“No answer?”
“I gave one.”
“There is no line to mark it on.”
“Maybe there shouldn’t be.”
The silence stretches. I swear I feel the air shift around me. It thickens, then thins. The endless white dims just slightly—like a layer has been peeled back.
“Do you believe you are worthy of joy?”
I blink. That one stings. I don’t know if it’s the wording, or the tone, or the fact that for the first time, I’m not sure.
I open my mouth. Close it. Look down at my hands in my lap. The calluses across my palms, the blood under my nails. The thread tucked in my necklace. The feel of his skin against mine.
Am I?
The woman doesn’t repeat herself, but something in me whispers that silence is not the answer this time. I breathe in.
And then I answer honestly, “I don’t know.”
The light around us pulses. Not alarm. Not punishment.
Confirmation.
The woman watches me for a long time. Then she turns the final page. This time, the paper doesn’t scratch. There are no new questions. The pen lowers. Not in triumph. Not in warning. Just… grace.
The woman tilts her head, as if listening to something I can’t hear. The pages in front of her vanish.“You’ve given enough.”
The words settle in my chest like feathers, too light to hold—but too final to ignore.
“I didn’t answer everything.”
“No,”she agrees, her voice like ink soaked in silence.“But you answered truthfully. That matters most.”
I swallow. Her expression shifts, not unkind, but weighty—like a storm cloud deciding whether to break. “You’ve walked far, Kay of the Other Flame. You’ve faced the illusions, the grief, the longing. But you do not have to keep walking.”
I go still. “What do you mean?”
She gestures—and the flame ripples behind her like breath exhaled. A shimmer appears, delicate and golden and real. A doorway opens—framed not by stone, but by warm morning light. Familiar air rushes in, smelling of damp concrete and subway grease and coffee in paper cups.
Home.
“You may go,” the woman says softly. “No more trials. No more flame. No more Crimson.”
It’s not a threat. It’s an offering. Everything I once begged for. But my hand goes instinctively to the pendant at my chest, fingers closing over it like a shield. I blink, hard.
“But… Caziel. The Rite—”
“Will continue without you.”She doesn’t flinch.“You are not meant for this place. You never were. You owe it nothing.”I don’t move. She studies me, calm as stone.“Why would you want to stay, child? This is hell.”
A breath escapes me—half laugh, half sob. “I thought so once, too.”
She frowns.
“I thought Crimson was hell. Fire and rage and cruelty.” I run my thumb along the jagged edge of the pendant. “But it’s not. Not really. There’s pain, yes. Suffering. But there’s beauty here too. Wonder. Even peace.” I glance back at her. “That’s more than I had before.”
Her gaze narrows slightly, the first real flicker of emotion I’ve seen.
