to the baby like she was apologizing with every breath. Her fingers trembled as they brushed over Pecola's cheeks. Her voice didn't crack—but it bled.

Outside the cottage, Theron stood rigid, his eyes damp, jaw tight with fury he had no enemy to unleash upon. The once-bold lines of his face had softened into something more tragic. It was a man's face, yes, but broken like the final stroke of a half-finished painting.

Their love had once pulsed wild and open, like a fire in an open field. Now it was pressed into a tight, aching flame behind shuttered windows.

And the elders of Evergreenia—those pompous ghosts in silk and antlered headpieces—had demanded it be extinguished.

The price of their love? Everything.

Elara's magic, the fierce and sensual thing that once pulsed through her skin like liquid lightning, was now deemed a threat. Her bond with Theron had become a sin. And their child, born of both realms, was a scandal. A paradox. A potential apocalypse wrapped in a swaddle blanket.

She chose. Of course she did.

Her magic went first. The ceremony was slow, cruel, and indecently intimate. Ancient rituals stripped her of the very things that made her—her. Her sense of taste dulled, her skin turned cold. Light dimmed behind her eyes. Her fingers—once so delicate and deadly—shook like she'd aged a century overnight.

Theron held her afterwards, pressing trembling kisses into her hair. She didn't cry.

"I'd give it all again," she whispered against his chest. "For her. For you."

The vision shifted. It was now night. A different night. A darker one.

They met in secret beneath a moon like a knife—Elara and a shrouded group known only in whispers as The Order of the Silken Veil. Their robes rippled like ink in water. Their faces were hidden behind masks too elegant to be trusted.

Pecola watched—horrified and transfixed—as Elara bartered her daughter's future like a black-market treasure.

"This child," one masked figure purred, voice rich with dark amusement, "is not just a hybrid. She is an edge. A tool. A thread between realms."

"She's my daughter," Elara snapped. Her voice no longer sang—it struck.

"You want protection," another replied. "Then we decide the terms."

Elara agreed. Her eyes were flat but fierce, like a dying fire daring the darkness to try her.

And so, Pecola's fate was sealed—swaddled and handed off, the magic still pulsing through her tiny body dimmed by enchantments the Order would weave. She would never know her mother. Not truly.

The moment of parting was worse than death.

Elara collapsed to her knees in the dirt after the agents vanished with the child. Her scream didn't echo—it sank into the soil and vanished. She never screamed again.

The vision snapped again. This time, it was cold.

Steel beds. Fluorescent lighting. A concrete orphanage where warmth was rationed like toothpaste.

Pecola saw herself—a baby, left in a woven basket with no note. Not even a name. The caretakers were kind enough not to discard her, but that was all. She was another mouth. Another chore.

She grew up in corners. No lullabies. No "I love yous." Just cold spoons and muffled arguments behind glass doors.

Elara watched from afar, a wraith in the trees of a world she couldn't touch. Her magic was gone, but her longing hadn't dimmed. Pecola couldn't see her—but her mother never stopped watching.

Meanwhile, the Order threaded their fingers through Pecola's life like marionette strings. They made sure she didn't stand out—until the day she would. They masked her powers so well that they even suppressed her senses. The tragedy? Her blindness, while symbolic, wasn't only from Elara's sacrifice.

It was their doing. Their fear disguised as protection.

And when Elara died—alone, uncelebrated—she was buried beneath a tree that hadn't bloomed since. The last glimpse Pecola saw was a single flower, rotting on a mossy stone, kissed by rain that felt suspiciously like tears.

The vision blinked out.

Back in the real world, Pecola's breath stuttered in her chest. Her knees buckled.

Antic caught her.

Of course he did.

He didn't speak. He just held her like she was something sacred, rare, and breakable. His hands, warm and sure, wrapped around her waist like he wasn't quite ready to let go.

"Don't—say anything dumb," Pecola murmured, voice hoarse.

"I was gonna say your mom was kind of hot," Antic said, deadpan. "But… yeah, never mind."

She half-laughed, half-sobbed into his jacket.

Dolly leaned into her, cool and still, like a porcelain guardian angel. Grin gave Pecola's arm a skeletal pat, his expression soft—relatively. The team surrounded her without fanfare. No hugs. Just presence.

Queen Sentient stepped forward last, eyes ancient and luminous. "Her love never left you. And it never will."

Pecola said nothing. But the fire in her chest flared. Not rage. Not grief. Something else.

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Resolve.

She lifted her head.

