Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It began with silence. Not the soft kind that comes before sleep, nor the holy silence of morning. This silence cut through the air like a razor’s edge. It was the kind that tears reality from consciousness. A suffocating silence that weighed on Alara Thorne like the weight of a closed coffin.

She didn’t remember when she’d fallen asleep. One moment she was lighting a candle in the kitchen corner of her apartment, and the next she was here — wherever that “here” was.

She stood barefoot in a narrow, black stone corridor that stretched endlessly in both directions, that pulsed faintly as if it had its own heartbeat. Hot drops dripped down the walls, though the air was dry and cruelly cold. Above her head, the ceiling of bone-white branches arched like ribs, locking her in this dream or prison, whichever it was.

Her breath was a mist in the air, yet she was not cold. The clothes she usually wore as pajamas — cotton T-shirt, flannel pants — were gone, replaced by a long, translucent garment the color of ink and ash. Her barefoot footsteps were silent on the stone floor. She could have even been a ghost.

Where am I? That was her first thought, but the second followed almost immediately. As if someone were watching...

She turned slowly. There was nothing behind her, and when she turned back, there was nothing in front of her either.

Then... whispers.

The murmuring sounds didn't form words. Not yet. They just coalesced into something almost speaking as they snaked through the cracks in the stone and tickled the inside of her skull. Alara took a step back, but the corridor narrowed behind her, the walls moving closer as if they were breathing in.

Something moved in the darkness in front of her. A ripple. A flash of movement.

“Who’s there?” her voice echoed, thin and false.

The darkness responded with heat. Not just a warm wave, but searing heat. A sudden pain tore beneath her collarbone, searing her flesh like a branding iron pressed against her skin. Alara groaned and dropped to her knees. Her hand reached for her chest, and touched her skin — hot and slippery and throbbing.

She grabbed her dress and ripped it off. The mark was there, just below her left collarbone: a symbol she didn’t recognize, written in no language she knew. It was jagged and curved, like a hook crossed by thorns, etched in black and red ink that gleamed as if it were alive. It was still bleeding.

And worse, it was moving.

The signal pulsed — once, twice — and then tentacles of burning sensation spread across her chest and arms, as if roots were digging into her body. Alara screamed, but her voice died away. No sound escaped her throat.

The whisper sharpened into words.

“She is marked.”

“The blood of the muse. The fault of the god.”

“She can no longer hide.”

A wall collapsed behind her. No… not a wall. A curtain. A veil of shadow, torn away by something vast, unseen.

They emerged from the darkness like water filtering through cracked stone — tall, gleaming figures, with oily skin and eyes like burnt stars. Not men. Not women. Not people. Their mouths did not move, but the words pressed into Alara’s mind like a scalpel about to cut.

“We will take you now. The awakening is over.”

She tried to run. The corridor grew longer the farther she fled. Her legs moved, but they could not touch the ground. The wound in her chest throbbed with every heartbeat. The walls around her breathed, the corridor laughed cruelly.

And then she fell. The floor was gone. She fell into a pit that tasted of ash and rust and ancient blood, the screams of the dreamworld echoing around her, her body falling through a storm of feathers and chains and bone flakes. She hit nothing. She just fell.

Until she was no longer there.

She landed in a field of silence. It was not black, nor was it empty, and yet... She found herself in a place like a still stage just before the play began.

Alara stood up, gasping for breath, her heart still screaming. The pain had subsided to a throb, but the mark remained. It glowed faintly on her skin, as if lit from within.

Then an other voice spoke. Not the whisper of the dream, not the language of the watchers. This voice was different. Deep. Intimate. Familiar.

“They shouldn’t have found you yet.”

She turned. A tall figure stood before her, half in shadow. His dark skin almost blended into his surroundings, his bright eyes shining like the heart of a storm. His mouth was set sternly and pitifully, his hand reaching out for her but not reaching, hovering near the mark.

“But I guess even fate makes mistakes sometimes.”

Alara’s mouth moved.

“Who are you?”

The figure smiled.

“You will remember me eventually.”

The ground shook beneath them, and then...

Alara woke up screaming.

The sheets wrapped around her legs were soaked with sweat. Her pillow was damp. Her skin was icy cold — except for the spot below her collarbone, which burned like fire. Alara sat up in the darkness, panting.

And then she saw the mark. It was still there. It still glowed. It was still real, but she wasn’t dreaming now. She was awake, yet the mark didn’t disappear.

Her chest rose and fell in shallow waves, and for a long moment she couldn’t move — trapped between the dying echo of the nightmare and the brutal certainty that something was wrong. It wasn’t just a dream. The burn on her skin was still there. It was real.

She threw off the blanket, scrambled out of bed, and stumbled toward the full-length mirror in the corner of her small studio apartment. Her legs were weak, her hands numb as she pulled the T-shirt off her shoulders and stared at the wound. The mark hadn’t faded, nor was it a self-inflicted wound she’d inflicted on herself in a nightmare.

It looked even darker now, like the edge of an ink-burned wound that had never healed. Twisted, thorny, unmistakably unnatural. It glimmered faintly, as if responding to her gaze.

“No. No, no, no…”

She turned on the bathroom light and stared at her reflection in the harsh fluorescent light. Her hair was disheveled, stuck to her forehead in sweaty curls. Her skin was pale and clammy. But it was the wound she couldn’t take her eyes off of — it was all eerie, vivid, impossible.

It didn’t look like a tattoo. It wasn’t bruised, it didn’t hurt when she pressed it, but it felt hot — a slow burn from the inside out.

She grabbed a sponge, turned on the faucet, and began scrubbing the mark. Hard. The skin had turned red around the edges of the wound, but the black lines remained, unyielding, as if it was etched into her flesh. Then came the alcohol. The makeup remover. And the soap. It was still there.

It hadn’t smeared. It hadn’t faded. It just stared back at her, like a secret etched into her skin.

Alara dropped the rag and leaned heavily against the sink, staring at herself in the mirror. Her breath was shaky.

“What the hell is happening to me?”

She didn’t remember falling asleep. She didn’t remember choosing this dream. It was like a summons — as if something had called her, as if the sign had chosen her before it even knew she existed.

She folded her arms, shivering despite the summer heat. But she had to move. She had to live in reality, because this was her life. Her shift was starting in two hours, and she didn’t want to have a breakdown over a dream, even if it had crawled out of her mind and into her skin.

By the time she left her apartment, the sun was already creeping up, painting the streets honey and humid. Alara wore a black crop top with a sheer shirt. The layers helped her hide her collarbone without drawing attention to it. She also added a thick silver necklace for safety reasons, though the metal felt heavy on her throat.

Her makeup was flawless, her hair styled with a quick, practiced hand — but today, nothing felt like armor. The mark pulsed softly under her shirt, as if it had its own heartbeat.

By the time she opened the thick wooden door of the bar called Vesper, the sun was high. Light filtered through the bar’s stained glass windows, scattering green and blue hues onto the floor. The bass was a soft rumble beneath her boots — the daytime rhythm was slower, more dreamy. Almost gentle.

“Holy hangover, you’re here early!” said a voice, wrapped in silk, with sarcasm. Elián, known on stage as Miss Fortunata, walked out from behind the bar in six-inch heels and a silk kimono. His perfectly manicured hand waved a cigarette like a wand. “They rescheduled the apocalypse and no one told me?”

Alara managed a smile.

“If that were the case, I’d still come in to work. I need the tip to pay my therapy.”

“Hmm, tragic and sympathetic. Here…” Elián handed her a cup of coffee. “Triple shot. It tastes like burnt heaven.”

“You’re the only reason I haven’t joined any cults.”

“Honey, I’m the cult.”

Alara laughed, and it helped her. It wasn’t enough to heal the burning wound beneath her collarbone, but it was enough to pretend everything was okay for now.

The morning shift went by in its usual rhythm and routine. She washed glasses, changed barrels. The bar’s lighting changed as the day progressed until it was just the right shade of mystery. Early in the afternoon, Callie showed up — leggy, wearing velvet, and her shoulder tattoos were provocatively emblazoned on her, her stage makeup only half-smeared from yesterday’s show.

“This place is lucky because I love my job,” Callie groaned, kicking off her boots. “My thighs are still shaking. Some guy wanted a private dance and tipped me in Canadian dollars.”

“That should be illegal,” Alara said, putting her arm around her. “You deserve at least euros.”

“Please,” Callie rolled her eyes. “I deserve to be worshipped.”

“That’s right,” Elián interjected, sipping his mimosa. “But now you get bottomless mimosas and my undivided sarcasm.”

The three of them cleaned and got ready at their usual pace, while gossip spread faster than knives in the kitchen. Callie recalled her disastrous date with a stage technician who couldn’t stop talking about his vinyl collection; Elián recounted having sex on the roof in the moonlight the night before.

“Rookie mistake,” Callie said, her eyes sparkling. “The cameras don’t work up there, but ghosts don’t turn their heads.”

Alara laughed, but her fingers brushed the collar of her shirt, pulling it back into place so that the constantly pulsing mark wouldn’t reveal itself. Every time she moved, she felt the mark — not painfully now, but present. A faint buzzing in her skin, as if something coiled inside her was beginning to unravel.

She didn’t tell them. She couldn’t have if she had wanted to.

By late afternoon, the sun outside was shining gold and orange through the smoky windows. The bar was bustling. Tourists stumbled in; regulars settled in the corners. Alara slid behind the bar like a second skin, pouring mezcal and absinthe with one hand, swirling bottles with the other to make them taste better. She moved instinctively, smiling with every interaction. She was perfection incarnate, when it came to her profession.

But she felt bad. She wasn’t sick or tired, but she couldn’t shake the mark. She felt it every second and couldn’t shake the nightmare.

She glanced toward the door every now and then, expecting to spot someone she didn’t recognize. A shadow. A figure from her dream. Something that shouldn’t be here. But nothing happened. The city outside continued to pulse indifferently, as if everything was perfectly fine.

“Did I mention I saw Caliban again?” Callie asked unexpectedly as they stole a late dinner near the cargo space. She sat on a folding chair, her legs resting on Alara’s lap, nibbling on a bowl of pasta.

“It’s not like he’s the past?”

“I tried. He showed up like a damned Tinder spell,” Callie admitted, and Elian chuckled.

“Tell him you’ve taken a vow of silence and your body is now a temple guarded by crows,” Elián snapped.

Alara grinned but said nothing. Her appetite was gone.

“What’s wrong with you?” Callie asked, nudging her friend’s thigh. “You’re so weird today.”

“I’m always weird.”

“Yeah, but today you're like… ‘my house is haunted, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet’ weird.”

Alara hesitated. She opened her mouth for a moment, then shook her head.

“I just had a nightmare last night. It still gives me the shivers.”

Elián gave her a look that says a lot, a light glinting on his sharp cheekbones and a glint of wisdom in his eyes.

“Well, if you’re being haunted by demons again, at least invite them in for a drink next time. They tip better than the customers here."

Alara laughed. She was grateful for the humor and the distraction. But the sign didn’t fade. Even under the layers of sweat and movement and neon.

The evening crowd grew even larger. The bar throbbed with color and music. The booths glowed with candlelight, the air heavy with perfume and incense. A performance began on stage — someone in latex angel wings performed a heavenly opera, lip sync at the music, dancing in provocative attire. It was surreal and hypnotic, just the way the people who came in liked it.

Alara was lost in the crowd, in the rhythm of movement. One drink, then another. The dance of demand and service. Her arms moved unstoppably and automatically, her mind went blank, and as she surrendered herself to the work she loved, she thought of nothing else.

At one in the morning, Alara’s shift was over and she had served the last of the drinks. Her fingers smelled of citrus and herbs. She sat in one of the chairs on the far side, sipping a cocktail as she watched another girl take over the shift from her. The shift change had happened, all she had to do was go home, but the memory of the nightmare still throbbed in her mind and the thought of sleeping terrified her.

“Do you want to sleep in my bed?” Elián asked, returning from his dressing room. He had washed off his makeup, gotten rid of his women’s clothes, and was now wearing a simple pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. Now he looked just like any of the men who walked the streets outside. Alara shook her head.

“I have to sleep in my own bed. And we agreed last time that it was a one-time thing,” Alara grinned. The memory of how she and Elián had an affair for a night nearly a week ago after drinking too much alcohol was vivid. They had agreed then that, given their friendship, it was a one-time thing and could never happen again.

“As you wish. But if you die in your dream again, write to me first.”

She didn’t say it, but she had already accepted it: she wouldn’t sleep peacefully tonight. The nightmare had followed her into the real world, and the mark not only remained, but seemed to be waiting for something.

She wished her friends good night and stepped out into the night, the envelope containing the tip in her hand. The streets were almost empty. Her reflection followed her in the shop windows, her shadow reaching forward, as if it knew where she was going before she did. She crossed the street. Stopped. Looked back. For a moment, she thought she saw someone across the road. He was tall and undeniably watching her, but when she blinked, he was gone.

Alara's fingers clenched into fists in her pockets. She didn't know it yet, but tonight was the last time her world would make sense.

Alara’s steps quickened.

She wasn’t the kind of girl who got paranoid easily. She’d locked up a bar alone before, she’d walked these streets a hundred times. The liquor store on the corner with its flickering neon lights, the ramen that always smelled of burnt onions and grease, the shortcut through the alley that cut a whole block off her route — it was all familiar. But tonight, it felt like the city had shifted an inch to the left.

She walked past a storefront, and her reflection scared her. Not because it wasn’t hers, but because it was a heartbeat behind. Her reflection moved slower than she did, as if it were watching her instead of being her. She stopped and turned, suddenly needing to make sure she was alone.

The sidewalk behind her lay empty beneath the yellow silence of the streetlights. Somewhere a dog barked. A siren blared, then died away. But she heard something else beneath it all. A sound that didn’t belong there. It was like breathing, or a hiss.

Alara turned and walked faster. The envelope in her hand was crumpled, damp with sweat. She stuffed it into her pocket and turned into the alley. Normally she hated how narrow it was, how the brick walls bent together like clenched jaws — but tonight she felt safe. As if cutting off her line of sight gave her an advantage.

She was halfway down when she heard footsteps. They weren’t precise or light. There were too many of them, and they were barefooted after her.

She turned. She couldn’t see anyone, but her stomach churned. The alley behind her distorted around shadows and a row of trash cans. The sidewalk ahead narrowed to a strip of streetlights. She started to run.

A shadow detached itself from the wall, but this time it wasn’t a dream. Alara groaned and staggered backward. The figure had no eyes, only skin stretched over the eye sockets like wax. Its mouth was too wide, and as it opened, a smell hit her — burnt flowers and rot, something ancient and wrong spilling out of it.

She screamed and started to run, but then another figure leapt down from the fire escape above. It landed soundlessly, crouching low, its long limbs unnaturally bent.

She turned again, only to see a third one.

They surrounded her. All three moved slowly, as if they weren’t hunting her. As if they had already caught her.

The wound burned beneath her collarbone — hot, as if responding to them. Her knees gave up, she leaned against the wall, her breath escaping in a groan.

“Who… what are you?” she gasped.

The one closest to her tilted her head, then spoke, but not in real words. It's voice slid straight into her mind like oil:

“You’re on the border, falseborn. You’re a dreaming memory. You don’t belong here.”

Alara groaned and stepped back. Her spine brushed the brick, her heart pounding in her chest.

“What’s going on?” she panted. She wanted to run away, but her feet were rooted to the ground and she couldn’t turn her head away from the three beings that surrounded her.

The second leaned forward and for the first time she saw its teeth — not human, nor fangs, but flat and countless, like a shark's teeth carved from bone and smoke. The thing smelled her, and her skin tingled in its wake. The mark pulsed, and the three things hissed, then retreated.

Pain exploded in her chest. She looked down and saw the mark glowing beneath her shirt, glowing red and pulsing like a heart. Smoke billowed from the mark, and light spilled through the thin material like a warning.

The creatures screamed — a high, deafening sound, like metal splitting — and one of them lunged forward.

Alara ran. She didn’t think — she just moved. Her legs remembered how to run, but her mind didn’t. She dashed across the alley and turned into the street, almost hitting a taxi that honked and swerved around her. She barely noticed. Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred.

Behind her, she heard a scraping sound, and a scuttling. The sound of bodies that shouldn’t exist.

She turned another corner, her shoes clicking on the sidewalk, her hair coming out of her braid. Her legs ached. Her chest burned. Her shoulder hit a post, the pain flashing white in her mind, but she didn’t stop until she reached the old train station. She knew this place from the time she and Nico used to come here after work, drinking cheap beer and sitting on the rusty platforms, looking at the stars in the industrial haze. It was quiet and empty. She felt safe.

She ducked between two train cars and crouched down, her hand over her mouth to muffle her gasps. Her pulse was a drumbeat on the deserted street. Minutes passed and nothing happened. A complete silence settled over her, and for a moment she thought she had shaken off the strange creatures, but then she heard shaky laughter and she sobbed.

The wound in her chest still throbbed, but it was weaker now. Alara exhaled, but then a whisper crept up her spine.

“You carry a false truth, girl. A lie woven with memories. And you will not live to remember it.”

Alara turned — but it was already behind her. The creature emerged from the shadows between the train cars, limbs too long, too thin, a body like smoke and bone and nightmare. It reached out and pressed its hand to her chest.

Alara screamed, the mark blazing white. Pain tore through her like lightning, and then... She saw fire. It wasn’t literal flame, not really, but her mind couldn’t think of it any other way. Her nerves seared, her thoughts scattered. The scream died on her tongue.

The creature hadn’t killed her with its claws. It had torn something out of her. A memory? A soul? A dream? Her mind was burning, her soul had left her body, and unbearable pain filled her entire dying being as she screamed. Her body collapsed, and she twitched one last time.

The night was silent. The creature bent down, sniffed her cooling skin, then hissed — lowly, confused, as if it hadn’t found what it expected. As if something was missing. Then it disappeared into the shadows, leaving only a breeze in its wake.

The stars shone brightly in the sky above, eternal witnesses, and Alara Thorne lay dead between two rusty train cars, her eyes wide open, the mark still glowing red on her collarbone.

Chapter Text

The first thing she noticed was the door. It wasn’t a real door — it had no frame, no hinges, no building around it. Just a lone piece of wood standing straight in the middle of a field of sunflowers, dimly lit as if by moonlight. Alara blinked and slowly turned around. The sunflowers towered over her, their faces turned toward a sun that wasn’t there in the sky. She reached out and touched one of the plants. It felt like wax, and it gave off a chill. It was too perfect. It took her breath away.

She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here, or where exactly she was. The last thing she remembered was the caress of the night air on her skin. The weight of her phone in her pocket. The flicker of the streetlight just before… Just before what had happened?

She shook her head, and the door stood still, waiting for Alara. Seeing nothing else and having no idea what to do, she turned the knob.

The sunflower field disappeared the moment she entered.

Now she was in a cathedral, the ceiling of which reached so high that it seemed to reach the stars. Candles floated overhead, and at the far end of the corridor stood a woman in a wedding dress made of glass. Her face turned to Alara, disappointment radiating from her eyes.

“You’re late,” she said in a voice that echoed off the marble.

Alara took a step back.

“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. I don’t know how I ended up here…”

“You brought the wrong heart,” the bride said, and the dress ripped. The benches caught fire, the guests with clock faces turned to stare at her while ash fell on them. Alara turned and saw another door — this one made of black stone, pulsing like a heartbeat. Without thinking, she threw herself at it, opened it... And fell.

There was no floor beneath her, and no sky above her. Just a fall, and a sudden sharp coldness hit her, as if she had walked through water without getting wet. Then...

Then she hit the ground.

Now she was standing barefoot in a child’s room. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls in long strips, and a musical lullaby toy spun wildly above the crib, though the air was still. The toys moved of their own accord — wooden horses galloped across the carpet, a teddy bear crawled on all fours, and the mirror on the wall showed a girl who was not her.

Alara’s fingers trembled as she touched her chest. The skin beneath her collarbone still burned from the mark. Her head was buzzing with confusion, she had no idea what was happening to her. The mirror girl opened her mouth and said,

“You can’t wake up, can you, Alara?”

“How do you know my name?” the girl was shocked, stepping even closer to the mirror, which had another crack running along it.

The door in the corner creaked open on its own.

She didn’t run — this time she walked slowly, her limbs shaking, her heart pounding in her chest like a trapped bird. This wasn’t a dream. It couldn’t be. She felt everything too vividly — the glass under her feet, the smell of sour milk in the air of the child's room, the way her hair clung to her neck.

She crossed the threshold. This time she came to a corridor of endless doors.

