Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 28 of 29

The crack in the north wall spread while Beth watched. Cold air poured through it. She had no star magic left to seal it, and the hunger on the other side pressed closer. Elijah stood at the breach, one hand raised, listening. Then something reached through the gap. A thin arm of flowing pink light, patterned with ring-shaped swirls, poured into the room and pooled on the floor. It rose like water finding a shape. Beth felt it drink from her wall as it climbed. A cosmic thing, drawn by the taste of her world. "That's one of the three," Beth said. Her voice shook. "It found the hole before I could close it." A new voice cut in, flat and plain. "You cannot close it. Not with what you have." A short figure stepped through the north window, unbothered by the cold. Her face was a wide mouth full of teeth. Flowers hung in her braids. Beth knew her by reputation only. Harriet Notch greeted every soul who entered StarVeil, and she knew this world better than anyone. Harriet raised a hand and waved before she spoke again. "You built too fast. Left seams. Now they smell it." She looked at the pink light climbing the wall. "That one drinks. It will not stop." "Then help me," Beth said. "You know this place." "I know one thing." Harriet pointed past the anchor tree, deeper into the cathedral, where a tiered fountain glowed with pink and blue starlight. Stars flowed through its basins like water. "You made that. Full of loose magic. The hunger wants your whole world. Give it the fountain instead." Beth's chest tightened. The fountain held magic she had spent weeks gathering. Giving it up set her arc goal back hard. But if the thing drank the walls, she lost everything. "It's a trade," Beth said. "Feed the mouth so it leaves the rest." "Yes," Harriet said. "It will drink and drift on. They always drift on." Beth ran to the fountain. She pressed both palms to the cold stone rim and pulled. The star magic came loose in a bright ribbon. It stung her skin. She flung the ribbon toward the pink light. The cosmic thing froze, then surged for it, leaving the wall behind. It coiled around the streaming stars and swallowed them whole. The fountain went dark and dry. The pink light swelled, satisfied, and slid back out through the crack. The cold stopped. Beth sank to the floor beside the empty fountain. The breach was quiet. Elijah lowered his hand. "One fed," Harriet said. "Two still hungry. And now this one knows the way in." She turned for the window. "Fix your seams, or feed them forever." The wall held. But Beth's gathered magic was gone, and two more cosmic mouths still circled her world, hunting the same open door.