The vision shimmered again—like someone had yanked the cord on a cosmic projector—and the orphanage's cold greyscale flickered and bled out, melting into a burst of color. It pulsed warm and golden, sepia-toned like a forbidden love letter pressed between the pages of a century-old journal.

But this time, the center of the world wasn't Elara.

It was Ami Clock-Worth.

The shadow behind the curtain. The tea-sipping matron with eyes too sharp to belong in any retirement knitting circle. The woman who always "just happened to be there." Only now, the illusion cracked. And beneath it?

Someone dangerous. Someone dazzling.

The vision unfolded with a slow zoom: young Ami, dark hair twisted into silver-laced braids, eyes like mercury—liquid steel and impossible to read. She wore a high-collared combat coat that shimmered subtly with layered glyphs, each symbol glowing faintly in the torchlight of a vast chamber. The air inside the Order of the Silken Veil's hall was thick—velvet-thick—with incense, ancient magic, and whispered betrayals.

She wasn't soft. She wasn't maternal. She was a scalpel in a world full of blunt instruments.

"Operation Starlace begins tonight," a hooded figure rasped. "You've been chosen."

"I don't fail missions," Ami said, voice dry as gin. "I just occasionally traumatize children. Let's dance."

Cue the transformation: one crisp dissolve later, Ami stood in the human world—every inch a harmless do-gooder, floral skirt spinning, apron pockets full of boiled sweets and dangerous secrets.

Her role wasn't babysitting.

She was there to orchestrate a ghost symphony—Pecola's life, rewritten in real time with surgical precision.

Pecola saw it all now: the subtle edits to her life. The gentle nudges. The recalibrated destiny. Like the time she "miraculously" avoided injury when a stray dog bolted toward her—only to suddenly stop, as if pulled by invisible wires.

Ami, of course, had been standing nearby. Feeding pigeons. Smiling.

The Order didn't employ amateurs.

One vision zoomed into a hospital: Ami stood behind a glass wall, flipping through a manila folder. A doctor's report lay open in front of her—on it, an official diagnosis of Pecola's blindness. Genetic, irreversible. And carefully fake.

Ami penned the signature with a flourish.

"No one likes messy loose ends," she murmured to herself.

The memory flickered forward: she was back at the orphanage, dressed in second-hand tweed, smiling faintly as she handed out juice boxes. A storm crackled outside, and without breaking stride, she adjusted the fuse box moments before a wire would've sparked a blaze in the west wing.

She laughed politely when the children cheered at the lights coming back on.

Of course they had no idea she'd just saved them all.

Ami's presence was everywhere—and nowhere.

Sometimes she'd leave behind odd things, like stories whispered at bedtime that were really coded magical lessons. Riddles built to stimulate neural patterning. Idioms twisted just enough to push Pecola's latent mental wards into forming naturally. It wasn't school. It was symbiotic espionage.

And sometimes... she left gifts.

Pecola's memory hiccuped.

That bird.

A little wooden bird, carved and painted in hues of scarlet and blue, left on her pillow the night after she'd cried herself to sleep. She had never known where it came from.

Ami had. And she'd wept while carving it, tears falling soundlessly onto her blade as she worked beneath candlelight. It was love. Quiet, unspeakable love, hidden behind duty so dense it might've strangled someone lesser.

And the Order never knew.

One vision hit hardest. Pecola—six, maybe seven—curled on the orphanage floor beside the radiator, her forehead burning. Ami sat beside her silently, her fingers ghosting over the girl's temple. Not healing magic. Something older.

Comfort.

"She's not ready for any of this," Ami whispered to herself. "But gods help anyone who tries to take her from me."

The memory cracked at the edges like aging film. Ami was older now—her braids gone silver, her face creased with exhaustion she refused to name. She sat alone in a dim room, a photo clutched in her gnarled fingers.

Pecola's face in the picture glowed with possibility. Her eyes—closed, unaware—radiated promise. A tear slid from Ami's cheek and dropped onto the frame.

"I hope she never knows," she whispered. "But if she finds me... I'll tell her everything."

The vision faded.

Silence returned.

But it wasn't empty.

Pecola's mouth was slightly open, like she'd forgotten how breathing worked.

Beside her, Antic's hand was hovering again. Not quite touching—but close enough to burn.

She blinked. "...That was real."

"Clock-Worth's more than tea and crochet knives," Antic muttered. "Figures."

"She raised me," Pecola said, voice tight. "Every part of my life. The lessons, the blindness. The control. It wasn't chance."

"No," he said. "It was love."

That silenced her harder than any vision.

Not because it wasn't true.

But because it was.