Each one was different — some carved with lofty and celestial symbols, others covered in chalk drawings, and one made entirely of teeth. As she passed them, some opened on their own.

A woman fell to the ground behind one, sobbing into the fire. A man was building a boat in a water-filled basement in another room. A child screamed in a snow globe. She had witnessed an endless series of dreams that were not hers, but Alara could not have known that then. She felt trapped in an endless nightmare that was chaotic and hurt her skin, her soul, her entire being. She turned slowly, feeling her breath catch.

“Hello,” she called out uncertainly, suddenly unsure if she wanted anyone to answer. “Is anyone here? I... I think I’m lost. Or I’m sick. Or... I don’t know. This must be a dream. Or I’m in a coma. Maybe I hit my head..."

The lights in the hallway flickered, a door opened, and there was only darkness inside.

“No,” Alara whispered. “I’m not going in there.”

The door didn’t care what Alara wanted. The hallway began to tilt. Gravity betrayed her again, and she stumbled, falling toward the black nothingness like a puppet on a string.

She was already walking when she realized she was moving again. Her feet crossed the broken glass on a familiar floor. It was the bar where she worked. Her bar counter rose before her. Music was blaring from somewhere behind the walls, the lights dimmed, her tray in her hand, glasses on it.

“Order for table four!” someone called out.

She turned, but no one was there. The entire bar was empty except for her. She looked down. The tray was no longer in her hand. It had turned into an old leather-bound book that opened on its own. The pages were turning too fast for her to read. Then it stopped at a page titled “The Girl Who Forgot She Was Dead”.

Alara stared down at the page, then something behind her whispered,

“You shouldn’t be here.”

She spun. Nothing was there. The walls of the bar were crumbling like paper in a fire. The door stood there again, alone in a sea of nothingness. Alara swallowed hard, her skin itching, the mark burning on her chest.

“I’m dreaming,” she said softly. “This is all just a dream. I have to to wake up.”

The door didn’t respond. It pulsed like a heartbeat. Not knowing any better, Alara grabbed the handle and pushed it open.

There were no other doors here, no exits, only mirrors. Dozens of mirrors lined up around Alara, all different sizes. Some were cracked, some were fogged, some were as clear as glass. And each of them had another self staring back at her — one smiling, another crying, some screaming silently, and some covered in blood from head to toe.

Alara backed away from her own reflection.

“I want to wake up,” she whispered, panting.

Her own voice echoed from each mirror at once:

“Then don’t rush any further!”

Alara turned and fled the room, falling through the only door in the room. The door was red with a gold frame. The handle was shaped like a heart. And inside, the room radiated warmth like a summer breeze. It was surrounded by red walls and velvet carpet. A dim light shone inside, as if candlelight had soaked every surface. There was no sound but her own breathing and the steady beat of her pulse in her ears. It felt like she had stepped inside something — something alive, something yearning.

Alara hesitated in the red-lit corridor, the end of which she could not see. Her bare feet made no sound on the slippery floor beneath her, as if she were walking on glass or wet wax. The walls throbbed. No, they breathed. The whole place seemed... so sinful. It didn't feel like she was in danger, and yet something told her to stay away from this place.

She had stumbled through nightmares and visions before: a man with too many teeth in a house that smelled of bleach and blood, a wedding where no one had a face, a lavender field that screamed when she touched its petals. Memories swirled in her mind of scenes she hadn't even witnessed, yet all the images burned into her mind as if she had experienced them personally.

And then this. The moment she entered the red chamber, everything else fell silent — as if the world had breathed its last. The chaos faded into a kind of silence that surrounded her, humming softly in her ears.

Alara straightened and slowly turned around. The walls gleamed like flesh. At the far end of the chamber was a strange gallery — a series of illuminated niches in which objects floated. She walked toward them, her breath caught, the red light of the room reflecting like fire in her eyes.

She studied the relics one by one. A quill that was impossibly black. A key with a hook. A book bound with scales. A mirror. A snake coiled in glass. And an empty pedestal.

Each object called her, something she couldn’t explain. Not with words. Not even with memory. She stared at the mirror for the longest time. It was cracked, and when she looked into it, her reflection smiled before she did. She backed away slowly.

Then she felt it. She heard no sound, and saw no one. Not even a breath. She felt only a presence. It held her with a watchful eye. Alara’s gaze wandered to the far corner of the chamber, where the red darkened to something deeper — reminding her of blood and wine. There, in the darkness, two golden eyes glowed.

Alara’s breath caught, she dared not blink, and her heart trembled with fear.

From the shadows, Desire watched her.

Leaning lazily against the rib of the living structure that was their home, they studied the intruder with painterly eyes and surgical calm.

She didn’t belong here. Not that anyone really belonged in Desire’s realm — except themselves. But mortals don’t just stumble into the realm of Desire. Not without an invitation. Not unless...

Desire tilted their head to the side like a cat. A grin threatened the corner of their mouth.

At first glance, the girl seemed ordinary. Her dark hair cascaded down her shoulders and back, her sun-warmed skin radiated life force, and her long, pianist-envious fingers curled restlessly at her sides. She was wearing a soft, white cardigan that fell lightly from one shoulder, revealing soft skin. The black lace, delicately, defiantly, pressed against her chest, emphasizing her feminine charms. Her high-waisted pants hugged her, shaping her hips just enough to be noticeable to the watching eyes, but not wildly. The whole outfit was carefully chosen, but not for the sake of seduction.

And now here she was - burning like a question.

Desire narrowed their eyes as they glanced at the faint mark beneath her collarbone. It wasn’t a scar or ink. It gleamed faintly with something else. It was the mark of the hunted, swollen with force.

They took a step forward, but stopped short of the light. They hadn’t revealed themselves yet. Desire preferred mystery. They preferred to look than to touch. And this girl — this unknown — was completely unaware of what she was touching simply by breathing in this room.

She walked back toward the pedestals, searching for something more. She didn’t panic. Not like other beings would have if they suddenly found themselves here. No, she moved like a woman who somehow, against all evidence, believed that this was still part of reality. That maybe she had lost her mind, and that was okay, as long as she could find the edge of reality again.

Desire almost laughed out loud. Such self-deception was delicious. She thought she was dreaming, but here, in Desire’s realm, she couldn’t have been further from the Dreaming.

They stepped back, deeper into the arch of the heart that made up their realm, and let the red envelop them. Alara’s voice broke the silence when she spoke — low, raw, and undeniably troubled.

“Is anyone here?”

Desire didn’t answer, but they couldn’t help but smile.

She slowly turned around again, catching her reflection in the cracked mirror. For a moment, the mark beneath her necklace pulsed with blood. Desire saw the mark, and more burningly, felt it.

Something older than themselves touched Desire’s insides as they looked at her. She was soft. She was still shaped like a woman made of sighs, firelight, and quiet sorrow.

Desire crossed their arms.

They didn’t find her beautiful. Not in the mythical, sculpted sense they were used to admiring. She was real. Real in a way most mortals had long since abandoned in favor of filters, symmetry, and carefully curated lies. This girl lived. She danced. She feared. And she wanted things she had no chance of having. And now here she stood — her soul somehow getting here when her body had to remain still. They watched her stroke the mirror one last time, her lips parted as if she wanted to speak to her reflection.

Then she turned again, and their eyes met. The golden eyes stared at her from their hiding place, and they both stared at each other, frozen.

Desire let themselves feel the weight of the brown eyes on them. They let the stranger ponder, letting every heartbeat hurt.

Alara’s voice, barely audible, spoke in a whisper:

“I know someone is there.”

The golden eyes did not disappear. Alara froze, her spine tense, her breath half caught in her throat. Her skin prickled with the instinct to run. Not out of fear, not out of the scream-like terror she sometimes felt in her nightmares. No, this was different. She felt as if she were being seen, as if she were too much in sight.

She felt the kind of gaze on her that peeled away layers. Clothes. Flesh. Memories. That searched the velvet folds of her mind, finding things she dared not show anyone. She felt naked, both physically and mentally.

Then the golden eyes moved. A figure parted from the shadows with the silent grace of a predator. It was fluid and confident, graceful and beautiful. Intangible, yet solid, like the truest certainty.

A step, then another. The golden eyes came closer, and the rest of the figure emerged from the red-black shadow as if they had always been part of the walls.

Alara stepped back instinctively. Not out of fear, but in disbelief. The figure that was approaching... They were impossible. Tall, slender, beautiful — they had certainly not been taught how to be beauty. They were not masculine. They were not feminine. They were both and neither, and too deliberate to be accidental. And yet they did not seem artificial. They moved like a wildcat, aware of the eyes that examined them, as if their own presence were their favorite mirror in this room.

Their high cheekbones glinted in the red light. Their full lips were drawn into a telling, devastating grin. Their skin was as pale as bone. The tailored silhouette of their clothes fitted them like a second skin, black against the crimson room. A low collar exposed their neck and the delicate line of their collarbone — where a gold pendant glittered in time with the vibrating pulse of the room.

Alara could not speak, but the strange figure could. Their voice slid across the space like a kiss and a blade combined. It was velvety, deep, and warm — the kind of voice that would make gods shiver if it whispered the right name.

“Well, well,” they smiled as they surveyed her again. Their teeth gleamed, a smile that could have brought down kingdoms and made lovers plead if they had wanted to. “Aren’t you stunning?”

Alara flinched slightly at the sound. Not because they were rude, because they weren’t. Quite the opposite. They made her feel all too visible. As if this stranger already knew her before she opened her mouth.

“Who are you?” she asked, breathless.

Desire tilted their head, as if considering the answer.

“Well,” they purred, taking another slow, deliberate step toward her, “the more interesting question is what you are.”

She didn’t answer. Her throat was dry.

“Although I must admit,” Desire continued, their voice wrapping around each syllable like silk against skin, “you wear your uncertainty beautifully. That dress. That mark…” Their gaze fell slightly forward, directly beneath the girl’s necklace. “You’re a strange little flame, aren’t you?”

Alara instinctively reached up and touched the mark beneath her locket. It tingled, as if the words themselves had touched her.

“You’re not real,” Alara narrowed her eyes. She tried to figure out what she was feeling and thinking as she looked at the strange figure, but she couldn’t decide yet. She only knew that this could only be a dream, because whoever this stranger was, they seemed too elusive to be real.

“Oh, my dear. I’m the only real thing here,” Desire grinned, unable to contain themselves, they had to move closer to her.

Golden eyes took in Alara’s sight again, but not like a predator surveying its prey. More like an artist standing before a moving statue. Alara forced herself to breathe, to think. To exist.

“It’s just a dream.” Her voice trembled, but it didn’t break. “I’ve been having strange dreams all night. I think… I think I’ve lost my mind.”

Desire laughed. Her voice was deep, luxurious, and it rolled across the square, making the walls seem to pulse with it.

“Your mind is very much intact, I assure you. Although it has taken you to some rather unpleasant places. "They stopped and with an arbitrary sigh they stroked their own chest where Alara’s mark had been adorned, as if they could feel her skin touching themselves. "That faceless wedding? It’s terrible."

Alara stiffened.

"How...?"

"I see what you see." They took another step towards her. "What you want. What you’re afraid of. It sticks to you like perfume. It smells intoxicating," they moaned lustfully and leaned closer to Alara, as if they could make her scent their own.

"I don’t even know where I am," Alara whispered tremblingly, trying to look anywhere but at the unknown figure sniffing and yearning for her. At that moment, she was indeed afraid of them. Yet she couldn’t move to run away.

"Of course you do. So? Where are we, little flame?"

Desire spread their arms as if to say, Isn’t it obvious? Their smile softened, and somehow seemed more dangerous.

“You’re standing in a beating heart, my dear.”

The red walls gleamed. The sound she hadn’t noticed before — the slow, deep throb — pulsed through the room like the memory of a breath.

“Is this… someone’s dream?”

Desire laughed again.

“No. Not a dream.” They paused, their eyes glittering as they studied her. “This is my realm. More real than any dream.”

“And who are you?” she blinked.

“I’m Desire,” they said, like the wind.

“Is that your name?”

“It’s me,” they shrugged.

Silence fell again.

Alara felt as if something was pulling her, even though every instinct told her to run. There was something elemental about Desire. Like a tide that you only notice when it’s too late.

“Do you know me?” she asked quietly.

They moved closer to her now. She could smell Desire’s scent: something floral yet electric, and sharp like old wine.

“I see you,” they said, extending a single finger toward her collarbone, not touching it, but hovering near it. “But I don’t know who sent you.”

“Sent you?”

“You don’t belong here,” Desire explained. “And yet… you are here. You are awake, walking in a realm no mortal can enter, burning like a torch in the darkness.” Their voice trailed off. “So tell me, little flame, what is it that you truly desire?”

Alara swallowed. She had no answer. Not yet, but the golden-eyed stranger smiled as if they already knew. Desire towered over her like a shadow cast by candlelight. Alara stood still, her spine rigid, her hands clenched into fists at her sides — unsure of what to say. She knew she should run or she'll bow. Her breathing became slower, more even, but her mind worked quickly. Desire’s words echoed in her chest like the echoes of a cathedral: You don’t belong here.

Where was she then? What was she doing here? And what did it mean, who or what was she, if she wasn’t dreaming?

Desire stood behind her, invisibly yet undeniably present.

“You didn’t answer me,” they murmured into her ear, their voice steely, clinging to her skin like silken drapery. “There’s not a single spark of truth in you, and yet… All the answers lie in your heart.”

“I don’t have any answers,” Alara said. “I told you. I woke up here. Or so I think. I was somewhere else before. Cold. Alone. Falling.”

Desire frowned, their eyes narrowing slightly.

“No one wakes up in my realm,” they said, stepping back into Alara’s field of vision, their hands loosely clasped before them. “Not mortals, at least. Not even Dream dares enter here without an invitation.” Their voice trailed into a sharp grin. “Not that he would ever admit he wanted to.”

Alara didn’t know what that meant, but the bitter edge of Desire’s voice scraped the air. She tilted her head to one side, watching them carefully.

“This place…” she looked around, “the walls, the blood-red light, the soft, rhythmic pulsation… It’s not like a dream.”

“It’s not,” Desire replied. “You’re not in a dream, Alara Thorne. You’re inside me .” They held out their arms, as if to emphasize the walls, the air, the trembling of the floor beneath their feet. “In my realm. In my Gallery. In my being."

“And why am I here?” Alara gasped.

“That’s exactly what I want to know,” Desire stepped closer, their voice billowing like smoke with the words.

They studied her with a different kind of attention now. They gave her a look that was less indulgent, more calculating. The golden eyes searched her features — the line of her jaw, the faint crease between her eyebrows, the mark beneath her collarbone that still glowed faintly with memory. Desire reached out and finally, for the first time, touched her gently. Their finger zigzagged along the mark, but not hard enough to hurt. They touched her just enough to feel something beneath the skin.

“A gift,” Desire whispered. “Or a wound.”

“I didn’t choose it,” Alara said quietly.

“Nobody chooses this.”

Desire turned, pacing restlessly now, thinking.

“It shouldn’t be possible,” they muttered. “Mortals don’t cross thresholds by accident. Not here. Not into me.” They turned sharply. “Unless someone sent you.”

“No one sent me, I told you.” Alara was now determined. “I think… I think I’m dead,” she said what she had thought about several times since her arrival. She remembered walking home from the bar at night, and then chaotic dreams followed one another. She saw no other explanation for it than that her body was now just a ghost.

“You think?” Desire raised their eyebrows.

“There was blood. I heard a scream,” strange, inexplicable fragments of memory flashed through her. The picture wasn’t quite complete yet, but she was beginning to suspect that her life was over. “Then silence. And now… I’m here.”

Desire’s eyes were shining golden. Not with anger, but more with interest.

“Maybe you’re a soul. You were pushed out of your body. You were torn from it.” They took another step toward her, as if trying to sense the truth in her breath. “But death has its gatekeepers, and this is not the realm of the dead.”

“Then what is this?”

Desire smiled.

“This is where it all begins,” they said. “Every war. Every lie. Every poem and every kiss. Every betrayal, every vow. Every scream in the dark and every lustful whisper in the dim light of bedrooms.”

They leaned closer to her, their lips touching her ear. “The temple of desire is the beginning of everything.”

She turned to them, their eyes meeting, and Desire was so close to her that their noses were almost touching.

“I didn’t ask to be here,” Alara whispered.

“Of course not,” Desire replied. “This place is the cradle of the best kind of desire. The kind you don’t expect, but when it does, it strikes and destroys you with ease.”

Alara met their gaze.

“You don’t scare me.”

“You should be scared,” Desire purred softly, like a cat’s purr, and they circled slowly around Alara, her skin tingling under the gaze of their golden eyes. “You are very far from home, little flame, and you are carrying something you shouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

Desire didn’t answer. Ther fingers tapped their chin as they thought.

“You don’t belong here,” they said again, but this time it was less of a rejection and more of a warning. “And if I let you stay here, someone will notice. He’ll notice that you’re out of place.”

“Who?”

Desire’s face darkened briefly — something more than irritation was evident on it.

“My dear brother,” Desire said as if it were a curse. “The Shaper. The Prince of Stories.” They paused. “Morpheus, King of Dreams.”

Alara stepped back a little.

“I don’t know who he is, but… Does he know about me?”

“No,” Desire shook their head. “Not yet.”

They turned their back on her and walked toward one of the illuminated symbols lining the wall — each one a glowing relic of the Endless. Desire reached out and pressed their hand against the heart floating in the center. The room trembled.

“I could keep you,” they murmured, a faint hint of longing in their voice. “But he will seek you out. He always does that when someone touches what is his."

“I am not his.”

“No. But you are not mine either. You have wandered into his dreams, touched his world, and left your mark,” their turned back to her. “This little visit is over, little flame.”

“Wait!” Alara stepped forward instinctively. “Where should I go...?”

Desire clicked, and reality collapsed.

It was not violent. It was like a curtain falling after the last act at the end of a play — gentle, deliberate, and final. The red walls drew back, the pounding of the heart faded, and the floor crumbled like melted wax beneath her feet. Alara groaned, but she did not fall. She was simply gone.

She had disappeared from Desire’s gallery, the House of Want.

She was alone again. Desire stood motionless in the silence behind her, their golden eyes flashing. And they smiled broadly.

“Well,” they said quietly, to no one, “what an interesting turn of events.”

They turned back to the wall, their fingers caressing their siblings’ symbols with empty contempt. They knew that if Alara was in the Dreaming, sooner or later Morpheus would notice her, be curious, and want to keep her under control. This could be Desire’s next chance to cross the line for their hated brother. Alara would be the key, the tool they would use to succeed. They suddenly saw that more clearly than they had ever seen it before.

“Did you sense her, brother?” Desire whispered, grinning. “And what will it cost… if not?”

Chapter Text

Desire tried not to go to the mirrors. Instead, they wandered through their realm, running their fingertips along the velvet-covered walls that throbbed with heat and hunger. They walked the corridors that leaned toward them like lovers longing for touch. Desire’s chamber sang with every breath they took — but Desire didn’t listen.

They sought silence. Peace. A corner of their realm where nothing and no one would find them. But they had to realize that the problem was that the visitor was no longer here.

Alara had taken root in the very foundations of this place — in the soft red of the curtains, in the dark folds between the shadows, and Desire could taste her on their tongue, in the taste of the golden air.

They hadn’t said her name in days. Not once. They did everything they could to forget the strange girl who had barged into their realm uninvited, as if she could single-handedly rewrite the laws of the universe.

They were not possessed. They no longer cared much about the case. They were an Endless. They had tasted the lips of gods, licked the pulse of empires as they rose and fell. They had made Despair weep with envy, made Dream seethe with their every little plan. A mortal girl should have meant nothing to them.

Desire whispered like a mantra. Over and over.

A mortal girl should have meant nothing.

And yet...

Yet their feet carried them to the mirrors.

The mirrors were tall and narrow, a dozen of them standing guard in crescents at the edge of the room. Desire approached slowly, their robes scraping the floor like spilled gold. The mirrors moved at their presence, rippling slightly like the surface of trembling water.

One by one, the mirrors flashed. And there she was. Alara, as she had when they had first seen her, was wary, curious, and confused. She stood in Desire’s realm, her hands clasped at her sides, her gaze scanning the velvet walls, her lips parted in a breath she had not known she was holding back.

Desire studied the image. The way she turned her head when she heard a sound. The way her fingers slowly brushed one of the silk pillows. The pulse in her neck — it was visibly quickening, yet for some strange reason it remained steady.

Desire remembered thinking: she doesn’t belong here. But it excited him, because she didn’t flinch when she saw them. She didn’t beg for freedom. She didn’t try to impress them. She just stood there, waiting for the truth.

And gods, she was stunning!

