Trixie's Arc

Chapter 7 of 11

The iridescent eyes didn't stay at the statue. By the time Trixie returned the next morning, three of them had drifted toward her treehouse, hovering near the crystalline formations like curious insects. She watched one rotate slowly, its surface reflecting both her prophecy-light and the portal threads. Then it turned toward her chest, focusing on the prism pendant she wore. The eye pulsed brighter, and suddenly the pendant grew hot against her skin. Inside the glass, colors she'd never seen before began to swirl—forbidden hues she'd sealed away during her first experiments with the mushroom paint, the ones that had burned too bright and threatened to consume her entirely. The eye was reading the pendant like a book, exposing every layer of magic she'd trapped inside. More eyes gathered, forming a bubble-like cluster around her. Each one locked onto the pendant, their iridescent surfaces rippling as they recorded what they found. Trixie tried to back away, but the eyes followed, patient and relentless. Her fingers went to the pendant clasp, but she stopped. If she removed it, those colors would escape—and she'd seen what happened when forbidden magic ran wild. The eyes weren't attacking. They were just looking. Documenting. The same way she'd been documenting everything else. She forced her hands to her sides and let them see. The largest eye drifted closer and projected an image into the air between them—her own face, painted in those same forbidden colors, hands raised as reality bent and twisted around her. It was a vision she'd locked away, a version of the prophecy where she didn't just break the prism but became it, shattering into light that rewrote everything it touched. The image flickered and changed, showing her the treehouse filled with books bound in shimmering covers, pages that shifted colors as she turned them. Her hidden studies, made visible. The eye had found her secret library tucked between dimensions, the forbidden texts she'd collected and hidden even from herself. Trixie pulled out her sketchbook and began drawing what the eyes showed her. Not to control it—not anymore. But because this was the truth she'd been avoiding: the pendant wasn't protecting her from the forbidden magic. It was protecting everyone else from what she'd already become. The eyes had simply made it visible. When she finished the sketch, the bubble of eyes dispersed, floating back toward the statue. They'd gotten what they came for. And now Trixie had a choice—keep pretending the pendant was just a trinket she fidgeted with, or accept that she'd been carrying a weapon all along.