Antic stepped in closer, like it was nothing, like he didn't just casually steamroll her entire worldview. "You okay?" he asked.

"No," she said. "And also... maybe a little."

"You sure?" His voice dropped just a fraction. "'Cause I could... I dunno. Stand closer. Breathe louder. Be extremely distracting and sort of handsome."

Her mouth twitched. "You think you're charming."

"I know I am."

She scoffed. "You're a gremlin in a magician's hat."

He leaned down. "You're not not attracted to it, though."

Her throat tightened. Not just from emotion. From heat.

Grin cleared his throat pointedly. Dolly hummed.

Antic pulled back half an inch. His voice softened. "You've got people who've been in your corner since the beginning. Not just magic. Not just bloodlines. People. Me."

Pecola didn't answer. She just reached for his hand.

This time, she didn't miss.

The vision twisted violently, and the warmth of Queen Sentient's sanctuary bled away like water slipping off ice.

White. Endless, clinical white.

Pecola stood frozen, her breath catching in her throat as she realized where she was—no, what she was seeing. Her surroundings were sterile, suffocating. The air was saturated with the chemical sting of antiseptic, and something sharper, more sinister—metallic, acrid. Something that didn't belong in a place where infants should exist.

A single, piercing light flickered above a chrome table.

And there—barely moving, swaddled like some fragile lab specimen—was her.

A baby. Herself.

Her tiny body lay motionless, eyes closed, chest rising in soft, uncertain hitches. The steel table beneath her was unforgiving, monstrous in contrast to her warmthless little form. Monitors flickered. Pulses of strange, humming energy hovered in the air. A cold arc of dread sliced through Pecola's chest like a scalpel.

Then—Ami stepped into frame.

Pecola's stomach turned.

This wasn't the soft-spoken woman who'd once combed knots from her hair while humming lullabies about glass gardens and stars.

This Ami—her jaw set like a blade, her eyes hollowed by secrets—moved like a ghost assigned to violence. Her dark uniform clung to her frame, high-collared and creased, and her fingers glowed faintly as she activated a strange, spherical device that hummed with pulses of crackling, iridescent energy.

And the machines answered.

They blinked awake like ancient gods.

One by one, they projected tiny pulses—gentle, precise—toward the baby's temple, brow, behind the ears, beneath the lids. They didn't cut. They didn't pierce. But Pecola could see it, clear as thunder in the distance.

These weren't treatments.These were suppressions.Control.

Each pulse stole something.

Not sight, exactly—but something worse. The raw connection to her senses. Her mind. Her power. She felt the memory like a needle sliding into her skull, slow and silent, slicing through possibility itself.

Her mouth went dry.

She wanted to scream at the image, to rush in and throw herself between the infant and the machines and scream, "STOP! You don't get to rewrite me!" But her voice was mute inside the memory. Her older body trembled. Her fists curled so tight her nails bit into her palms.

Ami said nothing. Her expression never changed. Only a brief quiver at the corner of her mouth betrayed her. Then, with detached grace, she reached out and touched the infant's cheek with the back of her gloved hand—soft. Almost loving. Almost.

And then… a sound.

A low, pitiful cry echoed through the sterile air. Not from the baby. Not from the machines.

From inside Pecola herself.

No Eyes stirred. That fragmented version of her—sealed and shackled—wailed from the abyss. Pecola clutched her head, staggered, her knees almost giving way under the weight of knowing. Of remembering.

She had never been broken.

She had been silenced.

She had been muted.

Forever altered by the hands of the very woman who'd once kissed her scraped knees and whispered bedtime stories like spells.

"Stop... it..." Pecola choked, her breath coming fast. "I don't want to see anymore... I—"

Queen Sentient materialized in a bloom of silver light, her robes stirring the air like slow waves. She didn't speak for a moment. She simply let Pecola break in front of her.

Then, gently:"The past is a guide, not a prison."

Pecola raised her head, her lashes wet, her voice low and raw. "I need to see her."

Sentient studied her.

Then nodded. "Then go."

And the vision ruptured.

She fell.

No—she landed. On carpet. Threadbare, old, familiar. The scent of dust and lavender detergent invaded her senses.

Very well," Queen Sentient said, her voice settling over Pecola like dusk. "Misty Oaks awaits. But be warned, child—the truths you seek may not wait politely."

The vision collapsed in on itself.

The warmth of the realm vanished.

The Perennial Forest exhaled her.

Pecola stood at the threshold of the forest's eastern edge—the place where sunlight died early, where the trees bent toward each other like gossiping widows, thick with moss and time. The trees parted for her like wary witnesses, the path ahead carved by the boots of those who had not returned.

