Hedi watched Mandele slip out in silence. As the door swung open, warm honeyed light spilled out, laying a slanted rectangle across the hall that framed Selina and the Holy Maiden’s faces. From their looks, they’d heard everything.

“Professor...” Selina trotted in and, like a tiny margin note, added, “You actually spoke for a fake... even argued with the Sheriff...”

“I can’t share the knot between you and the Holy Maiden. In this, I care only about effort, and what it deserves.”

“What kind of return?” Selina pouted.

Hedi glanced at the silent Holy Maiden, then checked her bare, undecorated nails. “She poured six years of heart into Naghtown. In the end, wiped out because her identity is contrived?”

“If so, say it outright!”

“In the interrogation room, even the police who shielded her will get lost in that one word, ‘identity.’ Let alone the townsfolk.”

“Just tell the Sheriff—”

Hedi set a finger to Selina’s lips and whispered, “Once spoken, words won’t be held back. I can already hear Mandele’s confusion—‘Six years of devotion given to a false saint.’ ‘Sister Bertha allowed it.’ ‘How did an impostor climb to a holy seat?’ If that still doesn’t land—say one day you find out I’m not Hedi Melvina but someone else. How would you feel?”

“That you’d lied to me.”

“And then?”

Selina’s mouth tightened. Complaint and hurt colored her voice. “I’d feel what we have is fake too.”

“We bathe together, sleep together, mess around—”

“Even then, you still wouldn’t be the Professor!” Selina cut in. “You made me waste my feelings on someone else!”

“Back to the point. Do you see why I spoke for the Holy Maiden?”

Selina narrowed her eyes, studying Hedi. The face turned strange, subtly different. Like flowers replanted—same roots and leaves, yet a different bloom because the bed has changed.

“Are you really—” Pain cut her short. A knock to the head made her yelp. “You’re hitting me more and more!”

“It was a thought experiment, and you took it as truth!”

“Don’t hit that hard!”

Hedi rubbed her head and said, “That’s why I covered for her. If the town learns their faith went to a false target, terrible things follow. One reason I hate religion is this: people prize faith more than themselves. History has no shortage of tragedies in its name.”

“You’re worried I’ll become a heretic?” the Holy Maiden said suddenly. “Aren’t you?”

“Faith props up the mind. It isn’t summed up by ‘heretic’—” Hedi broke off, half joking. “I study Dark Magic. And you committed the felony of impersonating clergy.”

“Then burn me at the stake.”

“I was joking.”

She straightened her collar, cold. “I don’t find it funny.”

“Burn you it is!” Selina jumped in. “The Professor’s thinking of you. No thanks given, and now—burn you right now!”

“Do it.”

Hedi’s ears felt like a beehive. The buzzing swelled and swarmed. “You two, stop,” she begged.

“I became the Holy Maiden through brutal training and fasting! Don’t make untimely jokes!”

Selina couldn’t hold back and jabbed, “All that lofty talk, and it just means you can’t be yourself?”

“What’s that to you?”

“Impersonating the Professor is my business! No matter how pretty your words or how much you suffered, you’re still a knockoff that doesn’t belong on stage!”

Hedi coughed softly, trying a new tack. “Can we focus on the Dark Realm?”

Her words drifted and hung in the quiet room.

Selina and the Holy Maiden traded a look, then answered in the same hard beat, “No.”

Hedi raised her arms and tactfully stepped aside.

“Where are you going?” Selina caught her arm and pulled her back into the fray. “Say it! Isn’t it shameless for a fake to act this arrogant?”

The Holy Maiden’s lips tipped coldly as she turned to Hedi. “And Viola clings to you like a tail every day. Doesn’t that bother you? You value private space. At this rate, you’ll be sick of her soon.”

Hedi’s voice thinned to a thread. She wanted out. “What... does this have to do with me...”

Selina’s patience snapped. “It’s not multiple choice! You were on my side to begin with!”

“On the land you’ve lived on as Melvina for more than ten years—” The Holy Maiden folded her arms, a calm confidence in her smile. “Sides aren’t set by a single line.”

“The Professor will stand with me. We’re lovers!”

“The Sacred Cathedral in Naghtown nurtured the Melvina. And I’m its Holy Maiden.”

“You’re just a fake!”

“And you’re a clingy tail that only vexes Melvina!”

Their clamor battered the walls. The shut door kept it from leaking out, yet made the noise heavy and airless. Like a locked shackle, it chained Hedi and fixed her in the storm’s eye. A colossal tornado reared like a thick hawser, rising straight. Hedi clamped her ears. The sound grew heavy, almost solid, tiny bugs biting her eardrums. She measured each breath, afraid the funnel’s grit would scour her nose and mouth. The tornado pressed in. She could feel the wind’s pressure. It was about to tear her apart.

“Professor!”

“Melvina!”

Two urgent calls speared her ear, then died fast without an answer. Silence fell next, a weighted fog settling across the room. Hedi dropped to a crouch and shouldered the pressure of quiet.

“Profeeeessor,” Selina sang, shaking her shoulder. “You’ll take my side, right?”

The Holy Maiden drew a slow breath. “Melvina, Naghtown is where your life began.”

“A Holy Maiden, guilt-tripping me?”

“I’m the Holy Maiden of the Sacred Cathedral. I represent Naghtown!”

“You’re a fake!”

“And you’re a clingy shadow that only annoys Melvina!”

Hedi kept her ears covered, yet the fight entered with each breath of air. Outside, clouds layered like broken shelves cast impossible shadows into the room. With Hedi’s next whisper, the quarrel gave its last breath. “One more time. Can we discuss the Dark Realm?”

Selina and the Holy Maiden fell silent. Through Hedi’s small frame, they could picture the storm inside her.

“Okay...” Selina yielded first.

Then the Holy Maiden. “Mm. There’s a pressing problem we have to solve.”

“Exactly.” Hedi sprang to her feet. “No more pointless arguing.”