Hedi’s cheeks flushed, and the blouse buttons came undone one by one; a breeze skimmed the thin film of sweat on her skin like silk, teasing tiny spasms.

Sensation rose from her toes and stitched up her spine like a seam. Not the old tide-surge; today it simmered near a boil, brined with bitter salt, chili, and bay. It stewed over a low flame in a brief, mallow-bright pause, until her heart’s tide ran hot and grazed the brain’s melting point.

Mm...

Hedi bit her forefinger knuckle; the sound was tiny, a sigh you’d breathe while moonlight spills over stone, yet her body shook hard, like after a life-and-death bout that left no bruise.

“Your reactions are adorable.”

“Because they’re for adorable you.” Hedi leaned in and looped her arms around Selina’s neck like a vine. “I could say it forever and not get bored.”

Selina smiled sweetly and pressed her cheek to Hedi’s, warm porcelain on porcelain. “You’re in such high spirits today.”

“I feel the busy season rolling in like clouds.”

“About the Dark Realm Erosion data?”

“Mostly, I figured something out.” Her voice cooled like shade. “When you asked why the guard killed himself, I thought about it, then let it go. I told myself Shattered City wasn’t my business, and neither was his death. But as we walked on, I saw the riddles knot to me like creeping ivy—the Institute, your sister’s fate, the city’s rot. After I spoke with the witch, the feeling thickened like fog.”

“What did you two talk about?” Her words flickered like lantern light.

“Potions.” Hedi drifted into a mid-length memory, like a boat crossing a misty canal. “Someone ordered forgetfulness elixirs from Orlina. They likely fed them to people in Shattered City, washing the chalkboard clean in the rain.”

“Then that person opened the Dark Realm.”

“And it carried the same scent as me, the same taint. It can only be Dark Realm Erosion; only that sickness steals a life outright.”

“My sister?”

“A normal person who enters the Dark Realm and is eroded can’t make it back to the daylight world.”

“You mean the crystal? The one who opened it was an Investigator!”

“Right.”

Selina’s eyes widened, speech blanched like paper in frost. She lay on Hedi like a quiet tide and thought in still circles.

“We still don’t know who,” Hedi said, voice a steady wick. “Most important is helping you remember who spoke with your sister. It might be the key that unlocks why you became an Investigator.”

“What’s wrong with my motive?” Her doubt curled like a knot in twine.

“Remember our talk after we left the Institute?” The words trailed like breadcrumbs.

Selina nodded, a reed bending to wind.

“Stratford told you, sure. But before you became an Investigator, how did you know your sister was tied to the Dark Realm, like a red thread?”

“For a while, she kept talking to someone,” a whisper cast to empty air.

“That was your answer. A blurred memory may have sent you to the Dark Realm Research Institute. You were certain the Institute was linked to your missing sister, a bridge lost in fog?”

“I thought their talk mentioned the Dark Realm. Did I say that?”

“You did.”

“It’s all mist. I can’t call it back,” like a lake veiled at dawn.

Hedi stroked her head, a warm rain palm to soothe. “It was years ago. Once we handle Orlina, it’ll come back.”

“I’ll go with you,” shadow to your tree.

“Next weekend, we’ll let that witch feel the weight of humanity, like a mountain.”

“No fighting!” She raised a hand like sheathing a blade.

“No brawling. Just a contest of minds. But try not to think; her mind-reading is a mirror lake.”

“Seeing through hearts at a glance—doesn’t that counter you, like sun through paper?”

“What can I do? My mind wanders like a kite in spring.”

“I don’t,” she said, a stone in a stream.

Hedi glanced at Selina nestled in her arms like a cat in a sleeve. “Final weapon against a witch!”

“That’s so dramatic—thunder for a drizzle.”

“I’m hyping us up. Don’t wave the white flag before we even see her face.”

“...I read books about witches. They love to flay and strip tendons, woodcut horrors on every page.”

“Made-up novels. Writers use that to bait readers, lanterns for moths.”

“Why?”

Hedi cleared her throat and held forth, a teacher under a tree. “Stories need villains. They press the hero and sharpen them like a whetstone. They jolt readers. They drive the plot and weave depth and complexity.”

“Sounds like a puppet show, strings tugged from the rafters.”

“As long as it gives readers a feeling, you can even kill a character, like tossing a flower into the flame.”

“If you were the novelist, would you want your characters to die, pruning your own branch?”

“If they have to,” like leaves falling back to soil.

Selina pressed on, candle to wind. “What if the dying character asked, ‘Is it enough to just give readers a feeling?’”

“Mm... that’s enough,” a cup filled to the brim.

“I didn’t think you were this cruel—silk hiding a knife!”

“Fictional characters,” Hedi tapped her smooth back in a gentle rhythm, “are a soulless lot.”

“What if we’re characters in someone else’s book—fish in a painted river?”

“You might as well say our brains float in nutrient tanks, wired to a powerful computer that feeds every sense, an aquarium of minds that thinks it’s a sea.”

Selina pondered, ripples crossing her eyes. “That’s even scarier!”

“Right?” An owl at dusk.

“Mm.” A pebble entering a well.

“Now, answer to your hypothesis.” Hedi’s smile tilted like a fan in heat. “If we’re someone’s characters, we belong to a mediocre writer. Not even a writer—some fool who stares at a desk all day, a wilted leaf waiting to drop.”

“You’d think that?”

“No conflict, no suspense, no spark to stir a reader. Or we’re extras, never meeting the lead, so our days lie flat as a pond.”

“That’s nice.” Selina hugged Hedi harder, arms a shawl under autumn sun. “No hero’s wars or storms. Just a quiet life to the end... that’s really nice...”

“You sound like a funeral wail.”

Selina’s face turned; light dulled like a cloud over the moon. The wall clock ticked ten times, beads on a string. Her gaze brightened again, a glassy glaze settling, lashes fluttering like moth wings.

“Because you’re... eroded...” Her voice broke like a twig.

Tears slid down her cheeks, hot on Hedi’s arm like rain on warm clay. No second word came.

“Don’t actually mourn me. I don’t look sickly at all, peach-bright.”

“But the witch... you said...” Her echo faded like a cave sigh.

“Hush, now~” A palm smoothed her hair, like wind over wheat.

“You suddenly wanted to do it today—does that mean—” Storm before harvest.

Hedi pinched Selina’s cheeks; the sting made her weep louder, a summer squall. “Don’t jinx me. Smart people live a thousand years, like pines on the cliff.”

“I couldn’t help it...” a thorn under the nail.

“I just feel we’ll get busy. If you want, anytime, like opening a window.”

“Really?” Stars in her eyes.

“Ah... you did that on purpose!” A cat stealing fish.

Selina sniffled, words blurred like ink in rain. “No take-backs!”

“You too. No more tears,” wipe the clouds from the sky.

“Mm...” A soft note.

Hedi drew Selina close, thinking of that ward like a silken cocoon around her brain, and steered her own mind from the snarl of unsolved riddles like turning a boat from shoals.

In that tangle of moods, she knew avoidance won’t free you from the mind’s fog; walking in mist is still walking in mist.

No matter how you dodge it, Dark Realm Erosion is a brand burned into bark, impossible to ignore.

She recalled a line from some book, a leaf pressed between pages.

When life is threatened, everything spins around death as its axle, planets circling a cold star.