Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 7 of 29

Beth sat on the checkered rug and listened to her cathedral breathe. The walls flexed once, slow, like a chest. She had never built a thing that breathed. Elijah stood by the door with one hand on the wood. The cat with too many toes circled the vanity and hissed at nothing. "Something's coming in," Beth said. "The merchant?" "No. He walked past." She stood. Her wings ached. "This is under us. Or beside us. The breach is pulling on it." A new object stood in the corner that had been empty a moment before. A tall vase, sharp-sided, full of trapped starlight. She hadn't made it yet. It had come the way the mirror had come, dragged in from her half-built world without her say. On the vanity, a small purple statue of a crouched winged woman appeared next to the hand mirror. Then a navy lamp post pushed up through the floor stones, its pink star sputtering. "It's furnishing itself," Elijah said. "It's calling." Beth pressed her hand to the wall. She felt the pull now, thin and steady, aimed outward through the breach. Something on the other side had noticed. Something old and patient was drifting toward the open seam. "If I don't close the leak, whatever's out there walks in with me still inside." A silver-blue light pressed against the stained glass. Faceless. Round. It hung there, waiting to be let through. Beth's throat went dry. She had no star magic left to spend. The well had drained her. The shard was in the tower. She had coins and a body and a building that wanted to eat her attention. She picked up the branch-framed mirror from the vanity. Warm. Alive. "Give it back," she said to the cathedral. "All of it. The vase. The statue. The lamp. Take them home." The walls didn't answer. The pull kept pulling. She understood then. The cathedral wasn't stealing from her world. It was her world, reaching for the only anchor it had left. Her. Beth set the mirror on the floor and stepped on it. The frame cracked. The glass split clean down the middle. Pain hit her chest like a struck bell. The vase blinked out. The statue blinked out. The lamp sank back into the stones. The silver-blue light at the window drifted, lost its shape, and slid away between the trees. The walls stopped breathing. The obsidian went cold and quiet. Beth sat down hard. "I cut the cord." "Your world?" "Still there. But it can't reach me now. Not until I rebuild the link." She looked at the broken frame. "And I can't hide in here anymore." Outside, far off, footsteps started again. Careful. Searching. Elijah drew the gold dagger. "He's coming back." Beth stood. The cathedral was a shell now. So was she.