Desire’s hand pressed against the mirror, their index finger resting over the throat of her image. It felt warm, almost real. But it wasn’t. Not really. It was just a memory. Mirror images projected by their own mind. Nothing more.

They turned away from the first mirror. Then the next. Then another. The scenes followed her like scent trails—her voice, her walk, the angle of her collarbone, the flash of her eyes when she caught him watching her.

“Enough,” Desire muttered.

They snapped their fingers, and the mirrors obeyed: the scenes darkened, faded, and finally disappeared altogether. There was no sign of Alara Thorne.

Except for one. A mirror shone in the center, and Desire stopped before it. Their lips parted — not commandingly, but in confusion.

The mirror glinted, and then, as if drawing their from the deepest, most forbidden well of memories — she was there.

Alara. Naked. Wrapped in crumpled white sheets, twisted within them, as if sleep had wrestled with her body and lost. Her bare legs stretched out on the soft bedding, her back arched slightly. The sheets covered little — just enough to leave the rest to the torment. She didn’t look in the mirror, she didn’t even move. But the image was alive. Her skin was dewy, still flushed, her lips parted with sleep. Dark hair fell to her shoulders. The mark — that strange, starlit arc beneath her collarbone — lit faintly on her chest. Desire’s chest tightened.

“This isn’t real,” they whispered.

The mirror didn’t care what its owner wanted. Desire stepped closer, their jaw clenched.

They hated it. They hated that it wasn’t even Alara, not really. Just a vision. A reflection. Some subconscious fantasy that had crept up from the depths of their mind. But gods, she was perfect. Shapely. Slim. Every line smooth as moonlight on still water. Her waist narrowed as if it had been sculpted, her hips widened just enough to tease Desire’s imagination wickedly, and her thighs seemed both strong and soft. The symmetry of her face was unfair — high cheekbones, full mouth, eyelashes dark as sin.

Desire reached up and touched the mirror again. Their hand hovered near her heart. The mark glowed brighter and Desire gasped.

In a moment, they were no longer looking at her body. They looked through her and saw her as only Desire could see people. Not as a body. Not as an image. But as desire. As a soul. A living, beating heart that shone. Life pulsed within her with a quiet, wild, wounded intensity, and Desire admired her, fascinated. Alara wanted nothing... and yet everything. She longed to belong, yet she was afraid of being possessed. She burned with the desire to feel real, and yet she didn't know she was.

It destroyed Desire.

This was the kind of desire that didn't nourish them, it drained them, left them empty and desperate. Now they pressed both palms to the mirror and tried not to tremble. The girl moved slightly in the image, as if she were muttering in her sleep. The sheet slid down, revealing the swell of her hips, and lust sucked in a sharp breath.

A familiar heat crept under their skin. It always began like this — a soft, golden throb in their stomach, a gasping breath that made their heart ache. They knew all the forms of desire, wore it like perfume, used it like war paint, even as a weapon.

But this feeling, the unreal image of Alara, made their jaw clench.

They could name her shape, trace it in their memory, and still smell her scent from the time they had leaned so close to her during her stay here, their noses almost touching.

And yet, none of it was her. It was only the echo of something they no longer had.

“I should have kept her here,” they whispered to themselves.

But the mirror didn’t respond, only showing her body. Her soul. Her absence.

Desire slammed their fist into the frame. A crack slid across the glass — but the image didn’t flinch. Alara lay there still, calm, for she wasn’t real.

Desire stepped back, their throat dry, and their heart — if they had one at all — pounding as if it wanted to crawl out of their chest and run to Alara.

They were Desire. Not just a desire. Not love. Not loss.

“Get out of my head!” they snarled, and finally they turned their backs on the mirror.

Desire stood before the reflection of their own desire, their heart clenching as the reflection of Alara’s almost uncovered body burned into their mind. A thick silence settled over the realm — the echo of unspoken eros and a memory they couldn’t yet grasp.

Finally, they tore their gaze away and turned sharply to the velvet walls. Every breath felt like a gasp, every heartbeat like a drum of desire.

“Enough!”

They whispered the word into the red silence of their realm — and then snapped again. The mirror shattered, a shower of crystal shards falling onto the pillows beneath it. With the mirror, the mirrored image of Alara, never seen before, collapsed, gone in an instant, but Desire felt no relief. There was only naked emptiness where obsession had raged a moment before.

They paced up and down slowly, deliberately. They glided across the floor as if a stone were being ground between their ribs. They glided past the pedestals of curiosities: the feather of a fallen angel, the eyeless doll, the cobalt blue perfume bottle. These relics noticed nothing. They could not concentrate.

Desire silenced all sounds in their realm, but their thoughts raged.

Who is she? Where is she? Is she alive?

They remembered what she had whispered, that she thought she was dead, and their own suspicion that Alara shouldn’t exist.

And yet… She existed. It wasn’t a dream when she had appeared to their a few days ago. She had really been here, in their realm.

That fact alone should have been impossible. As a mortal, she couldn’t just show up here uninvited. Not unless there was something powerful in her blood, some power she didn’t notice because it barely resonated in her soul.

Desire sank to their knees, pressing their palms against the swollen velvet carpet. They exhaled, forcing themselves to think.

They had to forget her. They had to.

A single thought flashed through their vision, zigzagging with every twitch of their mind: they couldn’t forget her.

They had to remind themselves who they was — an Endless. Unpredictable, unfeeling in the wake of destruction, able to rebuild kingdoms with a whisper.

When Desire finally rose — silently and breathlessly — they knew what they had to do. They had to find Alara, to find out what she was, how she could be here if she was dead, why their sister Death hadn’t come for her, and how she had even managed to enter their realm uninvited. And most importantly, if they got answers, maybe they could get her out of their mind.

First they went to Scotland, Edinburgh, and stood on a deserted terrace looking down on the street, the city, the country. When the girl visited them, they tasted the essence emanating from her, and that led them here. She had been here once, they were certain.

Desire entered the smoky interior of the old student apartment where Alara had once lived. They felt her thread of memory — it was pale, pastel — in the insulation of the walls. They saw the memory of half-unpacked boxes. Red wine-stained coasters. Books, moods, and a montage of documentary DVDs. They ran their fingers along the dusty windowsill where she might have leaned out after a tiring day with a glass of wine and watched the street. Now there was no sign that Alara had ever lived here.

Their second stop was New York, a bar in Brooklyn. They slipped past the bouncers, their name echoing in the quiet, dark corners. They watched the customers move — a bartender was tying her hair back, a woman was laughing more than anybody liked it. None of them looked like Alara, and none of them made them feel the way she did. None of them smelled faintly of smoke and cinnamon like she did. They knew, they could feel that Alara had been here a lot in the past, and her presence around the counter was stronger than anywhere else, so Desire suspected that this might have been her first job. But she wasn’t here now.

Then went to Tokyo — a tiny ramen stand. It was dawn, the chef was making soup. A customer hunched over a bowl, but there was no sign of the person they were looking for. The essence here was faint. She had only been here once or twice. Maybe she had been here on vacation. A mask of disappointment settled on Desire’s face.

Then they went to São Paulo and stood in an empty apartment near a carnival. Music pulsed on the paper-thin floor, bodies danced in waves on the street. A woman walked past the window of the ground-floor apartment, wearing the same black crop top and cardigan that Alara had worn when she visited their realm. Lust blinked, stopped, their heart pounding, but the face didn’t match. She was too young. She might have been a teenager. It wasn’t Alara.

They finally found what they were looking for in Los Angeles. They didn’t find Alara, but here was the strongest lead they followed, and the path led them to the exotic bar where she worked.

Lust stood across the street, raindrops covering the empty sidewalk. The neon sign flickered, and loud laughter echoed from behind the closed door. Broken glass crunched under the feet of those who passed in front of the bar. No one paid their any attention, because this was Los Angeles, and there were stranger figures walking the streets than them.

Wherever they went, they collected clues. A lipstick stain on a napkin. A flash of her handwriting. A friend who remembered the girl who had disappeared from Earth, yet was trapped in the Dreaming.

But they couldn't find her.

They tried to push away the obsession again, but suddenly they found themselves on the terrace of Alara's apartment, watching the city through the rain. The familiar stranger clearly lived here, but the apartment was completely empty. There was no sign of clothes, bedding, the bathroom tiles were sparkling with perfect cleanliness, and the trinkets had disappeared. It was as if she had never been here. But Desire of the Endless were above everyone and everything, and they saw with their golden eyes how the girl had once tossed and turned in bed sleeplessly, how her back had arched while she washed her hair in the shower, and how her lips had touched the cigarette when she sat on the terrace and lit it. They saw everything that had once happened, and yet it was no longer real. She had lived here, she had only been here a few days ago. And yet it all seemed distant and unreal now.

Alara Thorne had been everywhere in the world, yet she was nowhere to be found. How was that even possible?

Desire stood under the streetlights, their eyes closed. The moon and neon light glinted on their face like scripture on the side of the road. They thought of the mirror. The burning of their body as they looked at the false image of the girl wrapped in the sheets, the ache in their bones, the heat behind the glass. They thought of love, of desire, of need, and the impossible throb that had begun to rumble within their when she touched the walls of their realm.

A plan began to form in their mind because of the memory of desire, but they didn’t feel like they want this plan. They knew they wouldn’t be able to just forget the girl. Not because they wanted her or because she was someone who would make a deep impression on others, but because of what had happened. Because she had appeared uninvited in their realm, doing the impossible, and then when they tried to find her, she had vanished from the Earth. That was not possible, which was why Alara Thorne had stuck in Desire’s mind. She had disappeared as suddenly and inexplicably as she had appeared. She had stepped through a door that should never have opened, lingered in a realm that was not her kind, and left behind nothing but a memory and a mark.

Desire’s chest tightened as they stepped forward, standing before their brothers’ relics, and raised their hand.

“Dream,” they said softly but firmly, their voice like a purr in the darkness. “I stand in my Gallery, in front of your symbol. Would you answer?”

Silence settled over Desire’s realm and for a moment they thought Dream would shut them out, but then their surroundings changed. In a breath, Desire disappeared from their realm. After Dream answered yes, they immediately went to his Gallery. Dream’s Gallery was vast and gray, the light as if filtered through opaque glass. Its walls stretched on the edge of reason, lined with sentinels that whispered secrets even in the silence. The air was heavy with dream and silence.

Dream was already there, of course. He stood tall and motionless on the edge of a wide stone table, wrapped in a coat blacker than emptiness. His hair fell unruly over his pale forehead, his dark eyes fixed on Desire with quiet, measured contempt.

The two Endless looked at each other without warmth.

“Brother,” Dream finally said. “To what do I owe your visit?”

“What a warm greeting,” Desire smiled sweetly, and turned around, as if it were their first time here.

“Have you come to annoy me?” Dream asked dispassionately. “Or to confess?”

“I came,” they said, “because something even you didn’t notice, brother.”

Dream didn’t react. Of course not. He never gave them the pleasure of visible surprise. Desire stepped forward, the hem of their purple coat scraping the floor like spilled wine.

“A mortal woman appeared in my Gallery. I didn’t invite her. I didn’t tempt her. She simply… appeared.”

Dream said nothing.

“She bore a mark, but it was not one of mine. She claimed to be dead. She claimed to remember her death. And yet… she existed. Completely. I touched her, Dream. Blood raced through her veins. She breathed.

Dream’s frown deepened.

“Was she real?” he asked slowly.

“Too real,” Desire’s gaze sharpened. “And when I… sent her away, I thought she would be gone. No mortal is allowed to enter my realm.”

An indescribable flash crossed Dream’s expression.

“But you couldn’t forget her.”

Desire’s lips curled in irritation.

“She shouldn’t exist. Not anymore. Yet she does, Dream, and she wanders your realm!”

Dream turned to the high shelves and took out a small glass globe. Inside it swirled dream sand, forming shifting images of sleeping minds.

“You said she bore a mark,” Dream said measuredly, thoughtfully.

“Yes.”

“Whose mark?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Was it a wound or a mark?” he glanced back at Desire, who now knew that they had their brother’s interest and full attention.

"It looked more like a mark than a wound, although it did break her skin," they replied after a moment’s hesitation.

"You said she died?" he asked.

"She thinks so," Desire replied, now more quietly. "And I believe her. Dream," they addressed him after a few moments of hesitation and moved closer to him. "I looked around the Earth. I followed the trail of desire… But she’s nowhere. She doesn’t exist."

"That shouldn’t be possible," Dream said quietly. "Unless Death left her here for some reason."

"She came through dreams," Desire added. "Not through waking doors. That much I know. The moment she touched my realm, Dreaming infiltrated. She should have stayed in your kingdom, though I don’t know how she got there if she was awake and dead."

“Then what was she doing with you?” Dream frowned.

Desire paused for a moment.

“I don’t know,” they said.

Dream slowly turned back to them, his eyes like night frost.

“Why do you care?”

The question hung in the air between them for too long. Desire looked away at first.

“She piqued my interest. That’s all.” A lie that wasn’t very convincing. “She ran away from me, Dream. Do you know how rare that is?” Their voice was low now, angry at the truth. “She left nothing behind after I sent her away of my realm.”

Dream’s expression remained unreadable, but something inside him tensed.

“Her name?” he asked.

"Alara Thorne."

“I’ll search the Dreaming,” Dream nodded. “If she’s there, I’ll find her.”

“No,” Desire said sharply. “We’ll search together. I want to see her with my own eyes.”

“You want her,” Dream echoed. “That’s always the problem with you.”

Desire stepped closer, the tension rising.

“Don’t pretend to be better. You want things too. And people,” they added with a wicked smile, and they both knew they was thinking of Nada.

“I won’t let my desires destroy my empire.”

Desire’s golden eyes met Dream’s black ones, their combined gaze a mixture of fire and ice.

“Maybe,” Desire said slowly, “this isn’t all that destructive after all.”

“And if it becomes that?” Dream asked.

Desire's smile was sharp and wild.

"Then let it all burn," they whispered with a sly chuckle.

So they searched together, though neither of them would admit it, they walked the corridors of the Dreaming, slipping through the veils of nightmares and memories. Dream moved with precision, the ruler of this boundless realm, and it was as if each door were a note in a song that only he could hear. Desire followed him with restless hunger, like a flame swirling around each soul they passed, seeking something to burn.

None of them was Alara.

A thousand dreams flashed before their eyes. Lovers clung to illusions. Children built castles of sorrow. Soldiers bled again and again on battlefields built of guilt. Desire peered into the shadows, searching for the shape of her mouth, the curve of her hand, the echo of her voice in someone else's dream.

Then suddenly they came to a dimly lit door, resting in the twilight mist. This was the mind of a man who had barely dreamed, and the edges of his dream were frayed with sorrow. The air smelled of salt and wet stone. Dream glanced at Desire, who had already stepped forward. The dream opened like a slow breath.

They stood on a beach. Gray waves rolled in rhythmlessly, the kind of dream where time itself seemed to stand still. A young man stood alone on the beach in his knee-deep wet trousers, a long-suffering cigarette in his hand. The sky above him was marbled with purple clouds. There was no sun, though it was not yet night. And then they saw her. She was barefoot, the hem of her short dress flapping around her thighs as she walked toward him. Her hair swayed softly in the wind.

Desire's breath caught in their throat.

“Alara,” they whispered, but before they could forget themselves, Dream held out his hand.

“Wait,” he said softly. “Just watch.”

The girl turned, her dress twisted around her legs, her locks blowing in the wind in her face, and the boy looked at her, mesmerized. Brazenly open, the way a person can only stare at someone in their dreams when they are longing.

“You never said goodbye,” the girl said, and the wind blew the words away.

The dreamer — this boy, this young man — stepped toward her, but it was too late.

Desire moved as if to step closer, but Dream raised his hand again — and the scene froze. The waves fell silent. The wind fell silent. Even the seagulls flying in the sky became floating shreds of dream.

Then the man turned and looked at them. Even that was strange. Few mortals saw the Endless in their dreams unless they wanted them to. He blinked in confusion. His face was soft, olive-brown, his eyes dark as burnt honey, his hair disheveled, the locks shaped as easily as grief could. His name was Elián. Dream knew before the boy spoke.

“Who… who are you?” Elián asked slowly. His voice was raw, a stifled sob that had not yet broken through. Desire stepped forward, their eyes gleaming golden.

“Friends,” they said. “Hers,” they motioned to the girl. Alara was not real, only Elián’s mind had created her for his own comfort. She was a false image, just as she had been in Desire’s mirror before.

Dream’s expression turned to stone.

“We’re looking for her. Alara Thorne.”

Elián stared at them for a long moment, then laughed, but his voice was fragile and out of place.

“She’s not here. She’s dead.”

The words were punched into the air. Desire stepped back a little, as if they’d been hit, and Dream narrowed his eyes.

“How do you know?”

“I saw her,” Elián said. “I saw her a few days ago, the coffin was open. I kissed her cheek. She was cold. She was my best friend. And for one night… more than that. But she disappeared, and when they found her body, they said it was an accident. A fall. She seemed peaceful, but something had crushed her, and no one could explain why her chest looked… burned."

Now he looked at the two Endless, something flashed in his eyes.

“I’ve dreamed of her every night since then.”

“The mark. Where was it?” Desire asked eagerly.

“Here,” they received the answer, and the boy pointed below his own collarbone. “On the left.”

Desire said nothing. Dream studied the air, his voice a soft thunder when he spoke.

“If her soul remained unbound, she still walks in the Dreaming…” He addressed his words to Desire, not the boy.

“And then she never really left,” Desire finished their train of thought in a whisper.

“Who are you people?” Elián asked, stepping forward. “I dream, don’t I?”

“The truth is not for waking minds,” Dream replied measuredly.

“But this is not waking,” he replied. “And I have already lost her. What more could you take from me?”

“You loved her,” Desire tilted their head to the side, studying Elián as only they could. They looked deep into his soul, into his heart. Elián nodded slowly and painfully.

“Better than she knew. But she... wasn’t mine. I don’t think she ever belonged to any of us. She just... ran through life laughing... We weren’t worthy of her,” he whispered, as if thinking aloud.

“He can’t help us anymore,” Desire said, looking at their brother.

“I want to help,” Elian said. “If there’s anything left of her... if you find her... Tell her she was the best part of my life.”

“She already knows,” Desire smiled, and there was something faintly mocking or evil in their voice.

Dream raised his hand and the dream began to disintegrate around them. The shoreline vanished, the sky split into constellations. Elian’s form trembled, then turned into smoke and memory.

They stood on the edge of the Dreaming again, beyond time and tide, and Desire said nothing for a long time. Goldens eyes of them were hard, unreadable, and too bright.

“Dead,” Dream said. “And yet she lives. She’s not a dream ghost. I would have known if she was.”

“She was bleeding. She looked real, and I didn’t kill her when I sent her away, so she must be somewhere.” Desire fell silent, and Dream slowly turned toward them.

“Then something broke.”

“Yes,” Desire whispered. “And now the world must live with what crawls through the cracks.”

Chapter Text

The Dreaming did not breathe, it pulsated more and more. The sky was full of shifting stars and memories torn from time. Towers changed shape when you blinked, stairs grew sideways from the roots of imaginary trees, and a sea of ink folded like an origami tide.

Everything was possible here — except forgetting.

And Dream searched through it all for a girl who should no longer exist. He walked silently through his own realm, his clothes smearing ink on the marble floor of the Hall of Portraits. Every door he passed through led to the dreams of mortals, which seemed like open windows to the waking world, as they were reflections of it. But he was not interested in others. He was searching for the impossible echo of a soul that should have already passed into the realm of Death.

She died. If Dream had watched Alara Thorne carefully that night, he would have noticed that her last breath had swept through the Dreaming like the wind. The waves of her absence had emptied a small corner of the Dreaming that had once been hers.

Dream climbed the whispering steps and stood at the edge of the Threshold of Sleep, where the dreams had thickened like creepers, growing more and more dangerous. His hands hovered at his sides.

“She is here,” he murmured.

Lucienne stood quietly beside him, her hands clasped together.

“Are you sure, my lord?”

Dream did not answer, but stepped into the veil. The dreamscapes passed him by. He moved like a shadow, one dream after another: a child clutching a blanket while monsters crawled through her closet; a widow who dreamed of her lost husband at the foot of her bed; a politician who ate gold coins until his teeth broke; a painter who was slowly drowning in his own work. But none of them were Alara.

Dream moved faster then, seeking not her shape but her resonance — the strange hum that had always followed Alara like the echo of a half-forgotten song. And then...

A flash. A girl stood in her bookstore dream, resting against the spine of a book the size of a house. Her face was tortured, her hair too long. But the rhythm of her voice, the contours of her grief...

