"You didn’t think I would? You just realized it now?"

No...

Selene admitted, and that single word carried more weight than a dozen lectures.

I never thought you’d look that closely.

"She wasn’t hiding the narrative," I said.

"You just weren’t looking for it enough."

That’s impossible.

Her voice sharpened, the kind of cold that burns.

Valeria doesn’t slip. Not with me.

I almost laughed. "She already did, you fool."

Silence hummed between us — thick, electric, unfamiliar.

For once, Selene wasn’t the one dissecting me.

She was recalculating, trying to mask it behind composure.

That alone felt like victory.

Kairi.

Her mental voice was quieter now, deliberate.

Whatever you think you’ve found... stay out of it. Valeria isn’t your concern.

"Then why are you afraid?"

I’m not afraid.

"Then why are you here?"

A pause — long enough to count as hesitation, short enough to deny it.

Meet me. Tonight. Observatory Room.

And just like that, she was gone — severing the link mid-thought, leaving behind the faint ache of mental dissonance that always followed her. The silence afterward was almost unbearable, too human.

I stood there, staring at the window’s reflection — mine, fractured by city lights.

For once, I wasn’t sure if I’d just won something... or stepped into the one game Selene hadn’t prepared me for.

I almost turned back.

That’s the truth. My hand had hovered over the railing, one foot already poised toward the hallway — escape, an easy sin. But the thought of Selene’s voice, threaded with that impossible edge of vulnerability, held me. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Meet me, she’d said. Tonight. Observatory Room.

Too many words unspoken. Too many implosions waiting to happen.

That was when I heard the footsteps.

Milena.

"So you’re really going," she said, stepping into view, eyes catching just enough light to make her look like she’d peeled herself out of the dark.

"No point pretending otherwise," I replied.

She studied me. Milena was always quiet, always burning with questions she didn’t ask.

"It could be a trap," she said eventually. "A setup. Something’s been off—ever since Valeria started pulling strings that weren’t hers to pull. And Selene—"

"I know," I cut in. "But that’s exactly why I need to go."

She frowned — not out of concern, but calculation. "

You think you can handle both of them alone?"

"I don’t plan to handle either," I said.

"Just to see. To listen. And to know how far gone the board is."

Her lips pressed together — not in disapproval, but resignation. Then she stepped back.

"Be careful, Kairi."

A pause.

"The show may still belong to you... but the audience has changed."

I didn’t answer.

Not because she was wrong, but because we both knew — it was already too late to rewrite the scene.

The Observatory was lit only by starlight simulations. A clever illusion. A comforting lie.

Selene stood near the center, hands folded behind her, gaze lifted — not toward the sky, but toward something only she could see.

Then another set of footsteps echoed.

A third presence. A disruption.

Valeria.

She didn’t knock. Didn’t announce herself.

She simply arrived, as if finishing a sentence someone else had started.

"Is this where you’ve been hiding your answers?"

The voice drifted down from the shadows — soft, familiar.

Wait, no way. That’s my voice!

Selene tensed, but she didn’t turn. "Kairi."

Her answer was measured, just slightly tight. "It’s not hiding if the door was left open."

"And yet you didn’t invite me."

The tone was mine — deliberate, echoed with just enough emotion to mimic my cadence. But there was something off about it.

A slickness. A precision too clean to be human.

As if someone imitated all of my demeanours to a certain perfection.

"I didn’t need to," Selene replied, though her breaths were sharper now.

There was a cool stillness — something predatory in its silence.

Two atmospheres pressed together, but the air wouldn’t mix.

From where I crouched in the upper observatory shadows, I watched.

Seen, but unseen. Present, but erased.

Selene shifted just slightly — there, in the subtle tightening of her shoulders. A slip. A single moment of dissonance.

"Wait... I expected Kairi," she said.

"So did I."

The voice changed.

Dropped the pitch. She ceased the mimicry.

The figure stepped forward — out of the hush of shadows — no longer wearing my tongue. No longer pretending.

Valeria.

Cold, exacting. The kind of power that didn’t need to announce itself.

Just like a truth you weren’t prepared to hear — and couldn’t ignore.

And for the first time... Selene looked unsettled.

Maybe not because I wasn’t there.

But because I was close.

Close enough to choose sides.

Close enough to destroy both.

"Oh wow, how surprising."

The voice was calm, lazy, but edged like glass.

Selene’s eyes flicked toward him, her composure cracking for half a heartbeat.

She hadn’t expected her presence. Not here. Not now.

She leaned casually against the railing, watching her reaction with a small, knowing smirk. "You didn’t think you were the only one who could read a clock, did you?"

Selene exhaled through her nose — measured, annoyed, a touch of disbelief. Of course someone had spoiled the secret. Her hand tightened at her side as if restraining an impulse. "It was supposed to be just her and me," she murmured under her breath.

"Just her."

And then Valeria spoke.

"Plans pften rarely go as planned, Selene," she said smoothly, stepping forward until the faint starlight from the projection dome traced her profile in cold silver.

"Especially when those plans involve souls that shouldn’t exist."

Selene’s head lifted slowly. "You’re speaking in riddles again."

Valeria’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. "Am I? Or are you simply tired of pretending that your little experiment is still a secret?"

That stopped her.

Selene’s expression froze. The flicker of understanding that crossed her eyes was sharp — not surprise, but recognition.

"You’ve been looking into her," Selene said softly.

"I’ve been looking through her," Valeria corrected.

"And what I found isn’t a birth record, nor a traceable signature in the Aether. There’s... nothing. She’s a void stitched together by something that mimics identity."

Selene stayed silent, but her mind was already three steps ahead. The term Valeria used — imperfect soul — wasn’t theoretical. It was a code. An accusation.

"Which means... these are implying Kairi isn’t from this world,"

Valeria said, taking another step closer.

"Tell me, Selene... where did she come from? Or better yet — who made her?"

For a moment, Selene didn’t breathe.

Then, coldly: "That," she said, "is not your business."

Valeria tilted her head, amusement flickering like a candle in her eyes.

"Not my business? Don’t insult me. You brought her into my jurisdiction."

"Into this city. Into these systems."

"It was necessary."

"For whom?" Valeria asked. "For her? Or for you? Be honest for once, Miss Veylith."

The dome’s projection glitched — a single star blinked out, like punctuation to a truth no one wanted to hear.

Hidden in the upper tier shadows, my pulse quickened. My name — my very existence — was being dissected as if I were a specimen on a table. Every word tightened the air.

Which means, I wasn’t supposed to be there.

In other words, I wasn’t supposed to exist.

And yet, here I was.

Listening to creators argue over the terms of such a forbidden creation.

My very own existence.