I hesitate too long. The page turns anyway.
The next question comes like a wave crashing over me.
“Would you rather die forgotten or live dishonored?”
I flinch again.
“I don’t know.”
The woman says nothing. Doesn’t press.
But the quill keeps writing. Even though I didn’t answer, and I hate that.
“I said I don’t know,” I say again, sharper this time. “That’s not an answer.”
She tilts her head just slightly, birdlike. “It is.”
The ink curls across the parchment like it knows me better than I do. The hum inside me builds. Not the flame—it’s something subtler. Deeper. Like static in my blood. Like whatever part of me recognizes magic is trying to scream. But I can’t make sense of what it’s saying. The woman turns another page.
“Would you rather betray your ideals, or the people who share them?”
I shake my head. “That’s not fair.”
“Is fairness required?”
A chill brushes the back of my neck. I don’t know if it’s real.
“I don’t want to choose.”
The page doesn’t wait for my permission.
“Would you rather be loved and powerless, or feared and in control?”
“Neither.”
“You must choose.”
“I can’t. You said I can stay silent.”
“Silence is still a choice.”
The woman’s hands fold calmly in her lap. But something behind her eyes sharpens, like this is exactly what she expected. Like she’s marking my resistance down, too. I stare at the floor. My own reflection stares back—stretched and blurred in the white shine.
“Love doesn’t make someone powerless. It does the opposite. Love is strength. Your question is wrong.”
What is this trial testing? Logic? Morality? Or something else? It was supposed to be joy.
“Would you rather destroy yourself to save another, or destroy another to save yourself?”
I breathe in sharply. My stomach flips.
“I’ve already done both,” I whisper, not even meaning to say it out loud.
Every foster home I ran from. Every moment I closed myself off, trying not to need anyone. Every time I let someone hurt me, just so they wouldn’t walk away. Every time I pushed someone back before they could decide I wasn’t worth staying for. The page turns again.
“Would you rather be forgiven or be right?”
That one guts me. I’ve been both. I’ve been neither. And I still don’t know which one would have saved me.