“Where are you...? I can’t find you…”

She paused and stared at Dream, frozen. No, it wasn’t her, but she had touched Alara once before. A friend? A classmate? One of those who cried when the obituary was posted? He pressed two fingers to the woman’s dream temple. He replayed it. And there she was.

A single fragment, a floating shred: Alara, or something that was left of her, had whispered to this woman in her dream days ago.

“I’m still here.”

Then the scene changed, and now Dream was standing next to Alara in a garden where fireflies buzzed over an open field. The sun shone softly and pink above their heads, the way dreams like to remember it. The girl stood barefoot in a linen dress, looking at the stars in the daytime.

“You don’t belong here,” Dream said in a kind voice.

Alara didn’t move. Dream showed to her his true face, so Alara knew who was standing next to her. There was no need for questions or uncertainty. Her hair fell in soft locks down her back, her gaze distant and hazy, like someone half-awakening from a long dream.

“I don’t know how to leave,” she said.

“You’re dead, Alara.”

“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I am. Or maybe I am. I just… forgot to leave.”

Tears glistened in her eyes, but no sorrow. She seemed to be drifting somewhere between a memory and a farewell.

“I tried to leave, to forget everything that was before. To move on. But it didn’t work."

Meanwhile, Desire had not walked, but had increasingly wandered the Earth in the waking world. In the mortal world, they had taken on a quieter form — they wore well-tailored, clean clothes, every thread sharp. Their golden eyes burned like glowing embers beneath a calm, human mask. They had followed Alara’s essence before, when they had sought her in the same place, but this time it was different.

Her soul had been broken in death, a part of her drifted in the Dreaming, and now that Desire was aware of it, they perceived her differently. As if they could pay more attention to her. A part of Alara stubbornly took root in the places she had once called home.

Desire followed the essence of her being. Not memories. Not sorrow, but desires. And Alara was deeply, painfully desired by those she had left behind.

They passed her old apartment. A former roommate was sobbing over a coffee mug. A lover touched a photograph. Her sibling sat in a stairwell, trying not to breathe too loudly.

Desire said nothing. They just watched them.

They moved through the city in a whisper. They mentioned her name carefully in the eulogies, like a spell that could never be repeated twice.

Then they found those who meant a direct path to Alara. They stopped in front of a 19th-century family home with a carefully tended garden. Alara’s family lived here. The smell of loss clung to the curtains. Inside, a woman — perhaps her mother — stood motionless, staring at the kitchen sink. A father hunched over in the garage, his hands shaking, doing nothing.

Desire didn’t knock, didn’t call them, just stared at the still life for a long time, then turned and walked on. The smell of pain and suffering from the house led them all the way to the cemetery.

Not to the fancy one, uptown, but to the one between a church and a railroad track. It was quiet and humble. It seemed completely deserted. They followed the smell of her essence until they stood before the grave.

It was not marble, just a modest stone, precisely carved, with two dates beneath the inscription. Birth and death. She had barely lived twenty-five years.

Desire crouched down. The ground was still soft around the grave. They had put her here yesterday. They pressed their palm to the grave and closed their eyes. It was there — the faint echo of a pulse, though not of life, but of something restrained. Something that resisted the pull of death.

“Dream,” they whispered, and their brother was there in an instant.

He didn’t ask how Desire had found the grave. He simply stood silently beside them. For a moment the wind forgot to blow.

They both looked down at the grave.

“I found her,” Dream said quietly.

Desire didn’t smile.

“Me too.”

Dream stood still, silent beside Desire. The gravel beneath his boots made no sound, though the cemetery rustled around them. His hands were clasped behind his back, his cloak still despite the wind. He was a stone statue carved from shadow. Desire crouched beside him, their fingers lazily touching the letters of Alara’s name carved into the stone. Not gently — Desire never did anything gently, but there was something about their slow and repetitive movements that caught Dream’s attention.

“This is wrong,” Dream said, his voice as soft as the earth beneath them.

Desire didn’t look up.

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Her soul lingers in the Dreaming. She shouldn’t exist anymore,” Dream’s eyes flashed at them.

“And yet she does.”

Desire stood up, dusted off their shirt, and stepped forward until Dream was beside them, and they both looked at the tombstone like sentinels. Silence stretched between them.

“You think I did this?” Desire asked suddenly.

“You were with her after she died. She appeared to you, it can’t be a coincidence,” Dream replied after a long silence.

“Yes, and I sent her away.”

“And with that you lost her,” Dream retorted, though he had nothing real to say. Desire glanced at their brother, their eyes meeting, and the golden irises gleamed like embers.

“What was I supposed to do with a mere mortal? Should I have kept her in a cage? Should I have chained her soul to my spine? I don't trap people, Dream. Not like you.”

The stab hit, but Dream didn’t flinch. He looked back at the grave, his face inscrutable.

“She died. She is dead. But something of her, something stubborn, something hungry, stayed here,” Desire shook their head, their voice low and restrained. “And we both know what that’s like, don’t we, Dream?” their mouth twisted into a wry smile.

Dream didn’t argue. He couldn’t.

“So what now?” Desire asked. “We found her. You followed her in Dreaming, and I followed her on Earth. She was buried. And she’s still here. Why hasn’t she crossed?”

“That would be my question too,” said a soft voice behind them.

They both turned.

Death stood under the willow tree, her hands clasped behind her back, calm as ever. Her black robes were restrained, the silver ankh around her neck glinting faintly. Dark curls framed her face, but her expression was serene — maybe solemn. She quietly approached.

"I was wondering when you two would notice her."

Desire crossed his arms.

“You should have taken her.”

Death stopped in front of the grave, her gaze falling on the fresh earth.

“She was ready. At the very end, she knew what was happening and was waiting for me, but something held her back."

Dream stepped closer.

“And you don’t know what it is?”

Death shook her head.

“I lead the souls. I don’t drag them. If they want to stay, they stay. If they want to come, I welcome them. Alara hesitated, then disappeared." Death looked at them without judgment or exoneration.

“She is stuck here because of Desire’s touch,” Dream said suddenly.

“And because of yours, brother,” Desire murmured. Silence fell upon them again. Desire’s hands clenched into fists.

“Alara Thorne lingers between the Dreaming and nothingness,” Death interrupted the argument that was brewing between her two brothers.

“But she is not haunting,” Dream said. “She is dreaming. She is herself, but not completely. She is not free.”

“She is stuck,” Death answered calmly, as if talking about the weather like an average day. Perhaps it was for her. “And she cannot stay like this forever.”

“Then what should we do?” Desire asked.

“Let’s ask her,” Death said suddenly, and glanced at her sibling. “Let’s see if she understands what she is. And if she wants to come with me."

“And if she doesn’t?” Desire asked.

“Then I’ll convince her. That’s the logical decision,” Death replied.

“You can’t force her,” Desire said quickly.

“That’s not forcing her,” Death smiled at them. “If she doesn’t come with me, she’ll fade away. Piece by piece. That’s how it ends if she stays here after she dies.”

The three of them stood there, the wind whispering softly through the cemetery. Death finally stepped back.

“I’ll wait a little longer. But not forever. Solve this.”

She disappeared, as silent as the falling leaves. Dream stared at the grave again, and Desire crouched down again, their palms pressed to the ground.

“She died because someone set eyes on her,” Desire thought aloud. “The mark under her collarbone is the key to it all. So far we have been looking for her on two planes, and we have not dealt with the point."

"The why" Dream murmured softly.

"Someone put the mark on her. On purpose. Why did they put the mark on her? What kind of mark is this and what is its purpose? And whose is it?" Desire listed. "We must find answers to everything, and then we will find out what she became when her soul and body separated, but she did not go with our sister."

Dream was silent for a moment, then turned, the wind carrying his voice like sand.

"I know where she is, I was talking to her."

"What?" Desire glanced at their brother in surprise.

"As I said when I arrived, I found her" Dream replied. "She is in the Dreaming. Only she can tell us what happened when she died."

"Then let's go..."

“No,” Dream raised his hand, tolerant of no contradiction.

“Why not?”

“Because the Dreaming is not your realm.”

“You’re afraid she’ll prefer to talk to me,” Desire’s mouth twitched, as if they were suppressing a grin.

“No,” Dream said. “I’m afraid she’s already more attached to you than she should be. Or you to her.”

With that he was gone, gliding like a shadow across the veil between worlds, his cloak fluttering behind him like ink poured into water. The Dreaming moved around him.

It was always like this. When a mortal wandered too long in his realm without truly dying, the Dreaming bowed before him like silk. A castle became a meadow. A city that filled the night sky collapsed into a cathedral of mirrors. The world he had dreamed of had changed with every breath and pain.

Alara sat in the middle of it now — no longer lost in the feverish loop of false memories or illusions shrouded in grief. She remembered everything. Her death. The cold, piercing pain. The voice that had broken from her own chest. And the mark — the one she had always felt. The strange mark beneath her collarbone that had continued to throb even as her heart had stopped.

The place where she had waited was a vast field with endless grass, and the clouds of lamb floating above it pulsed with her breath. When Dream arrived, he did not announce himself. Alara turned her head away before he could speak.

“I knew you would come again someday,” the girl in the ottoman smiled up at him.

“I had to come,” Morpheus replied, sitting down next to Alara. The girl was light, while the Dream Lord tensed and measured. “You remember everything,” Dream declared without any hesitation.

“I remember,” the girl replied. “Everything.”

“Then tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me what killed you.”

“They were shadows,” she said. “They weren’t like the ones I saw in the dreams afterwards. I was awake. They were behind me. They were clearly following me, until… they get me.”

“Describe them,” Dream said, sounding more like a command than a request.

“At first they looked like shadows. I saw their faces, but I can’t quite recall them. They were tall, still, yet they glided along the walls as if they belonged there. Their gaze… was evil, as if they had seen everything I had ever been. I remember the coldness of the way they smiled at me when I tried to scream, and then… nothing. Only the taste of blood and honey, and then silence."

“Lamia,” Dream’s eyes narrowed, and he stared into the distance.

“What?” Alara grimaced at him.

“Lamia. She was a queen deprived of her children, who was transformed into a monster by her desire for revenge and ate children. The mark,” he pointed below the girl’s collarbone, “I don’t know whose it is, but whoever placed it on you summoned Lamia, who was hunting you.”

“And that person got me,” Alara whispered. “Because of the mark.”

“Yes. And the mark… we don’t know who put it on you.”

“I see…” Alara said. “But even you noticed the mark. You too. Desire too…”

“And our sister, Death too,” Dream added. “It’s only a matter of time before the others find out what’s going on.”

“The others?” Alara was confused.

"Of course, the sign might interest other beings, but I was thinking of the Endless. Besides us, there’s Destiny, Delirium, Despair, and… the prodigal."

"The prodigal?"

"It’s not the point now," Morpheus shook his head, and slowly stood up, then motioned for her to follow.

Alara stood up carefully, the soft grass rustling around her bare feet as she followed Dream’s silent lead. The Dreaming moved around them, as if holding its breath. What had once been a sanctuary now trembled with some ancient memory that had surfaced. It was like the vague memories of those awakening from a dream.

Dream said nothing at first. His hands, usually so still, once seemed to clench into fists. It was the only sign of unease he could allow himself. Alara walked beside him, trying not to look back. The sky above them turned purple and black, the stars blinking down on them like watching eyes, the wind carrying the scent of ink and time.

“Where are we going?” Alara asked after a while.

“The Library,” Dream answered simply.

The building had always been there, tucked away in a shifting corner of Dreams, where time unwound and coiled like silk on a loom. It stretched long before her eyes, a labyrinth of arches and towers that wound endlessly up and down, filled with unclassifiable volumes. Books of all kinds lined the shelves: leather-bound volumes that wept ink, scrolls that whispered secrets in forgotten languages, crystalline pages that glittered with light instead of words. And then there were the unwritten books, floating in the air, their pages as if waiting expectantly for someone to experience the next line.

Alara had never seen anything like it. The light in the library was not natural light — it was dreamlight, soft and golden, coming from nowhere and everywhere. The endless rows of shelves cast speckled, shifting shadows in the form of feathers, flowers, and sometimes eyes. The air smelled faintly of spice, like old parchment, crushed jasmine, and something bittersweet. It was impossible to tell whether it was perfume or memory.

Morpheus, the Dream Lord, ruler of this unreal realm, walked silently beside Alara. He moved like a shadow dressed in flesh and velvet, silent yet commanding. His presence changed the weight of the air around them.

“These...?” Alara whispered.

“Every life,” Dream replied. “The story of every living thing. Every possibility, and some that have yet to be lived. It’s all recorded here.”

“You mean… my life is here in a book?”

Dream glanced to the side, his gaze unreadable.

“Yes. Your life, your dreams, your fears, your decisions. From the moment you took your first breath until now."

He stopped in front of a huge shelf. One of the books hummed softly at Alara’s presence, like a cat purring.

“Where is mine?” she asked, astonished. He didn’t answer, only raised his hand, and the Library obeyed.

A rustling sound ran through the building like a breath. The shelves moved with a groaning sound that was part wood, part sigh. A small table appeared before them, heavy-legged, carved with celestial runes, and on it, as if it had always been there, a book bound in silver leather waited. It had no title, only a single symbol burned into its center — a spiral tangled with thorns. It was like the mark that had been emblazoned beneath Alara’s collarbone.

“This is the book of your life.”

Alara stepped forward slowly, respectfully, her fingertips hovering over the cover. It pulsed faintly under her hand, warm as living skin.

She opened it.

The first page was blank. The second too. Only on the third did faint shapes begin to appear — scattered words, broken phrases in ancient languages she didn’t quite understand. The inkblots flowed into each other like watercolors. The handwriting had changed, become irregular. Nothing made sense.

“What is this?” she murmured. “This… This makes no sense. Are you sure it’s mine?” Alara stared at the pages.

“The beginning of your story is veiled,” Dream said softly, as he leaned over the girl’s shoulder and glanced at the volume. Alara could smell the sweet yet masculine scent emanating from the man. She froze at the recognition and held her breath. She didn’t dare move. “Your lineage can’t be mortal, not entirely, because someone hid it. It should all be here, clearly legible..."

“You said this place records everything,” the girl protested.

“It is. And yet...,” he said, and the girl felt Dream’s closeness on her back. “Not all truths want to be revealed. Some resist being named by their true name.”

Alara had no idea what that meant, so she just silently turned another page. And another.

Then the first legible text appeared. A clean line, as if the words had finally decided they were willing to form complete sentences.

"That was the day my parents found me," Alara whispered, and Dream said nothing.

The girl read on. The pages were smoother now, the text coherent and easy to read. There were her first days in her adoptive home, the sun shining brightly through the windows, the air muggy. The text wrote about her mother's perfume — lavender and lemon — and her father's laughter—rough yet gentle. The toy fox she carried with her everywhere. Her nightmares. Her first piano recital, and the first time her heart was broken.

All her memories were there.

It was fascinating. It was as if she were looking down on her life, stripped of all illusions.

“Everything is so… detailed,” she said.

“You remember most of it,” Dream said. “But not everything. The Dreaming records more than memory. It records what you felt in that moment, even if you didn’t understand what you were feeling at the time.”

She turned another page, and as she read the words, she froze. She could read what she had recently experienced personally. She read about the feeling of being watched. About the nightmare she had woken up from screaming with the mark under her collarbone. About how she had accused herself of paranoia when she had walked home from work. She saw the slow unfolding of her days laid out on the page.

She turned the page toward the end, his heart pounding… And there it was.

Her hand reached for her collarbone.

Then she read about the moment she had first met Desire. The page was warmer than the others, the ink glowing faintly. Her fingertips trembled as she touched it. The text was simple but tense:

Alara blinked and looked around, as if embarrassed.

Alara frowned, her eyes narrowing as she ran the glowing words over again.

“Why would it write this?” she murmured, barely a whisper. Her fingers hovered over the page now, she hesitantly touched the warmth again. “We only met once. It was… nothing.”

She glanced over her shoulder at Dream, as if waiting for the Dream Lord to explain this, but the Library was silent, the shelves towering over it like sentinels, indifferent. Her voice was lower now, speaking to herself more than anyone else.

“What it means… I didn’t belong anywhere before I met Desire?”

“Only you know that,” Dream replied, stepping away from Alara.

“That’s all?” she asked. “It doesn’t say who gave me the mark. Or why that thing was sent after me. Why?”

“Indeed, it doesn’t. The mark was given without permission. The Library only records truths, it cannot create them. And the truth of the mark… still eludes us,” Dream explained slowly.

“But someone did it,” Alara said. “Someone sent that creature to kill me.”

“Yes,” Dream agreed. “And we will find that person.”

Alara looked at the book again, her fingers running down its spine.

“Why did you let me read it?” she asked quietly. “Why did you show me all this if it doesn’t have any answers?”

“Because you deserve to see that your life matters,” Dream replied, his voice lower than ever. “You were not born for no reason. You were not killed for no reason. The mark is only one part of the story. The rest” he reached out and touched her shoulder gently “is still being written. Do you trust me?” Dream asked unexpectedly, and Alara suddenly turned to him. For a moment she just looked up at him and listened. She looked deep into his eyes and was completely lost in them. She felt calm and peace. As if her soul had finally calmed down.

"I think so" she whispered.

"Then come. There is one more place you must go. One more truth that is still dreaming."

And as they left the Library, Alara glanced back over her shoulder once more. The book remained where it had been, glowing dimly.

She was still full of questions that weren't answered where they should have been.

And the book was still unfinished. No one could know how much more awaited Alara Thorne after her death.

Chapter Text

Desire’s realm shimmered in a pulsation of gold and purple, its velvety corridors winding like arteries in a body throbbing with desire. The mirrors flickered with fleeting reflections, none quite the same, and the scent of memories hung in the halls, intoxicating and unfinished. Desire stood still — silent in the middle of her own realm. Their golden eyes flashed sharply as they looked around — not at one of the mirrors, but at the table before them. Three objects lay perfectly arranged on the glass table, each as if marking a point in a ritual triangle. The air stirred around them — thickened with ancient magic.

The first object: a dark, silky lock of hair, tied with a red silk ribbon.

The second: a silver coin from a forgotten civilization, its two sides worn smooth by centuries.

The third: a vial of blood, not fresh, not human, sealed with wax, and humming softly with power.

These were not gifts, but payments. Desire ran their manicured fingers along the rim of the vial. This was the price for the Kindly Ones to listen to them and receive answers.

The last time Desire had sought them out, the price had been higher. This time, they hoped, they would succeed with cheaper price. They slipped the items into a leather bag that one of Morpheus's nightmare had sewn for them long ago, when Desire had wrung him out of a storm. Then they set off.

The corridors of their realm did not lead like normal places. Here, it was time-warped, not a straight path. Desire could have snapped their fingers and been there in a breath, but that was not how the Three worked. Ritual mattered. The journey was necessary. So they set off down the velvet, down a long staircase of gleaming obsidian that wound around like a snail's shell. The deeper they went, the more the walls faded — silk and mirror turned to bone and root. The air grew colder, damper, and hungrier.

At the bottom stood a door made of old wood and black iron. There was no keyhole, just a handle of braided metal, on which three strands of hair swayed — the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. Desire reached out and grabbed them. The moment they did it, the world cracked like an egg.

The next moment they were somewhere else. Not in the Waking World. Not in the Dreamworld. In a third place older than both. A gray plain stretched out in every direction, the color of ash and dotted with bones. No stars shone here, but the Sun was nowhere to be seen. Instead, three moons floated overhead, each a different shade: blood red, sickly white, and a wounded violet.

Desire stood in a stone cavity that seemed to have been carved by ancient teeth. Three chairs stood before them, each occupied — or perhaps not.

Desire said nothing, just looked at them for a moment, then opened the purse and silently set the three objects down.

The wind whistled. Then a voice — sweet and light, like a lullaby sung over graves:

“Oh, look, sisters. A visitor again.”

A second voice, rough and wet like roots tearing up the mud:

“Not a visitor. A seeker. And they came with offerings.”

The third voice — dry, final, and sharp as flint:

“Desire. The Endless. They came to ask what they should not know."

And suddenly there they were. They didn’t appear, they were just there, as if they had always been sitting in the chairs, but Desire had only just noticed them.

The Maiden wore a white dress stained with milk and ink. Her eyes were wide and blue, and she saw too much. The Mother wore a crown woven from tree bark and a shawl of thorns. Her smile was wide and friendly. The Crone leaned on a bone scepter, her nails cracked and yellow, her eyes dim, but they always knew where to look.

Desire bowed low in respect.

“I have brought the price, Kindly Ones,” they said.

The Maiden laughed and clapped her pale hands together.