The wind was alive tonight.

It dragged its fingers through the leaves like a curious spirit, tugging at Pecola's tangled hair and billowing her thin tunic. Her bare feet moved silently across the cold, dew-slick grass of the Perennial Forest, the soles calloused from a lifetime of quiet survival. No path marked her way. Only instinct. Only the ache deep in her chest and the memory of Queen Sentient's words echoing through her bones.

Every breath she took tasted of pine and wet moss. The trees seemed to lean in closer the farther she walked, like they were listening, remembering. Their bark glistened in the moonlight like old bones. The deeper she ventured, the more her blindness became irrelevant. The forest spoke in vibrations. She didn't need eyes to know where to go. The ground whispered. The air carried secrets.

And then—A shift.A weight.

Her foot paused mid-step.A sound.

A single, familiar whine cut through the night.

Pecola's breath hitched in her throat. The wind stilled, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

Then—

"Floof?"

A blur of warm fur launched from the trees, knocking her clean off her feet. She hit the mossy ground with a yelp and a laugh, arms instinctively wrapping around the fuzzy, ecstatic creature squirming and whimpering on top of her.

Floof.

Her dog. Her best friend. Her secret listener.

Tears spilled from her useless eyes as she buried her face in the fluff of his neck. He licked her chin, her forehead, her cheekbones like a creature possessed.

"Floof, you stupid, stupid dog," she whispered, laughing through sobs. "I thought you were gone forever. I almost forgot you!"

He whined in apology. Tail wagging so hard it thudded against her ribs.

He had found her. Or maybe she had found him.

And now... together again, they approached Misty Oaks.

The mansion loomed like a scar on the edge of the forest. Black, elegant, and wrong.

Its crooked silhouette shimmered against the moonlight like a broken crown. Vines curled around the stone like veins, pulsing with some unseen heartbeat. Pecola's bare feet slapped softly against the marble as she stepped onto the first of the wide, cracked stairs. Floof padded silently beside her, unusually quiet. He knew. He remembered this place.

The iron doors creaked open not with grandeur, but resignation.

The halls smelled of lemon oil and faint blood. The familiar hush of polished floors. The cold bite of magic long since cast.

She walked quietly past the drawing room. Past the crimson velvet drapes. Past the long-dead fire still stained into the fireplace bricks.

She heard the clock first.

Tick.Tick.Tick.

The kitchen door was slightly ajar. Pecola's heart beat against her ribs.

She pushed it open.

And there—under a flickering gaslight—stood Ami.

Not the Ami she remembered.

This Ami had a black eye, already turning that sick yellow-purple. Her lip was split, half-healed and glistening. Her hair was pinned sloppily at the nape of her neck, a few streaks of gray showing where vanity had once concealed them. She stood barefoot on the cool tile, scrubbing at a bloodstain on the counter with a rag and a bottle of vinegar.

Pecola's steps were silent. Floof sat by the door.

Ami didn't turn.

She knew.

"I thought you'd come at night," Ami said flatly.

Pecola didn't answer.

Ami paused her scrubbing. "He's asleep," she added, meaning Arnold. "For now."

Still, Pecola said nothing.

Ami turned, slow and careful, eyes locking on where Pecola's would be. Her hand trembled slightly around the rag.

The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was full of things unsaid.

Floof padded forward and leaned his head against Ami's thigh.

Ami broke.

She sank to her knees on the cold tile and pulled Floof into her lap, her shoulders shaking. She didn't sob. She didn't cry. But Pecola could feel the grief radiating from her like smoke from a long-dead fire.

"I didn't mean to lose you," Ami whispered. "I just... lost myself first."

And finally, Pecola moved forward.

She knelt beside her. Floof between them.

And in the quiet kitchen, the three of them sat like that—woman, girl, dog—held together by something far more complicated than forgiveness.

Something older.

Something broken.

Something real.

The world swam before Pecola, or No Eyes.

Her body felt like a boat with a snapped rudder, spinning in a whirlpool of fractured light and kaleidoscopic color. Her limbs tingled. Her heart thudded like an offbeat drum. She tried to scream but her throat locked. The warmth of Misty Oaks was gone. So was the pine scent. So were Antic's snide remarks. So was Floof.

Then—Silence.

She blinked—out of instinct, not function—and her bare feet met stone.

She was standing in a massive underground chamber. It pulsed with warmth from a brazier at the far end, its golden light licking the cavern walls like a hungry tongue. The air was sharp with the scent of ozone, chalk, old blood, and dirt. It was ancient. Something older than names pulsed beneath her feet.

