Kiersten's Arc

Chapter 15 of 33

After Mother Angel sealed the path, Quantum walked Kiersten down from the school. Fortune padded beside them, tail brushing the stones. Kiersten's hands still did not shake, but her legs did. Witness sat heavy under her ribs, alert and tired at once. "Home," Fortune said. "Sleep in your own bed. The shields hold there. The hunter cannot see you inside your walls." "Drink from this before you lie down." Mother Angel pressed a clear bottle into her hand. Runes glowed pale blue along its neck. "It will keep your dreams honest." Kiersten walked to the stone house with green shutters. She drank half the bottle at the sink. The water tasted like cold metal and mint. She lay down in her clothes. She woke in a kitchen that was not hers. Eduardo stood at the stove in his blue shirt, no cap, sleeves pushed up. He flipped an egg. His auburn eyes were clear. He turned and smiled the smile she used to fall for, and this time it did not hide anything. "Morning, baby," he said. "Coffee's done." She sat at a table she remembered from the house they shared. Sun came through a window that never had that light. He set the plate in front of her and kissed the top of her head. Her body eased before her mind caught up. Days passed inside minutes. He fixed the porch. She planted rosemary. He came home from work and did not lie about where he had been. He said sorry and meant it. He said it again when she did not ask. She let herself lean into his chest and cry the cry she had swallowed for two years. Something was wrong with the light. It never moved. The sun sat in the same window at the same angle. The rosemary never grew. Eduardo said sorry a fourth time using the same words as the first. Kiersten looked down at her wrist. The coil tattoo was gone. So was the key. So was the knot. Her skin was blank. "Witness," she said aloud, in the kitchen that was not hers. Eduardo's smile did not change. "Baby, sit down. Eat." She felt for the weight under her ribs. Nothing sat there. She was empty. The demon had walked her through the vined door while she slept, and this kitchen was the inside of it. Kiersten stood. She named the want that had opened the last lock. "I want to take up room." The kitchen bent. Eduardo's face flickered black lid to lid. The window cracked from the corner. She fell hard onto her own floor. The bottle rolled beside her, empty. Witness slammed back into her chest like a struck bell. Her tattoos burned back into her skin, coil, key, knot. The front door of her stone house stood open. On the threshold sat a curl of vine, still green, cut clean. She was awake. The portal knew the shape of her sleep now.