“Hair. Blood. Silver. All beautiful things.”

“From the right lives, from the right time,” the Mother continued, picking up the coin and biting into it as if it were bread.

The Crone turned the vial of blood between her fingers.

“And whose was this?”

“A muse,” Desire grinned. “Who once sang to Olympus. Now she is silent.”

The Three looked at each other. They did not speak. They did not need to. Time was different for them. They talked in the pauses of their thoughts.

“We accept your offering,” the Crone said finally. “Ask the questions, child of night and fire.”

“I want to know,” Desire said quietly, “who put the mark on Alara Thorne."

“Not yet,” said her youngest self.

“There are no answers without consequences,” said the Mother.

“You must listen before you ask again,” said the Crone.

“Then speak,” roared Desire at them.

And the Witches began to twist the threads — pulling the strings that buzzed in the air, glowing with memories, intertwined with fate. The world began to shake. The bones beneath the earth trembled, and Desire stood still. They had gone too far to turn back.

The thread burned like gold.

“It wasn’t you,” said the Mother finally. The Crone’s shoulder moved slightly, almost imperceptibly.

“We thought it was you at first,” added the Maiden, her fingers twitching to the rhythm of the hum of her own being.

“We hoped,” croaked the Crone. “It would have been easier.”

“Then who?” Desire insisted, and for a moment the rising flames whispered louder than words.

“She was judged,” said the Mother.

“Not by us,” said the Maiden, her braid unraveling before the eyes of those present.

“Not by you,” added the Crone. “Marked by one who weighs souls in silence. One who wears no crown, only scales."

“A cold goddess,” murmured the Mother, “born of law, not of desire.”

“You mean an old Olympian?” Desire frowned.

“An offering is worth an answer, Desire, so ask wisely,” smiled the Mother. “But since we like you, we will answer. She walks in the dust of the myths of the Olympians.”

“She has no need of temples,” said the Crone. “Justice never begs for worship.”

“She silently carved the mark on the girl,” the Mother continued. “No altar, no blood. Just a decree.”

“Why?” Desire asked.

“Because your little dream girl had blood that was not of this world,” the Old Woman said, squinting at the threads moving above the fire.

“She carried a weight she did not feel,” the Maiden continued.

“She carried guilt,” the Mother added. “Or perhaps a question.”

“You say she was punished?” Desire took a step back.

The Three looked at each other — or perhaps they were just looking inward, at the same moment.

“She was not punished,” the Crone corrected. “She was marked for reckoning.”

“It wasn’t to summon Lamia,” the Mother clarified. “But it made her visible to all who feed on the imbalance.”

“They sensed the difference in her, the difference that set her apart from the average person,” the Maiden said, smiling. “So they came for her.”

Desire’s expression did not change, but something cracked behind their eyes.

“You want to know how to save her,” the Crone said, now turning the thread to smoke. “That is your second truth.”

They leaned forward.

“She lingers because she is not finished on Earth yet,” the Mother said, “and yet she is no longer among the living.”

“She has no ropes to hold her back like other mortals,” the Maiden added. “She has no anchors.”

“She is in the Dreamworld,” Desire nodded their head to the side.

“She cannot stay there,” said the Crone. “A soul cannot drift forever. Even dreams eventually fade away.”

“She must choose between returning and moving on,” said the Maiden. “But she cannot return unless someone shows her the way.”

“She needs a body,” said the Crone. “A vessel. A story strong enough to hold her shape.”

“A sacrifice,” added the Mother. “Not a blood sacrifice. A sacrifice of identity.”

“You must rebuild her. She must be reborn in the waking world,” said the Maiden.

“You asked for two truths. We give you one more,” said the Mother suddenly.

Desire said nothing, but something in the line of their jaw tightened.

“You think of her,” the Girl said accusingly.

“You feel a tremor in your chest when you say her name,” the Mother added.

“I wish it weren’t true,” the Crone continued. “But you desire her.”

“I don’t desire her,” Desire said expressionlessly.

“She belongs to your realm now,” the Crone replied. “A memory that never existed has appeared in your mirrors once before."

“She appeared in your realm,” the Mother said. “And you let it her.”

“You even enjoyed it! You looked at her like people who desire,” the Maiden said.

“As if you had made her from your ribs,” the Crone said.

“Stop,” Desire whispered.

But the Three only smiled.

“Even the Endless are not immune, this is your unsolicited truth, which you can deny, but it will still be true,” the Crone said with a wicked smile, and waved, and the air thickened like cooling wax.

“You have received an answer to what you came for,” the Witch said, turning away.

“Go now,” the Mother added.

“The tapestry must tie new knots,” the Maiden sang, and in a breath the space where Desire had stood was nothing but a ring of ash and wind.

And Desire was alone again. There was silence, a tension ringing in the air, and Desire was terribly aware of the weight in their chest.

Desire stormed out of the circle of ash, the memory of the Three’s voice still swirling in their ears like undissolving smoke. The words echoed like a gong through the corridors of their realm.

Desire's realm, a statue of flesh and desire, pulsed in rhythm with their thoughts. The walls — arches of bone, mirrors, soft velvet, and blood-red silk — reacted to their growing rage. The glass of the mirrors cracked as they passed them. The shadows grew sharper, the scent of cloves and roses bitter, astringent, like perfume left in the sun too long.

Desire clenched their fists, their teeth grinding as their jaw clenched.

How dare the Kindly Ones speak of feelings? How dare they assume attachment, softness, weakness? They were Desire themselves, one of the Endless. They were the one who could destroy countries, worlds, with a single feeling. They did not feel! They took others into themselves, to give them desire for good and evil. Desire ignited feelings, manipulated them, bottled the fire of souls and poured it down the throats of kings and murderers. They wouldn’t let their own feelings seep into reality, like some lovesick mortal teen, drunk on the torment of longing.

And yet…

And yet.

They walked the Hall of Desire, their hand twitching at their side. The palace breathed with them, and Alara’s face appeared again and again on the polished surfaces — flashes of her gaze, her hair, the hand she had pressed against the mirror the day she had first wandered here.

The memory came back unbidden: how still she had been, even in her confusion. The way she had looked at them — not with fear, not with awe, but with that maddening, unbearable realization they couldn’t explain. As if she had known them for a long time.

It made no sense. She was just a girl. A doomed, mortal girl. A girl who shouldn’t have existed after death, and she had entered their realm uninvited.

“Damn!” Desire spat, running their fingers through their golden hair. “Fuck, Alara!” they screamed, their voice ragged and sharp, fueled by the gap between rage and fear.

And then… A breath. A flash. A rustle, as if fabric brushed against skin. Desire turned slowly, and there she was. Alara.

She stood barefoot on the edge of the hall, her eyes wide and shocked, but clear as a mirror. A piece of the Dreaming still clung to her skin like stardust, but she was undoubtedly here in Desire’s realm. No door opened. No call was made. And yet, she stood beneath the arch of desire, the silk above her head rippling like a panicked heart.

Desire’s breath hitched.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Alara blinked, her brow furrowed.

“I… I heard you.”

“What?”

“You called.”

Desire’s jaw tightened.

“No, I didn’t call you.”

She looked around, her arms folded protectively across her chest.

“I heard you. It was your voice, your real voice. Not out loud, but… inside me. Like a thread pulling,” she pointed to her chest. Desire grew angrier. Did this little girl, this insignificant mortal, really want to tell them that she had heard their voice in her heart?

“I didn’t call you,” Desire snapped, too quickly, too hard. Their voice cut through the silk like a bolt of lightning.

Alara tilted her head.

“Then why did I hear you say my name?”

Desire stopped. Alara could hear her name coming from their mouth because they had actually said it. Out loud only once, and even then not intentionally. But deep down they said it over and over again, thinking of her like a wound they couldn’t stop scratching. The shape of her name had been living there under their breath for days. It trembled against their ribs like a buried secret, throbbing louder with every thought.

Alara.

Desire said nothing, just stifled the realization, staring at her as if this were all her fault. Alara stepped closer.

“You’re angry.”

“A brilliant conclusion,” Desire taunted, but their voice sounded more fragile than they had intended.

Alara took another step toward them, and Desire wanted to scream, disappear, tear up the walls, demand that the empire erase her image from every mirror — but instead, they stood still, each step she took toward them destroying some truth they didn’t want to carry with them.

“I don’t know why I came here,” she said quietly. “I just knew I had to come.”

“That’s not how it works,” Desire narrowed their eyes.

“You should know that better than me,” Alara murmured. “Desire isn’t rational.”

Desire’s heart clenched. They didn’t want to hurt her, and that only made things worse. They was only inches away from them. Desire could smell her — cool air and dream smoke. She wasn't solid yet. Not really. But she wasn't an illusion either. She was shaped half by desire, half by something else. Something Desire couldn't name without fully understanding it.

Alara looked up at them.

“Why are you silent?”

“What do you want me to say?” Desire snapped. “That I wanted you to come? That I desired you? I don’t desire you, little girl, and I didn’t want you here!”

“You don’t have to talk to me like that,” she said too gently. “You are Desire. You get what you want just by being yourself. I’ve only been a part of your world for a few days, but I already know that.”

“That doesn’t mean I wanted you here,” they said cruelly, and now they didn’t care if they hurt the girl. They realized with a shock that they did want to hurt her, because then she might leave. “Why do you care how I feel?” they asked bitterly, as if they were surrendering to the situation.

“I don’t know,” Alara replied. “Maybe because you were the first to see me when I didn’t exist anymore. And because no matter how powerful you are, you stand here before me, and I see you as just a human. I have always been human. The way you speak, you have a body, you apparently have feelings, whether they are negative or positive... that makes you human to me, in the best sense of the word."

That pierced something. Desire looked away now. They felt too vulnerable, as if they had opened their heart to the universe.

“I am not human,” they replied after a long silence. They refused to look at Alara.

“I still see you as human,” Alara said, shrugging helplessly. “And that is a good thing.”

Desire looked back at her, her gaze burning.

“You entered my realm uninvited, overheard my thoughts, and then you claim you don’t want anything from me? That I am just a nice person?”

“I just…” she whispered. “Maybe I need something you can give me. I don’t know what it is, I just feel that way.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“I’m already dead,” she said. “What can I lose?”

Desire hated the pain in their chest. They hated the way this little girl looked at them — as if she were someone she could belong to. Their ears rang with the words of Elián when they had visited him in the Dreaming, when he had said that Alara had never belonged to anyone and was better than all of them. They thought the boy was only saying that because he loved her passionately, almost idolized her. But now it echoed in their mind, and it seemed he was right. Alara truly did not belong anywhere or to anyone.

Suddenly, as if they were not in control of their own actions, they grabbed Alara’s wrist — not roughly, but firmly. Heat surged through every inch of them as they touched her skin, and their breathing quickened.

“Alara,” they whispered hoarsely.

She didn’t pull away. Desire leaned closer, their forehead touching hers.

“If you continue to stand in front of me like this, looking up at me like this, I will destroy you.”

Alara’s lips parted.

“You won’t,” she said. “I’ve already died once.”

Desire closed their eyes. For the first time in a long time, they were afraid. Not of her, but of themselves. Of what it meant to want something they could not command. Of what it meant to feel. And in the silence of the Hall of Desire, amidst the watchful gaze of every mirror, stood Alara Thorne, the mortal who should no longer exist, and Desire, one of the Endless, who felt something they had perhaps never felt before. Love? No, far from it. Desire? Even that was a too strong word. A tug twisted their stomach, the rope of which Alara held, if only unwillingly.

Alara’s breath trembled in her throat, shallow and sharp. She stood still, and Desire, carved of beauty and chaos, gripped her wrist, her eyes gleaming like the thinnest blades in the dim light. They were too close. Not close enough. Alara could feel their warmth, not exactly from Desire’s skin, but from somewhere deeper, from something throbbing, buzzing deep within her being. It was as if there was a current in her that had awakened just beneath the surface of her skin the moment she returned to this realm.

Alara had never wanted to return here, and yet when she heard them — Desire’s voice in her head, like a thread pulling gently across the Dreaming, in a safe corner of which she had hidden herself, beyond the echoes of Death, beyond even the memory of her own grave — she did not hesitate. She followed the voice. Blindly, as if her name, echoing through her entire being in Desire’s voice, could override reason, fear, logic. It was not a command, yet it rearranged everything in her.

Now, standing in the Hall of Desire, she was surrounded by velvet shadows and shimmering mirrors that reflected truths she was not yet ready to face, and she did not know how to step back.

She saw herself in the mirror behind Desire — eyes wide, chest rising and falling too quickly, mouth slightly parted. It was not fear, but something far more chaotic. More dangerous.

Desire’s breath was warm on her skin. Their gaze swept over her face, as if they could not decide whether to stay or run. And when she closed her eyes, she felt not relief but a long, tense, breathless silence. Alara could now hear what before had been only the pulse of the realm — Desire’s heartbeat. It was not the place breathing, not its supernatural presence, but the throbbing of Desire’s own body. There it was, beneath the silence, and it might have been a stupid thought, but Alara felt as if their hearts were beating in sync, just enough to make her feel sick. What was happening to her?

And oh, how she wanted to believe that it meant nothing. That it was just some unknown supernatural toying with her.

Desire had said they would destroy her, and maybe they could.

Alara had died once before. She remembered the shadows, the mark on her skin, the weightless fall into oblivion. And then: Dream, Death, Desire. She was not the same girl who had danced on a rooftop in Los Angeles, longing for something more. Now there was something more, something less, something completely different.

But in this moment, with her hand still in Desire’s fingers, she felt like only a girl standing before a god and not backing down.

She tilted her head slightly, watching Desire’s expression change. Their golden hair gleamed like firelight. The scent of pepper and crushed petals crept into her nose. Alara wondered if Desire had always looked like this — so hideously beautiful that it almost hurt to breathe near them — or if something about her appearance had changed them.

No, she thought, don’t be that girl. Don’t lose yourself in desire.

But wasn’t that what this entire realm was about?

Desire slowly opened her eyes again, as if this small gesture had cost them so much. Their gaze met hers with such weight that Alara’s knees shook. There was something in their eyes — anger, confusion, something that almost resembled grief, but was buried too deep for her to understand. Something real.

The beat between them lengthened. Neither of them moved.

Alara could feel her own heartbeat now, louder, more steady than ever. She didn’t reach for it. She didn’t speak. She simply stood there, present, breathing in the space between them, as if the thread had tightened but not yet snapped.

She thought of the moment when she had first seen Desire — she had really seen them, not just as a figure in a realm of mirrors and impossible architecture, but as a being, painfully and especially human, standing before her with questions in their eyes. She didn’t know why that moment mattered, only that it did.

She knew now. It wasn’t love, but it wasn’t even lust, not quite. It was tension, unbearable and glittering.

It was gravity itself. It was the feeling that someone was seeing her — really seeing her — and not flinching.

When Desire let go of her wrist with agonizing slowness, she traced the delicate lines of their throat with her eyes, the pulse beating beneath the golden skin. Her fingers ached with the longing to touch them. Her stomach clenched again — not with fear, but with the weight of too much unsaid.

Desire stirred slightly, and she felt the heat of the movement, the friction of her skin against theirs — lightly, almost barely, but just enough that for a moment she forgot how to breathe. She didn’t look away, and neither did Desire.

This was not a moment for answers. Not even for questions. It was just that — a pause, a held breath in the vastness of the universe. And in that moment, Alara realized something quietly terrifying: she didn’t want to leave.

She should have left. She should have been somewhere else, somewhere safer, somewhere more sane. But here, in this impossible hall of endless longing, she felt more real than anywhere in her entire life. More visible. More fragile. More at peace. There was nothing here, she shouldn’t have been alive anymore, and yet… yet everything seemed perfect.

“Desire…” she whispered uncertainly, not knowing why she was saying their name, except that it was like a key in the right lock. It fit perfectly.

Their eyes flickered to her lips. Her heart beat wildly. The thread tightened. Neither of them moved.

And yet — something passed between them, soft and electric, as if the air recognized something they couldn’t yet say. Alara didn’t know what would happen next, but she knew without a doubt that nothing would ever be the same again.

Chapter Text

The night was still and there was no wind, no owl hooting. And especially the restless dead did not move.

Desire arrived first, materializing between two weeping angel statues at the edge of the cemetery. They wore their pastel butter-colored suit jacket, their lapels razor-sharp, their blond hair reflecting the cold moonlight like a flame frozen to silver. A heartbeat later, Dream emerged from beside the grave, retreating into the shadows. His expression was unreadable, and his face was porcelain pale, dark as myth.

At first they said nothing. Both Endless stood in silence before Alara Thorne’s headstone, which was brand new and gleaming with perfection. The name was legible and the dates were flawless. The freshly turned soil — though it hadn’t rained in weeks — was still damp.

“I hate this place,” Desire muttered, arms folded tightly, their gold rings gleaming like biting teeth. “It smells like loss.”

Dream didn’t answer immediately, his gaze fixed on the ground.

“We need her bones,” he said finally. “We can’t fully recall the soul to the Waking World without attaching it to flesh and bone. We must reclaim what remains.”

Desire frowned.

“You always talk like a crypt keeper when it comes to these things.”

Dream slowly turned his head toward his sibling.

“And yet you’re here,” he smiled mockingly, though in Dream’s case the smile meant no more than a twitch of the lips.

“I’m here because she first appeared in my realm,” Desire hissed, but the venom was missing from their voice. “And because she heard me. I didn’t mean to call her, but she came anyway. That means something, Dream. Like it or not, no one can ignore this fact.”

Silence fell between them. Then, as if waiting for a sign, Dream knelt, placed his pale hand on the grave, whispered words in a language older than the soil beneath them, older than grief. Desire opened a velvet-lined case, revealing a strange collection of ritual objects: a knife carved from obsidian and ice, a lock of Alara’s hair brought from the Dreaming, a red wax seal bearing an ancient, unknown symbol, and a flower that had no name.

They worked in rhythm. Dream began to draw a circle of symbols around the grave with the flower, its petals leaving trails of living starlight as it moved. Desire unfolded a sheet of parchment, pressed the wax seal into it, and pinned it to the center of the circle.

And then — before they could say their invocation — a sudden chill ripped through the cemetery. The mist thickened, the night rippled. A figure emerged from the mist like a memory and stepped forward.

She was not tall, yet she moved with such grace and gravity that the soil seemed to soften beneath her bare feet. Her robes were woven from a garland of forgotten lullabies and lost verses; she glittered with words that no one had spoken for millennia. Her hair was braided in copper braids, and her eyes were dark and bright, like the ink of ancient texts.

Dream’s hands stiffened, and Desire’s lips parted in shock. They both recognized her — though she was one of the Old Ones, rarely seen even in the most ancient corners of the Dreaming.

“Mneme,” Dream said, his voice ringing cautiously as he slowly straightened.

The muse tilted her head slightly in greeting. The movement was slow and measured.

“Greetings, Morpheus, King of Dreams,” she said slowly, then turned to Desire. “And you too, Desire, child of the night. I have not come to fight,” she continued softly, now to both of them. Her voice was like water trickling over stone. “Only to watch what you intend to do. To ask why you are disturbing my daughter’s peace.”

“Your daughter?” Desire stiffened. They had probably already guessed that there was something special about Alara, for which a supernatural being had marked her and wished her dead, and then successfully trapped her between the Dreaming and reality after gaining uninvited entry into Desire’s realm; but their train of thought never reached the point where perhaps Alara might be more than a mere human.

“She is yours,” Dream said, shocked. “Alara is your blood.”

“You should never have known,” Mneme replied, unflinchingly, instead of answering, for real.

“You abandoned her,” Dream accused. “You let mortals raise her, you let them mark her and hunt her, and...”

“I protected her,” Mneme interrupted, sharp now, but grief wrapped around every word. “I buried her bloodline so she wouldn’t be used. She wasn’t meant to wake up. Not yet.”

“Then why did the mark come upon her?” Dream asked. “Why did she draw the goddess of judgment to her?”

“That mark wasn’t mine,” Mneme whispered bitterly. “But her blood gave her away. The daughters of the Muses should not be left unprotected in the world. I did what I could, but they forgot about me. And the forgotten have no power over fate."

"We want to bring her back. Body and soul. The ritual is prepared" Desire said after a long silence.

Mneme closed her eyes.

“Then I am here to warn you. If you bring her back, her path will not be safe. The mark may call others, and she will be something... in between. She will no longer be dead, but she will not be fully mortal either. Her blood will no longer bind her to me."

Desire looked at the grave, their throat tightening.

“She deserves to choose,” they said. “To live, to want, or to move on. That must be her decision.”

Mneme looked at Desire long and hard.