Pecola's breath hitched. The echoes were off. Her ears caught them, but her body didn't trust them. It felt like being swallowed whole by a god's open mouth.

Then…A silhouette.

A woman, tall and mercilessly elegant, stood before the fire. Her body was shrouded in robes the color of crushed night, every thread glinting faintly like spider silk soaked in oil. Her cowl obscured her face, but the aura she gave off was undeniable. Raw. Electric. Power without apology.

"Pecola Ennui," the voice rang out—not from the woman's mouth, but from everywhere at once. It thrummed in her sternum like a war drum. "You have inherited a legacy far greater than you comprehend."

Pecola's mouth went dry. "Cool," she croaked. "Any chance it comes with dental?"

The voice didn't laugh. The woman lowered her hood.

And Pecola recoiled.

Her face was… unfair. Striking. Ageless. Sculpted cheekbones, full lips painted the color of dying roses, and eyes—God, the eyes—that sliced into Pecola like hot emerald razors. She felt naked, even in her long white shift. She felt judged.

Her knees trembled. "You're not Ami," she whispered.

"No," the woman said, smiling like a cat that knew where you hid the bones. "I am Lyra. I lead what remains of the Order."

Pecola's stomach twisted. "The one that—" she gritted her teeth "—lobotomized me with a light show?"

Lyra tilted her head, amused. "Ah. So the memories return."

They did. In jagged, awful bursts. The procedure. The cold. The scent of burnt ozone. Ami, her face impassive. The lullabies after.

"You were controlled," Lyra said, stalking closer. Her heels made no sound, yet each step throbbed in Pecola's ears. "Your mother made a dangerous choice. We couldn't afford the chaos her power brought. You were… corrected. Tempered. Preserved."

"Like a freakin' fruit jar?"

Lyra paused. "…Yes."

"You guys suck at metaphors," Pecola muttered.

But beneath the sarcasm, her chest heaved with something more tender. Her mother… wasn't careless. She wasn't missing. She had been erased. Erased for her.

"You are the conduit between worlds, Pecola," Lyra said. "Your body hosts a dormant current. Dormant, until now. Your mother's final act was not escape… but delay. And now, the balance teeters."

Pecola shook her head. Her heart had already begun unraveling. "Why show me all this?"

"To offer you a choice." Lyra stepped closer, her breath impossibly sweet. "Accept your inheritance. Wield your power. Or… we force it."

Before Pecola could speak, the ground shuddered.

A crack snapped through the brazier. Flames hissed out.

Lyra didn't flinch.

"They've attacked the Perennial Forest," she said calmly. "Your Forest."

Pecola's pulse spiked. Antic.

She spun—only to see the walls begin to dissolve into visions. Blurs of movement. Spectral flames. Screaming Breaths. Trees torn from roots. Grin's laughter turning feral. Dolly's porcelain arms swinging like daggers.

But then—Ami.

Wounded. Bleeding from her temple. Her apron singed. Dragging a limp figure—Arnold?—through smoke.

Pecola screamed.

"You did this!" she turned on Lyra.

"I enabled this," Lyra corrected coolly. "You are not a child anymore, Pecola. Power cannot hide behind pacifism. This forest burns because of indecision."

Ami's voice rang out across the vision: "Run, Pecola—!"

And then: a flash of energy. A shriek.

Ami fell. And the vision went dark.

Something inside Pecola broke.

She didn't cry. Not yet. Her eyes couldn't. But her soul, stitched together by fragile memories and bedtime stories, split clean down the center.

Her bare feet burned against the stone, her skin prickled with static. She didn't feel mortal. She felt wrathful.

Lyra opened her arms.

"Welcome home."

Pecola lunged. Not at Lyra—but toward the portal opening behind her. She didn't care where it led. She had to get out.

She burst through the threshold, falling hard against wet dirt—

—and screamed again.

Floof.

Her dog. His fur singed, his ears flattened, his little body curled in a nest of crushed leaves and glowing spores at the edge of the Perennial Forest.

"Floof!" she sobbed, crawling barefoot through bramble and ash. He whimpered. And wagged.

And Pecola collapsed into him, clutching him against her chest, shaking. "I thought they took you," she whispered. "I thought they took everything."

Floof licked her cheek with enthusiasm, his tail thumping against her ribs.

They stayed there for a long time. No words. No plan. Just her, a blind girl in blood-slicked linens, curled around her last piece of childhood, the earth whispering beneath her toes.

But as the wind howled and the trees hissed with firelight, Pecola lifted her chin.

The forest would not fall.

She would burn first.