“And what do you want to do next, Desire?” Desire did not answer, and the muse stepped closer. “Swear to me. Swear on your realm, on your name, on your reflection, that you will not tell her who I am."

“Why?” Dream asked.

“Because she must become herself, not what she thinks I am. Because truth shapes and limits her. Let her become what she must become of herself. Let her be Alara first.”

The two Endless looked at each other. Dream’s face was unreadable, but Desire rolled their eyes.

“Okay,” they said. “I swear.”

Dream didn’t answer. Mneme looked at him.

“And you, Morpheus?”

The Dream King hesitated, then answered with a small, barely perceptible nod.

“Until she asks, I won’t say anything. That much I can promise.”

Mneme looked down at the grave, a small, sad feeling catching in her throat.

“She loved to write stories before she could even speak. Did you know that?” the muse whispered. “Before she could even form words, she hummed her dreams.”

“I know,” Dream nodded, a glint of nostalgia in his eyes, as if recalling a long-forgotten memory.

The fog began to thin and Mneme took a step back.

“You have begun something that neither of you understands,” she said. “But perhaps that is the order of great stories.”

And with that, she turned and disappeared into the fog, leaving behind only the echo of a melody — one that Alara herself might once have hummed. Desire let out a long breath.

“Well. That was not unpleasant at all.”

“The ritual must continue,” Dream looked down at the grave. “It cannot be interrupted now.”

The grave opened now. The earth peeled away from it like lips parted around a secret, holding back a breath for too long.

Desire stepped to the edge first, their coat billowing like smoke behind them, moonlight kissing their cheekbone as they stared at the coffin — a simple pine box, unadorned, uncarved. Nothing to suggest Alara’s life, or any echoes of it.

“She would have hated this,” Desire muttered, surprising themselves too. “So… ordinary.”

Dream knelt down without a word. His fingers hovered over the coffin lid, then pressed it down. With a sound like a long held breath, the wood opened and there lay Alara Thorne.

Her body did not begin to decay, as if time had respected her in-between state — waiting for her form, caught between death and the Dreaming, as if it had waited in some kind of grace. Her dark hair fanned out around her pale face. Her lips parted slightly. Her eyes were closed, her eyelashes resting like thin threads on her skin. The white funeral robe clung to her like mist on glass.

And beneath her collarbone, faint but glowing, the mark pulsed.

Desire did not move for a long time. Then they took a deep breath, glanced sideways at Dream, and lowered themselves to her.

“Let’s do it,” they said.

Together they lifted her. She weighed less than she should have, but not fragilely, more like a song that was just beginning to fade, still humming in the throat of the world. They carried her carefully, placing her body in the center of the ritual circle carved into the cemetery’s soil. It now gleamed faintly with runes carved with silver dust, shards of obsidian, and black lilies gathered from the Dreaming Borderlands.

Desire stepped back and swallowed hard.

“We are really doing this…”

“You asked the Three. You knew the price,” Dream replied, not even looking up.

Desire said nothing, instead opening the bag they had brought: an obsidian blade, her own blood in a delicate glass bottle, a silver comb that had once belonged to a forgotten goddess, and a thread woven from starlight that coiled tightly like a question waiting to be answered.

Dream lit three candles — flameless, just shadows flickering on the wick, and they flickered in rhythm with Alara’s pulse that had been silenced weeks ago. He began to speak in a language that cracked the air, syllables that were older than any mortal language. They were not melodic, more structural. It was a plea meant to sustain her soul as she moved from one plane to another.

Desire added their voice, soft and flattering and sensual.

Alara’s chest remained still. The mark beneath her collarbone glowed, then beat like a heart. Once. Twice.

Desire stepped forward and knelt beside her.

“Come on.”

They ran the obsidian blade across their palm. Blood spurted — liquid starlight, with a darker tinge. They let it drip into the center of the circle, onto her chest, where her heart lay. Dream did the same.

When two Endless bleed into the same spell, the universe takes notice. The circle rippled. The earth groaned. The flowers outside the cemetery gates wilted, as if bowed in mourning or respect — or both.

Alara groaned. It wasn’t a breath. Not quite. It was the absence of death that made its way into the sound. Her fingers twitched. Her lips parted. Her eyes darted behind her closed eyelids like the flapping wings of a baby bird caught in a storm.

Desire froze, and Dream whispered involuntarily, “She’s coming back.”

The mark glowed white on her chest, the veins around it throbbing like roots of light, and her back arched. Her skin, once corpse-pale, now flushed with a faint warmth. Her mouth opened again, and this time she took a breath, and then her eyes suddenly popped open. They were no longer hazel, nor were they quite human. They were lit from within — a bright gray, as if the clouds before a storm were gathering in her irises, and a purple shadow edged them.

As if electricity had run through her body, she tensed again and groaned in pain. She turned onto her side, as if trying to escape the stabbing throb that was coursing through every part of her. Both Endless were beside her when she got to her hands and knees to escape, but the pain pulled her back. She was clearly out of her mind, having no idea where she was or what had happened to her. All she knew was that one moment she had been wandering in the Dreaming, down a busy but safe street on a hot summer day, heading toward the beach; and the next moment she felt a sudden jerk, every part of her body aching and her muscles twitching in a terrible spasm, and then she lay there in pain on the cold ground under the night sky.

As she collapsed, Desire caught her, and a second later she was lying in their arms, her face resting on their shoulder, panting, a strong arm around her, and the pain slowly began to subside.

“Desire…” Alara murmured in a hoarse voice, like a prayer, and as the pain subsided in her body, she began to understand what was happening. She was with Desire, holding her in their arms. She was safe. “I…” her voice faltered. “Where...?”

Then Dream appeared in her field of vision. She flinched, feeling rather than seeing his presence.

“You have returned to the Waking World,” Dream said in his usual deep, measured, distant voice. “But not untouched.”

His hand slid to the spot below her collarbone. She winced.

“It hurts.”

“This is just a remnant,” Dream said. “The judgment that once found you may find you again.”

“The judgment,” she whispered, as if testing the word.

“You shouldn’t have died,” Desire said, and it was only then that Alara truly realized that she was lying on top of Desire, leaning against their chest, her head on their shoulder. Confused, blushing, she mustered all her strength to straighten up and sat on her heels. Before she could excuse herself, Desire continued. “But you died. And yet you’re here.”

“Why?”

Desire didn’t answer. Her gaze flicked between Dream and Desire, then settled on the latter. She reached up and touched her face. Her fingers trembled.

“I remember… it burned. It screamed. The Lamia... it's hand..." She choked on the image, the memory stuck in her throat like glass.

"It's over" Desire reached forward involuntarily and smoothed a strand of hair from the girl's face.

"Not necessarily" Dream's gaze darkened, and Alara turned to him with wide eyes.

"Do you think it'll come back?"

"The Lamia was just a tool" Dream said. "It was attracted by the mark."

"Then take it off" she said. "Please."

"It's not that simple" Desire murmured, and Alara looked at them more curiously than accusingly.

"Then why did you bring me back? At least it couldn't find me in the Dreaming!"

Silence settled over them. Desire turned their head and stared into the night. So many unspoken answers echoed in their head, but none of them could leave their mouth. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of you disappearing into the Dreaming. Because you haunted me in the mirrors of my own realm. Because your name cannot leave my mouth without sounding like a prayer.

But Desire didn’t say these things. Instead, they answered coldly.

“You are alive and that is all that matters.”

Alara stood slowly, her hair falling in dark ribbons around her face. She was pale, but not cold. Her heartbeat echoed in the magic around them. The ritual circle began to fade, its task completed. And Alara Thorne was back among the living.

Dream stepped back first, the hem of his coat sweeping across the grass, his gaze lingering on Alara for a moment as she gathered herself.

“You should rest,” Dream said quietly.

Alara nodded, though her gaze remained fixed on the fading lines in the ground. Moments ago they had glowed with ancient power, pulsating like heartbeats beneath her feet. Now they were only dust, yet she knew that something profound had happened — not just within her, but around her.

Desire's voice broke the silence. It rang smooth, languid, but without the usual thorns when they spoke.

“You’ll need shelter. Food. Hot water. You can’t go back to your apartment,” their said, pausing, then glancing at Dream. “I suppose you don’t have a guest bed in your Library, my dear brother,” they grinned mockingly.

Dream’s eyes flickered.

“No. But I’ll send for Lucienne. She’ll arrange everything."

“And while your raven finds clean clothes and some soap,” Desire said, their lips curling into a smile, “I’ll make sure she doesn’t faint on the way there.”

Alara tilted her head.

“Can I just… get away from my own grave?” Alara grimaced, her gaze darting between the two Endless as if she were watching two arguing toddlers.

“Not many can say they’ve done that,” Desire replied absently.

They left the cemetery, its gates creaking softly in the wind, as if mourning the soul they could not keep. Alara walked between the two Endless, feeling like a weak flower between two opposing currents. Dream walked silently, thoughtfully, and Desire was silent too, but they seemed much calmer than their brother.

When they reached a quiet alley outside the cemetery, Dream opened a portal with a light gesture that shimmered faintly like mist woven into the moonlight, and they entered.

Alara blinked, the magic blurring her vision slightly. They stood in a quiet guest suite — curved white walls around them, a stone tub carved into the ground in the center, and heavy velvet curtains blocking out the distant light. On the other side of the room, the bed seemed soft and untouched, and the air was filled with a faint scent of parchment and flowers.

Desire looked around the room with slight disdain.

“So… monkishly humble. Typical you,” they told Dream.

“You have your humor, sibling, despite what has happened,” Dream replied in a flat voice, and Desire’s gaze flickered to him, then turned to the tub, lazily examining it, and ran one of their fingertips along its edge.

“I leave her to you,” Dream finally said in a neutral, yet somehow serious tone. “I’ll speak to Lucienne. She’ll be here soon.”

And with that, he disappeared into the shadows. Alara let out a long, loud breath. The silence that had settled in seemed heavier than ever. Desire said nothing, just crossed the room and opened a carved wardrobe. Inside hung dresses made of lace and silk — timeless pieces woven on the border between sleep and memory.

Alara walked to the bathtub, the stone pleasantly cool beneath her bare feet. She leaned forward and turned on the tap to fill the tub with hot water.

“Do you mind...?” she asked, pointing to the bathwater, which was slowly beginning to steam.

“I’ve seen worse,” Desire replied with a grin, but they turned and walked to the bed anyway, and though it was an effort, they didn’t peek. “I’ll stay,” they added after a pause, “just in case something… is wrong after you return. We’ve never done this before.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Desire heard the clothes fall to the floor, the fabric scraping against skin, then the floor, then the soft splash of water. Their gaze remained fixed on the bed, but their mind was definitely elsewhere.

Alara sank into the bathtub. Warmth flooded her bones, and for a moment her breath shuddered, but the steam soothed her. She closed her eyes and floated silently, as if she were melting into this peace, and could forget that she had ever been under the ground.

Desire’s presence was not heavy, more like a pressure at the edge of her senses. Even without looking, she knew exactly where they were — and when she glanced out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Desire was standing at the wall at just the right angle to overlook the tub.

“You’re peeking,” Alara said, but there was nothing in her voice that suggested anger.

“Of course I’m peeking,” Desire chuckled, and now they turned completely around and slowly moved closer.

Desire lowered themselves to the edge of the tub and lazily touched the surface of the hot water. Waves rose outward at their touch, as gentle as breath. Alara sat motionless, her back straight, her hair clinging in dark locks to her neck and shoulders. She didn’t look at Desire, who was now a little warmer, a little more tense.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Alara murmured, but a smile played on her lips.

“Everything worth wanting is a little dangerous,” Desire growled.

Their hand rose from the water and reached for her. Alara didn’t flinch. She felt their fingertips smooth a damp lock of hair from her temple and gently tuck it behind her ear. The gesture was gentle, almost respectful, and a soft shiver ran down Alara’s spine.

“I remember you differently,” Desire said, their voice quieter now. “You were different in the Dreaming. Now, you look...”

“More real?” she finished for Desire, now looking into their eyes.

“Yes,” they agreed, their fingertips now lightly caressing the curve of her jaw. “But even in pieces, you were beautiful.”

Alara swallowed. Her skin tingled as Desire’s hand slid from her jaw down the side of her neck, stopping at her collarbone — just near the faint scar where the mark once glowed. Right where the foam on top of the hot water had covered her body.

“Does it still hurt?” Desire asked quietly.

“A little,” she said. “But not like it used to. More like a slight pressure, not real pain.”

Desire leaned forward, their lips close enough to hers to feel their breath.

“You’ll always feel it,” their finger danced through the present. “It’s an important mark.”

“Of course, the mark of the persecuted,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Their fingers now brushed the top of her shoulder, which was above the waterline. “But this... makes you special…”

Their gazes met again, and for a moment the world shrank, and there was only the two of them: the still air, the hot water, and the scent of the flowers. Something unspoken hung between them, and they just stared into each other’s eyes, as if there was nothing more important in the world. Alara’s chest slowly rose. She didn’t pull away from Desire’s touch, but she didn’t lean forward either. Desire watched this choice with interest, watching her like a cat watching its prey.

“I should let you finish your bath,” they said finally, their voice losing its heat and replaced by something more cautious, more veiled.

“Maybe so,” she trembled, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from Desire.

Desire stood up slowly, tucking a strand of Alara’s wet hair behind her ear as they backed away.

“But I won’t go far,” they added, their smile lustful and maddening as they turned and left the room.

Left alone, Alara dove into the water, and when she surfaced, she took a deep breath. As she washed, she tried not to think about what had happened, for she still couldn’t digest it. She had died, wandered the Dreaming, and then been brought back to the living by two Endless. She wasn’t ready for that line of thought.

When she was done, she got out and toweled off, pulling on the robe that hung on a rack not far from the tub. The robe reached just above her knees, and its fabric clung faintly to her damp skin.

When she turned around, Desire was back in the room, sitting cross-legged on a chair, their elbows resting on the armrest, their head tilted to the side, their gaze running from head to toe over the girl’s robed body.

For a moment, neither of them said a word.

“I’m not used to being looked at like that,” Alara said modestly.

“And how do I look at you?” Desire asked mischievously, even though they knew exactly how they looked.

“As if I were a question you already knew the answer to,” Alara smiled and slowly walked closer to Desire, who kept looking at the girl’s leg covered in water droplets.

Desire slowly stood up and stood in front of the girl with cat-like grace. This scene set their nerves on fire. They didn’t touch, but they were close enough for Desire to feel the residual warmth of her bath and the strong floral scent.

“I never assume answers,” Desire murmured. “I prefer people to show who they are. They always do in the end.”

“You wanted to bring me back. Why?” Alara changed the subject, but she didn’t back down.

“I already answered that,” Desire replied. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

“For you?” the girl deliberately provoked.

“Don’t push it too far,” Desire grinned, but they couldn’t help it: they had to store Alara’s scent inside them.

Chapter Text

Alara sat in the center of the huge bed, her legs were pulled to the side, her feet exposed by the short bathrobe. The soft mattress sank slightly under her weight. Her damp hair began to dry in loose waves around her face, clinging here and there to her cheeks and throat. The long silence in the room made every sound — the creak of wood, the rustle of fabric, the soft whisper of her own breath — more noticeable.

Desire stood not far from her, leaning against a carved pillar on the edge of the bed. Their arms were crossed, their jaw set, a tense restlessness that pulsed beneath the surface. Their dark, golden gaze lingered on her, moving from her face to her collarbone — where the faint remnants of the mark still glinted on her skin.

Alara felt their gaze, as if it were a mixture of warmth and scrutiny.

"Why did you bring me back?" she asked again, her voice low but firm.

She didn't ask like before: depressed and breathless. She spoke with the emphasis of someone demanding now. Like someone who had already lost their life and wanted to know why it was given back. There had to be a reason. People don't die violently and come back from the dead without any explanation. Unless the universe has gone mad.

She shook her head slowly.

"You didn't just... do it out of kindness. You're not like that, I know you that much already."

Desire smiled faintly at that – humorless, bitter.

"Indeed, I'm not like that," they said, letting the words stretch out like a thread about to snap. "I didn't do it out of kindness."

Alara leaned forward slightly.

"Then why?"

Desire's fingers twitched at their sides. They looked away, their jaw clenched.

"I told you," they replied in a neutral tone. "It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters..."

"Just that I'm alive," Alara muttered, rolling her eyes. "Yes. I've heard that before."

Tension and anger were building in Alara. She wasn't asking for a confession or for desire — though the air between them still vibrated faintly from it, like a song only she could hear. She wanted to know the truth, finally.

"Tell me why!" she snapped, her voice rising. "Everything that happened has to make sense! Why was I marked? Why did Lamia kill me? Why was I stuck in the Dreaming instead of moving on? Why the hell did you care enough to bring me back?"

"I don't know!" Desire blurted out, their voice too loud in the silence that followed.

Alara blinked in surprise, and Desire turned away, took a half step toward the door, then turned back. Their hands moved as they spoke, no longer gracefully, but roughly and restlessly.

"I don't know, Alara. I don't know why it was you. Why it had to be you. I don't know why I couldn't get you out of my head when you disappeared," Desire breathed out nervously. "When you were in my realm, you didn't act like mortals usually do. You didn't beg, you didn't fear. You weren't even curious. You were just... there, like you belonged, even though you didn't. Then you disappeared, and the silence that followed was louder than I expected," her voice trailed off. A few moments of silence fell between them, and Desire reluctantly realized that what she said no longer mattered. She had already begun. Why would she hold back after that? "I went to the Kindly Ones because I couldn't find peace. You appeared in my mirrors without my calling, and I brought you back because..."

Desire fell silent. They couldn't say it, they couldn't even admit it to themselves, especially not to her face to face. Alara waited, her breathing heavy.

"Why?" she asked, barely a whisper now.

Desire didn't answer, just looked at Alara. Their golden eyes glittered with unreadable, infuriating pain. Alara swallowed hard. The mark on her collarbone burned her skin faintly. Her heartbeat was no longer steady.

"It's okay," she said after a long moment. "You don't know. But that doesn't mean I don't deserve the truth."

Desire moved again — slower this time. They walked to the edge of the bed and sat down beside her. Not close enough to touch her, but closer than before. The mattress tilted under their weight, and Alara couldn't take her eyes off them.

"You want answers," Desire said, now more quietly. "Me too. But what has scarred me is something none of us should understand."

Alara tilted her head.

"But Dream knows something."

"Dream always knows everything, or at least thinks so about himself," Desire growled, accompanied by an irritated look. "But in reality, even he can't know everything," Desire rolled their eyes, and only after a long pause did he continue. "It wasn't Death that held you," they finally said. "It wasn't Dream. It wasn't us. It was something older. Something... judgmental."

"Then what happened to me?" Alara's stomach clenched.

She turned to Desire, and for a moment their expression didn't reflect desire, arrogance, or even charm. Instead, it did reflect something raw and searching.

"I think..." they answered slowly. "I think you ran away from everything."

Alara stared at them, blinking slowly. Her body still didn't feel quite her own. Her heartbeat still felt new, unfamiliar. She longed to wrap her fingers around something solid and real. She looked at Desire.

"You regretted it, didn't you?" she asked.

Desire slowly glanced back at her. Their smile returned, slow and curved, but not wide.

"No," they said. "Not yet."

Alara looked away, her throat tight. Silence settled over them again. She felt the edge of the robe slip a little off her shoulders, revealing more of her skin than she had wanted. She pulled it up, but before she did, she saw Desire glance at her — just for a moment. It wasn't longing in their eyes, but it wasn't possession either. More recognition. Her breath caught in her throat, and then from somewhere deep in the realm, they heard the soft sound of footsteps. Familiar, soft footsteps.

Dream. Alara blinked and straightened.

"I think he's back," she whispered.

Desire slowly rose to their feet, their entire posture returning to that annoying ease that had been worn like a second skin.

"Well," they said with a lazy smile. "Let's see what my brother learned."

The tall double doors creaked open with a rustle of ancient hinges. Dream entered the room, his presence silently absorbing the space. The shadows leaned gently toward him, as if recognizing something older than time. Of course, he was the same as always. His long black coat fell around him with perfect grace, his eyes like two voids that had seen too much and understood too little. His gaze swept the room once, settling briefly on Desire — whose half-smile seemed a sharp weapon at that moment — and then came to rest on Alara.

"You're awake," he said simply.

Alara shifted in her seat, pulling her robes tighter around her. The tension that had been between her and Desire was now secretly and unfinishedly intertwined. She nodded slowly.

"Yes."

Dream took two steps toward her, but he didn't sit down. He stood there, a statue of night carved from obsidian and shadow.

"Do you remember everything?" he asked.

Alara hesitated. She remembered the cemetery. The strange experience of her soul slipping through layers of unreality. The circle. The moonlight. And then she woke again, her heart pounding in her ribs. She nodded.

"For the most part." Dream's gaze flickered to Desire.

"And the rest?"

Desire shrugged lazily, as if Dream had just asked if wine had been stolen from his cellar.

"There are no important details missing," they purred.

"What details would they be?" Alara asked quickly, her gaze darting between the two Endless. Neither of them answered immediately.

"You were marked because of a remnant of Mneme's bloodline," Dream finally said. "What remains of memory, creativity, and myth, those threads live on within you. Lamia tried to consume what you are. When it failed, something else noticed."

"Desire said that this something judged me."

"It did," Dream confirmed. "But you are not lost. You have returned."

"Because of you," Alara said, her gaze sharpening. "And Mneme told you something, right? That's how you know about it. You talked to her, and she said something you won't tell me."

Dream didn't seem surprised, but Desire seemed too amused.

"You're sharp," Desire murmured. Alara slowly got out of bed, stepping barefoot onto the dark wooden floor.

"I have a right to know," she said quietly but firmly.

"You have a right to know," Dream agreed, "but you don't need to know yet. What you carry inside is still raw. Fragile.

"What are you talking about?"

"You shouldn't have come back, but you're here anyway. There are consequences."

"Then stop being secretive and tell me everything, because I'm certainly not going to sit around waiting for something to kill me again," she said, folding her arms in front of her. Dream's face twitched — just once, barely visible — and then froze again.

"They're watching you," he said. The room fell silent.

"Who?"

"We don't know," Dream admitted. "But whatever or whoever it is, it's not without reason that it's noticed you. The more you remember who you are... the more power you're giving it."

Alara swallowed hard. Behind her, Desire smiled, as if they'd been watching a show and enjoyed every second of it.

"Reassuring," she murmured. Dream's gaze softened a little.

"You won't be alone," he said.

"Because you'll be here?" she asked.

"I can only look after you in the Dreaming," Dream replied. "But they'll watch over you," he motioned to Desire, then stepped back, his coat scraping the floor like a trail of smoke. He turned to leave.

"Wait," Alara said suddenly, and Dream stopped in the doorway. "Are you leaving?"

"I'll stay close. But you are no longer bound to me, Alara Thorne. You are back among the living. And the living must face the world as best they can."

And then he was gone, slipping out the door as quietly as he had come, and Alara watched him in astonishment. The silence he left behind felt heavy again — until Desire's voice broke it like silk clinging to glass.

"You're not afraid of him," they said, slowly moving closer and grinning.

"Because others are?"

"Most of them," Desire replied, "but you're not, and it annoys him, which I particularly like," they chuckled.

Alara rolled her eyes, then sat back on the edge of the bed and rubbed her forehead.

"I still don't understand any of this," she admitted. "I don't know who I am now that I'm back, I don't know who marked me, and I don't know why I feel like something is still inside me. Like something has awakened inside me."

Desire said nothing. They walked over to her, and they stood right behind her, close enough for her to feel their presence. Desire felt the urge to touch her. But they didn't do it. When they spoke, their voice was quieter, gentler.

"Whatever the answer, it's not over yet," they said.

Alara looked up slowly. Their eyes met. For a breathless moment, the world stopped. Neither of them said what they were thinking. Alara looked down at her hands and clasped her fingers together, as if the gesture might calm the whirlwind inside her. The next time she spoke, her voice was quieter.

"You said... earlier... That you went to the Kindly Ones because of me." She looked up. "Who are they?"

Desire fell silent, like a wave frozen over a mirror. For a moment they didn't answer, then slowly walked over to the bed and sat down with the easy grace that only an entity like them could do – there was half elegance, half provocation in the movement. Their gaze never left Alara's during that time.

"The Kindly Ones, or the Three, as they are called," they said finally, "they are older than almost anything you have ever heard of. Even the gods fear them. Even we must act with caution."

"But you are an Endless" the girl blinked in shock. "What could you be afraid of?"

"Don't confuse us with the invincibles" Desire chuckled, but there was no joy in their voice. "We are eternal, yes, but that doesn't mean we are untouchable. The Three... they are not bound by rules, as Dream and I are. They are revenge. They are the law when the law has failed. They are the balance that wears the mask of anger."

Alara swallowed.

"And you went to them because of me?"

"You..." Desire tilted their head thoughtfully. "You inhabited my mind. I needed answers. The ones only they could give me. So I paid the price and asked."

"And they answered?" Alara asked incredulously. "Just like that?"

"No," Desire said firmly. "They never do anything 'just like that'. But now they were willing, saying far more than they should have." Something flashed in their eyes, but only for a moment. A tension settled at the corner of their mouth. Not regret. Not fear. Something quieter. More personal.

"You say they said more than you asked. Why?" the girl leaned forward, and Desire watched for a long time as the light material of her robe slipped away from Alara's attention, revealing her cleavage and allowing Desire to see deep beneath the material. Then they stood up, slowly and languidly, and walked around the bed back to her side. They did not sit down. They towered over her again, as they had when they had first met. But this time there was no tension, only stillness.

"Because they wanted me to know," Desire said, their voice menacing with memory and the realization that the Kindly Ones had been right.

"Why?" Alara asked, glancing up at them. And as Desire looked down at her, they saw nothing but a wide-eyed, fragile, beautiful girl, attentive and curious to every word they said.

"Because," they replied, "when the Three whispers more than you ask, it can mean one of two things: either they're bored... or something has started that they can't stop."

Alara's heart beat wildly.

"And which is it now?"

Desire didn't smile this time.

"They're not bored."

The silence that followed seemed sharper than before. Alara's skin tingled. Unconsciously, she reached up and ran her fingers along her collarbone where the mark had once burned. She couldn't see it now — but something told her it hadn't gone away. Not really. She looked back at Desire.

"And you still don't know why you brought me back?"

"I knew I wanted it," they said slowly. "That was enough." They exhaled, then shook their head.

"You're maddening."

"Hm," Desire murmured, smiling. "This is practically my job."

But their voices lacked the usual smugness. Something deeper stirred in them, an uncertainty — no, not uncertainty. Defense. Alara drew back, tucking her legs under her again. Her fingers played absentmindedly with the edge of the robe's belt.

"Do you think... that I'm dangerous now?" she asked quietly. Desire raised an eyebrow.

"Do you?"

"I feel different," she admitted. "Like there's something different about me. Like... I'm myself, and yet I'm not. I remember being dead. I remember not being. And now it's as if the edges of things don't stay in place anymore."

Desire knelt down in front of the bed now, so they were almost at eye level.

"Maybe something really is different," they said. "Maybe something got through with you." Alara's breath caught. "And maybe," Desire added, their eyes gleaming gold, "that other thing inside you wants something."

They didn't speak for a long time, and then Alara finally whispered,

"Do you think they told you more than you asked because... I'll be important to them later?"

Desire reached up and gently brushed a strand of damp hair behind their ear. Their fingers lingered a moment longer than they should have at their temple.

"I think," they said, "you're already important. But now you're mortal again," Desire said. Their voice was flat and measured, as it always was when they wanted to keep their distance, but now something indescribable flashed in their eyes. "It means you belong on Earth."

Alara stared at them.

"What? You're sending me away? Again?"

Desire didn't answer right away. They looked everywhere, except at the girl.

"You're only human," they said finally, more softly this time. "You have to go back."

Alara slowly got out of bed, letting the words sink in. Her bare feet touched the cold floor, her robe barely reaching above her knees.

"That's it?" she asked. "After everything that happened? I died. I ended up in the Dreaming instead of where I was supposed to go. I ended up in your realm. And then you and your brother pulled me out of the grave, and now you're just going to send me back to Earth as if nothing had happened?"

Her voice didn't rise, but the air around her changed, her anger turning to a quiet, sizzling heat.

"You brought me back." You brought me back to life," she continued, taking a step toward them. "And now you act as if I had nothing to do with you?"

Desire didn't flinch. Their eyes met, calm as the surface of a still lake — the kind that holds drowning things beneath.

"Do you think I owe you something?" Desire asked dispassionately.

"I think I deserve to know why I exist again," Alara retorted. "Why I'm here. Why it was you. Why it wasn't just some divine accident or cosmic joke. Why you..." Her breath hitched before she could finish the sentence. Her throat tightened. "Why did you want me alive?" she demanded again. And in the silence that fell, Desire slowly stepped forward.

"I didn't want you alive," they replied. Alara blinked. "You had to be alive. There are greater powers."

They weren't gentle like they used to be. They wasn't romantic, sweet, or even kind. They were raw, like bone through skin. Desire, who had never needed anyone the way mortals did, spoke the truth as if it hurt. But they were just as quick to hide the feelings they couldn't let Alara see. A grin curved the corners of their mouth.

"But you're still mortal. You're still bound by the rules of your kind. Which means you belong on Earth."

Alara exhaled and stepped back.

"You can't make that decision for me."

"Of course I can," Desire said, their voice silky smooth again. "I brought you back, didn't I?"

"And what will happen to... you?" she asked, but that wasn't what she really meant to say. "What will happen to you if I leave?"

Desire tilted their head to the side, their golden eyes sparkling.

"What do you think is happening?"

"I think... you want me to leave before you do something you can't undo."

A flash. Just a flash on that perfect face. Desire's smile didn't fade, but their voice sharpened, with something older and more dangerous in it.

"Be careful, little flame! You're assuming too much."

Alara didn't back down.

"And you're lying to yourself," she sighed.

The moment hung in the air like a held breath. The distance between them was barely a step, yet it felt like a chasm.

"I'll go," Alara finally said, more quietly now. "If that's what you want." Desire didn't answer. "I just hope," she added, turning away, "that one day you'll be brave enough to admit to yourself the truth. Even if you can't tell me."

She sat down on the edge of the bed again, her fingers running slow, precise movements through her damp hair. Her back was to Desire, but the room still throbbed with the tension between them — the things neither of them dared to say. Silence settled over them like a shadow. Then Desire stepped closer. So close that she could hear their soft breathing. She didn't turn.

"You won't remember the transition," Desire said quietly behind her. "One moment you'll be here, the next... no."

"I've done this before," she murmured, still not looking at them. "You sent me away before."

"I know."

Alara closed her eyes. There was a rustle of silk, a breath that ruffled her hair. Then... warmth. A gentle pressure on her cheek. Not hurried. Not hesitant. A long, lingering kiss. It wasn't a promise. Not a goodbye. Something stronger than either. Alara's eyes snapped open...

And the bed was gone. The heat of Desire's realm had been replaced by something cooler. Wilder. She stood barefoot on a narrow stretch of shore. Moonlight poured down on the endless sea, shimmering silver on the dark waves. The air smelled of salt and seaweed and something faintly metallic. Her robe clung to her skin in the sea breeze, and her breath was visible, ghostly, billowing from her mouth. Behind her, the only sound was the steady pulsation of the ocean. Ahead of her, the unknown stretched out. No one else was there but her. There was no view of the city. There were no warm lights in the distance. Just sand, water, and the weight of the sky.

She touched her face. It was still burning. And for the first time since she had woken up, she felt completely, painfully real.

Chapter Text

The Endless' opinion was that Alara should return to Earth, for despite all that happened, she was still just a human. Alara was quite certain that someone — or something — was watching her, because the mark still burned beneath her skin at her collarbone, and they all knew there would be consequences. But nobody told her this life will be so lonely.

When Alara opened her eyes on that moonlit beach, barefoot and in her bathrobe, she knew there was no going back. She couldn't knock on old doors. Nothing was explained. She was dead, at least to the world. Buried. They accepted that she was gone, and the Endless sent her away. Her life before her death had ended when she had been awakened with a mark from a strange nightmare, and yet she had been given a new life when she had been sent to the realm of Desire and the Dreaming, but that too had ended. Now she was here. She was alive, and she had been given another chance at life. Yet she could not enjoy this.

So she did what most New Yorkers do: she disappeared from everybody.

The next few weeks passed in a blur — sleeping on benches, picking clothes from charity bins, answering questions with lies that came too easily. She kept her head down, constantly moving, and after a while she knew the subway lines perfectly. She had landed near New York when Desire sent her away, and it was perhaps the most perfect place to not only start a new life, but also to take on a new personality.

Over time, she found a rhythm. A version of life that made sense again, even if it didn't always seem real.

The apartment she eventually managed to get was a fifth-floor apartment in a building that had been due to be demolished three years ago. The hallway always smelled faintly of weed and takeaway food, and the elevator hadn't been working since 2003, or so the handwritten note on the door said.

Inside, the apartment was little more than a box. There was a single large room with a mattress on the floor, a worn-out, ancient table under the window, and a tiny kitchen with a stove that hadn't been used for years and a refrigerator that hummed like a giant factory machine. The walls were covered in layers of paint so thick that the patches showed through, like skin that had been cut too many times.

But it was hers. No one asked for ID, and Alara didn't even look twice at the apartment. She was happy to have a roof over her head. The rent was cheap — illegally cheap — and she paid in cash, which she handed to a man named Tony who never looked her in the eye and always smelled of gasoline.

In one corner stood a beat-up electric piano that she had found in front of a nearby house being cleared out two days after she moved in. Two of the keyboard didn't work, and the power cord sometimes sparked when she plugged it in, but that was still a joy.

The name of the bar where she got the job was Vesper. It was a cocktail bar on the Lower East Side, on the ground floor of an old building that could do with a makeover, but perhaps its retro feel gave it the authentic feel that the returning customers loved. The drinks were overpriced and special — decorated with fire or steaming ice — but the place was full every night. It was the kind of place where time didn't pass like anywhere else. It was as if time had lost its meaning here. The nights stretched on, the voices of the guests and the echoes of their conversations floating like ghosts in the darkness.

She worked behind the bar four nights a week, and spent one night sitting at the piano, usually on Thursdays, when the crowds were smaller and the lights were dimmer.

The staff were decent. They weren't friends — not yet — but they were nice and accommodating.

There was Jules, the counter manager, who had a rather striking silver tooth and never said anything twice. She kept a flask in her inside jacket pocket and never drank from it unless something terrible happened.

Mina was a cocktail genius. She looked like someone had carved her out of marble and forgotten to give her a soul — until she smiled, which she rarely did, but when she did, it was as if the whole room noticed. She had different-colored eyes and knew more about bourbon than anyone on earth.

And Tate, who washed dishes faster and more efficiently than anyone else, and despite his often serious nature, spoke in the softest voice Alara had ever heard. He read philosophy books during his breaks, and once offered her a cigarette in the rain without a word being said to her before.

They didn't ask questions from her. They didn't ask where she came from. Although she had invented a new name for herself and other details — her date and place of birth — they called her Lark, a nickname that one of the employees had given to her.

She liked the bar. The buzz of the conversations, the weight of the bottles and glasses in her hands, the feeling of doing something — anything — that felt normal. After everything that had happened... normal was the only kind of magic she craved, when she couldn't have anything else. She couldn't be part of the supernatural, and she couldn't see Desire again. So normality and her old, beloved job seemed to be enough. At least for now.

Alara arrived at Vesper a little before six in the evening, a few minutes earlier than she was supposed to. She always made sure to be on time. She hated being late.

The city clung to her skin in warm waves — that late-summer haze that never really went away, no matter how many clouds gathered over the city. She wore ripped black jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt knotted at the waist, her high-heeled sandals clicking loudly on the sidewalk. She was beautiful but not provocative. She was striking enough to get people to turn around, but she didn't stand out from the crowd. No one on the street noticed her enough to call her out, and she liked that.

The bar was dim, as always. The furniture was make of dark wood, the seats were covered with green velvet, and there were still rows of brass fittings inside. The Vesper felt older than it really was — like it had always been here, yet it was new enough to still have perfect soundproofing and imported rum.

She waved to the manager, who barely looked up from her work.

Alara went to the back room, opened her closet, and began to change. She took off her clothes and put on her uniform: black shirt, black pants, black apron. Everyone here wore this clothes, and Alara loved not only the uniform but the unity too. She tied her hair in a sleek low ponytail and tucked her rings into a small velvet pouch in her bag so they wouldn't get in the way of her work. She didn't wear any jewelry in the bar — not because of the rules, but because she felt it would be too conspicuous and could get in the way of anything.

When she went back to the bar, the lights seemed a little brighter, the music was soft and monotonous. It was really just background music. The bar was starting to fill up.

Nathan was already behind the bar, ritualistically arranging lemons and limes. She was tall and thin, with hair that was too long for the company policy, but not long enough to be called out for it. He had tattooed hands and a wide smile, perhaps a few years younger than Alara.

"Good evening, Lark," he said without looking up.

"Hi," she smiled at him.

Alara had never told anyone her real name. She couldn't have done it if she had wanted to, because to the world, Alara Thorne was buried deep underground in Los Angeles. Here she was Lark, or if they didn't call her that, she was Yana. She was Yana Hollow now. A name she had conjured up one sleepless night from the things she had once loved and couldn't explain now.

"Do you think there will be lot of guests tonight?" she asked, nodding toward the door.

"It was payday recently, so they must be coming to spend it. So... yes. We will suffer, but we will survive," Nathan grinned.

"I need a tip," Alara pursed her lips.

"Like all of us," the boy replied, then continued after a second. "Were you able to sleep?"

"A few hours."

"That's something. You would need a few more hours," he looked her over spectacularly.

"Thanks," Alara laughed.

Nathan chuckled and started arranging the bottles of the shot drinks. He didn't ask, and she was really glad about that. That was why she liked working with Nathan. Soon the first guests arrived. Just a few minutes later the bar was completely full. An hour later, the guests had drunk enough to turn the noise into shouting.

Alara moved as she always did when she was working – precisely, quickly, and without mistakes. Her hands were steady, and the drinks she made were perfect. People liked her drinks because they were strong yet delicious. Her presence behind the bar was calm and composed. No flirting, no trickery. Just skill and speed.

Nathan wasn't her friend. Not yet. But they worked well together. They didn't bump into each other, and they read each other's moves without saying a word. And when things got too loud, too chaotic, Nathan had a habit of cracking a silly joke at the right moment that made them both laugh harder than they should have.

At one point, during a break between orders, Nathan slid a glass over to her and nodded.

"Hydrate yourself or you'll die."

"That statement should be illegal," she glanced at the boy.

"I don't care, that's the truth."

And Alara drank from the water, which actually felt good.

The night had been long. But she could still bear it and endure it easily, even enjoy it. This was her life now. There were no gods, no rituals, and especially no Endless, whom she got used to too quickly. There was only music, alcohol, and strangers around her — and she was trying to balance herself on the sharp edge of normality.

The shift settled into its usual rhythm. Bottles clinked. The soft murmur of music cut through the noise of conversation and the occasional burst of laughter. Alara wiped the bar and gave a gin tonic to a woman in a leather jacket. To her right, Nathan was pouring a beer for a guy who clearly thought he was a lot funnier than he actually was.

Then the music stopped.

Alara stopped in mid-motion, at first thinking the speakers had broken again, as it had so many times since she had worked here, but then the lights dimmed a little, showing that it wasn't a glitch. A man in a dark shirt climbed onto one of the high bar stools and tapped a wine glass with a spoon.

"Oh no," Nathan muttered, stepping back from the bar.

"What's wrong?" Alara asked, confused.

"That's the proposal face. I've seen that face before. We're about to witness the most unpleasant thing in the world."

"You're kidding."

"I wish I was kidding."

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention?" the man cleared his throat.

The chatter died down, some of guests were already filming. Alara leaned closer to Nathan and whisper to him.

"He's asking her to marry him in this bar? In the Friday night crowd? In a place with sticky floors and after so many Jäger shots?"

"Romantic, if you don't count the smell of detergent and beer," Nathan shrugged.

"I met the love of my life here at this table three years ago," he began his monologue. He pointed dramatically to a small corner booth where a woman sat, frozen with fear because of the performance. Beside her, a friend covered her mouth with her hand.

"No," Alara whispered. "This is going to end badly. Look at her face."

"She looks like she's about to jump out the window," Nathan said. "We're four blocks from the river. She might try to jump in it rather than listen to this."

The man dug in his pocket and pulled out a small box.

"And tonight, I want to ask the big question. Jess, will you marry me?"

The crowd went quiet. The woman — Jess — stood up and walked past him. She didn't say a word, didn't even look at him, just walked away silently, her heels clacking on the floor. Some of them gasped, and he was still standing on the bar stool with the open box in his hand, staring at her as if this were the end of his life.

"And now?" Alara blinked.

"She turned him down," Nathan said, almost appreciatively. "She left without a word. This is a next level move. It's both repulsive and I love it. Brilliant," he chuckled.

The room began to buzz again, this time more quietly, and the conversations were mixed with awkward glances. The music didn't turn back on right away. The man still didn't move.

"Should we do... something?" Alara asked.

"We're not doing anything," Nathan said firmly. "We're just serving drinks and avoiding eye contact like professionals. We're not getting involved."

Alara grabbed a clean glass and began pouring.

"Honestly, he kind of deserved it. Public proposals should be banned."

"Especially in bars," Nathan snorted. "It's like asking someone to marry you at a Waffle House. Don't insult Waffle House."

"At least Waffle House has waffles," she said, grinning again. "It's just heartbreak and alcohol here."

The man finally slid off the bar stool and disappeared into the back of the bar. Someone started clapping awkwardly, then someone else whistled loudly. It was chaos again, just like before.

"I'll add the trauma of a proposal to the list of bar dangers," Nathan commented.

"Right after 'margarita-filled love confessions' and 'karaoke,'" Alara replied.

He grinned and handed her a rag to wipe down the bar.

"Welcome to the team, newbie."

She didn't smile back, but the corner of her mouth twitched. Maybe this town didn't care who she was. Maybe it never would. And maybe this was a gift.

The shift ended after two in the morning, and the street outside the bar was slippery with the shimmer of August mist. Alara stepped out, closing the back door. Her top clung slightly to her skin, her hair already starting to curl in the humid air. She inhaled the air slowly — the night was quieter than usual, or maybe she just sensed the real passage of time, which worked differently in the bar.

"Hey," Nathan said from behind her, tossing his apron into his backpack. "Where are you going?"

"To the subway. I'm going home to sleep," she shrugged.

Nathan looked down the street, then back at her.

"Want to take a walk? I have a bottle of something that must be French in my bag. We could have a drink."

"Sure," she raised an eyebrow. "Let's take a walk," she said without hesitation. She wasn't sleepy at all.

They headed for the waterfront, leisurely walking past blocks half-lit by neon signs and the occasional honking bike courier. The city was still alive, but it was less bustling now, as if it had taken a deep breath and exhaled it softly. The Hudson River shimmered in the distance under the hazy streetlights.

"Look at this beauty! 'Le Vin de l'Ombre,'" Nathan pulled the bottle from his bag. "I'm sure this isn't real French."

"Is this even wine?" she took it, squinting at the label.

"Maybe," he said. "It's from that small shop on the 7th Street where they sell batteries and caviar side by side. You have to trust the chaos."

The girl laughed — softly, tiredly — and handed the bottle back.

"Okay. Pour me a glass, sommelier."

"No-no," he said, unscrewing the cap. "We're doing it apocalypse style."

Nathan took a sip, grimaced, then handed the bottle to Alara, who drank from it and winced as the bitter liquid ran down her throat.

"That's terribly bad."

"And we're going to drink it anyway."

They reached the riverbank and sat down with their legs outstretched, the bottle between them like a lazy escort. The city rose behind them, reflected faintly in the water. Alara ran her finger along the crack in a stone. For a while neither of them said anything, then Nathan broke the silence.

"That guy tonight. The proposal guy. Do you think he really thought she would say yes? Or was he put all eggs in one basket?"

"Maybe both," Alara tilted her head. "Maybe he was trying to create a moment so big she couldn't say no. Some people think pressure equals love."

"That's bleak," he sighed.

"That's life," she said. "It's confusing and awkward. Sometimes it's funny. Mostly it's weird."

"Do you always talk like that?" Nathan chuckled.

"Like what?"

"Like you've lived ten lives already."

"Sometimes I feel like I've lived ten lives already."

Nathan didn't force it, he just nodded, poking the edge of the bottle's peel-off label.

"Is it always this easy to talk to you?" she asked after a pause.

"I'm trying," Nathan said. "But I also think it's... easy to talk to someone who doesn't expect anything from you."

"That's rare," she glanced at the water.

They passed the bottle back and forth in silence for a while longer, the air warm, still, filled with the hum of distant traffic and the occasional splash of water on the concrete. The lights of the city blurred at the edge of her vision, her limbs feeling heavy with exhaustion, but not uncomfortably so. When she spoke again, her voice was low.

"I don't really have any friends here. Not yet."

"You already have one," Nathan nudged her shoulder.

"Are you sure? Sometimes I can be a lot," she smiled at him sadly.

"I've worked with worse," the man said, his face expressionless. "And you didn't run away when I offered you a mysterious wine in the middle of the night."

Alara tilted her head back, closing her eyes for a moment.

"Yeah. That probably says something about me."

They stayed like that for a long time — not rushing home, not filling the space with forced chatter. They just let the night drag on, both of them knowing that this wasn't the beginning of anything dramatic or life-changing.

Nathan sipped the wine that was still at the bottom of the glass and sighed.

"I grew up with everyone saying that everything made sense in New York. Like life fell into place here. I thought the big city would fix my life."

"And did it?"

"No," Nathan laughed. "But it made me realize that everyone was just making it up. Even those who look like they've figured out the meaning of life.

"That's reassuring," she said.

"Really?"

"It has to be. It means we're not alone in the chaos," Alara shrugged.

He turned to Alara, his elbow resting on his bent knee.

"And you? What were you looking for when you came here?"

Alara looked down at her hand again. There were so many ways she could have answered that question, and none of them would have been true. Not in a way that would have sounded sane. I died. Then I was reborn on a beach after a cosmic being kissed my cheek. I had no name, no identity, no shoes. That's why I'm here.

But she couldn't say that. So she exhaled slowly and answered as if she could reveal herself to him without the secrets.

"I lost everything. Where I lived before. I didn't choose to come here, but once I was here, I decided to stay. I have to try to make the best of it."

Nathan nodded, his face softening.

"I'm not running away from anything," she continued. "But I don't have any real plans. I don't want a big dream, I just want to survive."

"It still sounds like you want more than that," he said.

Alara tilted her head.

"There are days when maybe that's true. Other days, I feel like I'm looking at myself through someone else's life."

"Will we ever feel like we're okay?"

"If I am," he said, "I'll tell you," Nathan smiled sadly, then continued hesitantly. "My father left when I was six. My mother worked double shifts, and somehow I ended up everywhere a young person needs to go. She wanted me to be a doctor. Or anything that pays well." Alara smiled faintly. "And instead I'm here. Serving gin tonics to drunken guys and talking to mysterious girls on the riverbank at dawn."

"Mysterious, huh?" Alara teased.

"You don't talk about your past," Nathan changed the subject. "You have eyes like you've seen some shit but you'd never talk about it."

Alara looked at him, studying him.

"Would you believe me if I told you it's not that I'll never talk about it... it's that I don't know how?"

"It might be surprising, but I am," he said hesitantly.

"Thank you," she smiled.

"Don't thank me. Just... don't disappear," he chuckled softly. Alara blinked in shock. The words hit her a little deeper than she had expected.

"I won't," she said softly. And she meant it, at least for now.

They sat in silence for a while longer, until the glass was completely empty and the breeze began to carry the faintest signs of morning.

Meanwhile, Desire stood under a dim, flickering streetlight on the riverside path, shrouded in shadows and the soft rustle of night.

They hadn't come here to spy. They told themselves it would only be a moment — just long enough to see her face again. To make sure she still existed in this world, far from Death, far from themselves too.

Alara sat on the stone ledge above the river, her feet dangling over the water, a bottle of wine between her and the young man sitting next to her. Desire didn't listen, didn't want to know what they were talking about, yet they watched them intently. And that unsettled them.

The laughter — it wasn't loud, just... light. Her shoulders didn't tense. They could be talking about something ordinary, something human. There was no magic in the air, no tension. Just conversation, wine, and a summer night.

Desire tilted their head slightly to the side. They should have been happy for them. After all, wasn't that why they had decided for Alara that she had to go, live her human life, and forget everything that had happened?

And yet something sharp and cold twitched beneath their ribs. The strange, sour echo of hunger. Not desire, not jealousy or loss. Something they couldn't name.

They stood in silence, watching the two human speak — not the words, just the tone and the body language. At her new self. At her new laughter. At her everyday joys. And at the boy beside her, who knew nothing of her death, her rebirth, or how they parted.

Desire took a slow breath. They promised themselves they wouldn't come back, and more importantly, they promised themselves they wouldn't feel anything for her.

And yet here they were. Desire stepped back into the darkness as if they had never been there. No one noticed.

For the first time in a very long time, Desire didn't feel like they were in control of their longing, which they always did. For the first time in their existence, they had no idea what they was feeling. Is this what it's like to be lost?

Chapter Text

It happened on a Wednesday. Alara had worked six shifts in a row, unlike her usual routine. She was tired — the kind of tiredness that clung to her bones, not just her muscles. The city hadn’t gotten any quieter since she’d moved here. In fact, New York had only gotten louder as the end of summer approached, the air growing thicker and more humid with the heat. Tourists shouted in languages ​​she didn’t understand, taxis honked so loudly they sounded like battle cries, and every night the bar was filled with people desperate for some real feeling that they hoped alcohol would give them.

She was beginning to understand this desperation. That night she tied her apron tighter than usual, tied her hair into a braid she knew wouldn’t hold, and conjured a mask over her face to hide herself from others. It was a charming half-smile. Her hands moved quickly, pretending to be in a good mood. It was the fake “I’m fine” she had learned to wear like armor.

It was almost convincing.

The bar was already buzzing when she entered, the bass of the music throbbed like a pulse, the neon lights painting people’s faces purple and red. Nathan handed her a shaker with a look of sympathy but not pity, more like understanding.

“Are you okay?” he asked, as he did at the start of every shift.

“I’m fine,” Alara snapped, doing her best to flash the most believable smile she could at the boy who had become her friend.

Nathan didn’t believe her. He never believed her when she lied about feeling fine, but he didn’t force it, which she was really grateful for.

By eleven o’clock at night, she was juggling orders, wiping sweat from her temples with her shirt's sleeve, and she hadn’t even had time to take a sip of water. A man ordered something complicated, then changed his mind halfway through. Alara smiled, as she always did, though deep down she felt frustrated by the change and the extra work it would generate. She was good at smiling, and even better at lying about being happy.

The song started when she poured whiskey into a low glass. The first chords were soft and unassuming, just a simple song with piano accompaniment, nothing more. It was an average song by an unknown indie band. She hadn’t expected to hear this song and hadn’t prepared for it. It was a song that reminded her of Desire. She had no idea why she thought of Desire because of the lyrics and the light melody, but she couldn't shake the thought and felt that with this song she could get close to them again.

Alara's hand shook, the glass has fallen over, and the whiskey spilled onto the counter.

“Are you okay?” Nathan asked again, and he was already at her side.

“Yes. I...” She took a deep breath. “I just need a minute...”

She slipped out the back door into the alley behind the bar. The metal door slammed shut behind her like a heavy judgment. The sudden silence hit her in the chest. The alley was dim and damp, with smelly garbage bags lined up by the trash can, and a single flickering lightbulb overhead. Somewhere in the distance, a subway train rumbled like a monster underground. Cigarette smoke and the stench of the trash mingled in the air.

Alara leaned her back against the wall and let her body slide down until she was sitting on the concrete. And then she cried. Not loudly. Not wildly. It was the kind of cry that rose from deep in her chest, making her throat dry and her eyes burn.

She hadn’t allowed herself to think about Desire in weeks. She had a new name now. A new apartment. A new job. She woke up, brushed her teeth, folded her clothes, and made bad coffee. She smiled at the guests. She joked with Nathan. She lived as if she belonged here. But the truth was, she didn’t.

She missed Desire. She missed their voice and their ridiculous confidence. The way they looked at her as if she really mattered to them — as if she were more than a passing curiosity. She missed the quiet moments, the realm filled with the soothing sound of a heartbeat, where she felt like she was in the middle of something vast and incomprehensible. She missed how real she had felt there, even though she knew that by the standards of the outside world, nothing was real.

And worst of all, she missed the way Desire had looked at her before they had sent her away. As if they were sorry they would never see each other again.

She put her hand over her mouth, tried to stifle the sound of her crying and pull herself together, but the feelings raged wildly in her chest — too powerful and tangled for her to control. It wasn’t just sadness or longing. There was this unbearable feeling that she had left something unfinished behind — and that it would haunt her forever.

The door creaked. She didn’t look up. Footsteps approached her, soft and careful. Nathan said nothing, just sat down beside her, far enough away so that she wouldn’t feel like she was pushing against something she wasn't ready for, but close enough so that she knew he was there if she needed him and could count on him.

“You’re not well,” he said softly, and there was no trace of question in his voice. It was a simple statement of fact. She shook her head.

“No.”

“Do you want me to stay here with you?” Nathan asked after a long silence.

“Yes. Please,” the girl replied, brokenly, after a few seconds of pause.

And Nathan stayed. They sat together in silence for a long time, watching the smoke of the city swirl over the rooftops while the song continued in the bar, barely audible through the thick walls. The melody was like a ghost neither of them could name.

Nathan didn’t ask questions. Maybe that was the best thing about sitting next to him. He didn’t ask if anyone had died or been hurt. And he didn’t tell her everything would be okay.

He just stayed with her.

Finally her tears stopped. The shaking of her hands stopped, though she still felt the tightness in her chest, as if something heavy had settled on her and it didn’t plan on easing her situation anytime soon. Alara wiped her face with her sleeve.

“I'm sorry.”

Nathan leaned his head against the wall and blew out a breath through his nose.

“You don’t have to apologize for being human,” Nathan replied with a low, humorless chuckle. “A messy night?” he added, still not looking at her, as if to give her space.

“Something like that.”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he assured her.

Alara stared at the brick wall across from them. A cigarette butt smoldered nearby, as if someone had left it there. The air smelled of approaching rain.

“I don’t even know how to talk about it,” she admitted. Her voice was low and hoarse.

“Is it that bad?”

“It’s just…” she hesitated. She wanted to tell him. She wanted someone to know, but she also knew she couldn’t.

Nathan glanced at her. He wasn’t watching her expectantly but openly. Alara shook her head and took a forced breath.

“It’s complicated. And... honestly, it sounds crazy. Even to me.”

Nathan let them both digest that for a moment.

“If you want to talk about it, I’m pretty good at crazy things,” he finally said with a small smile. “But I understand if you don’t. There are things you just don’t share. I mean not you but anybody. In general.”

She felt a twinge behind her eyes again, but this time it wasn’t sadness, but something softer. She was grateful to the boy.

“You’re a good guy, Nathan,” she said, forcing a real smile onto her face now, even if it was just a small one.

He shrugged.

“Don’t spread it. I have to maintain my reputation.”

Alara laughed softly, and for a moment they just sat in that quiet space, the aftermath of an emotional storm that didn’t need to be said, because it couldn’t be. People just had to survive such situations and get up, with or without help. Alara knew she could do it, she knew she had the stubbornness, but she wasn't ready for it yet.

"Should we go back?" he asked after a while.

Alara looked at the door, which was still closed. The music was louder now, muffled but pulsating. Life went on without them.

“Yes,” she said. “I think I’m fine.”

Nathan stood up and offered his hand to help her up, and she took it. They didn’t speak as they walked back. There was no need for it. Something had changed, silently — not a confession, not a revelation, but something else. Trust. Not the kind built on truth, but on presence. Not abandoning each other when they were a little broken.

The rest of the shift passed in a blur.

Alara did her job — pouring drinks, smiling when she had to, and making sarcastic comments to Nathan when their eyes met. No one noticed anything was wrong. No one could see the crack beneath the surface, the place where her insides still trembled. Maybe they didn’t want to see it. Maybe it was easier that way — letting her slip back into the rhythm, the lights, the noise, the endless cycle of orders.

Nathan remained quietly, unspokenly close. He wasn’t always there, but every now and then Alara caught him watching her from the corner of his eye, as if to make sure she could still hold on.

When the last of the guests had stumbled in and the chairs were set on the tables, Alara helped mop up the sticky floor, her body moving automatically. Nathan waved to her and added softly, “See you next time,” he said as he walked out the door.

She changed her clothes, her skin cold with sweat, her mind foggy with exhaustion. She stepped back into the New York night alone, the air damp and thick. Her boots tapped the sidewalk with an empty rhythm as she made her way home along the familiar road. The city was quieter now — it was almost never silent — but the noise had faded. The flashing lights weren’t as loud, and the noise had faded to a distant hum.

When she finally reached her apartment — that tiny, one-room shoebox with a broken bathroom tile and a window that didn’t quite close — she didn’t turn on the light. She just threw her keys in the bowl by the door, kicked off her shoes, and sat on the edge of the couch.

Only then did she realize the gravity of the night and the crying. The truth she hadn’t been able to admit even to herself. The pain that had no name was nothing more than Desire crawling under her skin and living there like a second pulse. It was steady and quiet, and impossible to ignore.

She leaned forward, leaning on her knees, her fingers tangled in her hair. Desire.

She couldn’t allow herself to think of them like that — not since the night they’d sent her away. Of course, at this point all she could think about was the way Desire’s lips had touched her cheek the last time she’d seen them. How the feeling had lingered like a warmth that never went away. She dreamed of the beach, of standing alone in the moonlight, her robe flapping in the wind, the taste of salt on her lips, the sand cold beneath her feet.

She couldn’t allow herself to feel their absence. It throbbed inside her now with a depth that terrified her. An illogical pain. She missed the way they looked at her, the way their voice wrapped around her name like a secret when they said it. She missed everything that was Desire. She missed the feeling Desire had given her — as if she had seen and accepted her for who she really was. Terrifyingly, beautifully.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and lowered her head, the soft material of her shirt brushing against her face.

She didn’t want to feel this. She didn’t want to miss them because it hurt. Because she didn’t know if she would ever see them again. Because this life should be her second chance, her new life, and yet she felt nothing except how much she missed them.

And now here she was, curled up in the dark, longing for someone who sent her away.

She lay down on the couch without turning on the light or changing her clothes. Sbe stared out the window at the distant and indifferent flicker of the city. Sleep did not come easily. She tossed and turned all night, every dream edged with golden eyes and silky smooth voices, every silence filled with the outlines of Desire’s absence.

And for the first time in weeks, she stopped pretending to be okay.

Sometime during the night she stumbled onto her mattress and woke in the morning tangled in the sheets, her breathing labored and her skin damp with sweat.

The dream clung to her like smoke — partly shapeless, partly vivid. She couldn’t remember everything, but fragments of memory came back to her in pieces. Desire’s face. Their eyes glowed golden in the storm. Their hand reached for hers, but never reached. A sound like silk turning to ash. And a feeling of longing so strong it nearly ripped her chest apart from the inside.

She sat up slowly and rubbed her face.

It was still dark outside, the kind of grayish-blue haze before sunrise that made the city look as if it were holding its breath. Her watch showed 5:14 in the morning. The ache in her chest didn’t go away with the dream.

She slowly got off the mattress and stood on the cold floor of the apartment. Her throat was dry, her thoughts rumbling louder in her mind than they had in weeks. She went barefoot into the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and looked out the small window above the sink.

The truth was undeniable now. She couldn’t pretend anymore. She missed Desire more than she could bear. And she had to see them again. Not someday, but now. Not because of fate, because her life was in danger again. Not when the universe decided to bring them together again.

She had to find a way to see them as soon as possible, even if it sounded crazy. Even if the very thought seemed impossible.

Her hands tightened on the glass. She was sure there was some way to make it happen. She was brought back to life, hadn’t she? She didn't just imagine it. It had all happened. They had touched her. They had spoken to her. They had kissed her cheek. She had walked barefoot away from Death on the beach, with nothing on her lips but their name. It was all true. So why not make it possible for her to see them again?

She couldn’t accept that this was the end.

Today was a day off. She had nothing to do, so she couldn’t do anything to distract herself from her feelings and who they were directed at. Guided by a sudden idea, she decided to do some research today to see if she could see Desire again.

She pulled on a sweater and turned on her laptop, the blue light from the screen filling the dim room. She didn’t know where to start. She typed sentences and then deleted them. “How to summon an Endless.” Too obvious. “Summon on God.” Too vague. “Occult summoning rituals that actually work.” The whole situation was ridiculous.

She needed more than that.

She needed books. Old editions, written by people who still believed in the existence of Endless. She was willing to go to every secondhand bookshop in Brooklyn if she had to. To every hidden shop with its incense burners, its glass cabinets, and its people blinking at the strange questions she would ask.

Her determination to investigate and find real information grew stronger. If stubbornness and determination alone could provide a solution, she would have had it all.

Alara knew with terrifying clarity, as the sun crept slowly over the horizon, that she was not ready to let Desire go yet, and she was willing to do anything to arrange a meeting. Even if they themselves had broken off contact with her.