The sun slowly shuttered her fiery eye, pulling the last strands of gold from the sky as dusk crept in — soft-footed, inevitable, almost shy about stealing the light. Shadows stretched long and thin across the stone floor, then vanished as night gathered her skirts and settled over the estate.
I lay on the bed, watching Miss Heiwa scratch away at the writing desk. Every stroke of her pen sounded crisp and decisive, like a woman who knew exactly where each word belonged. The bed beneath me was sinfully comfortable — thick blankets, goose-down pillows, a mattress that hugged every cold, shaking limb. I sank into it with dangerous ease, letting its warmth trick me into believing the world outside didn't exist.
Anything to distract myself. Anything to avoid facing the mess I'd made.
Earlier, in a moment of desperation and scrambled instinct, I had tried to imitate what Heiwa had done to calm me — and instead, I ended up… ending something inside myself. Killing a fear. Snuffing it out like a candle flame.
At least, that's what it felt like.
The whole evening had played out like a travelling theatre tragedy — frantic, loud, ridiculous, and somehow still not as horrifying as the journey that brought us this far.
I still recalled the fear I'd felt then, but now it was distant. Watery. Like a memory someone else had lent me. No sharpness remained, no sting beneath the ribs. The absence bothered me. It should have terrified me — yet there was no terror left to claim.
"Marvelous," I murmured internally. "I've successfully murdered my dread. What next? A toast?"
Heiwa had chased me out of the sitting room earlier with her usual combination of stern affection and iron patience. She claimed her brother and the girls were already discussing the plan for tomorrow and that I was "in the way."
I suspected she was simply giving me space to unravel privately.
Left alone now, I lay there with my thoughts swirling like dead leaves in a winter gust.
Looking out the frost-touched window, I wondered if perhaps I leapt into things far too quickly — without caution, without grounding, without looking. Arms stretched, legs flexed, toes curled under the blankets. My body felt restless despite the exhaustion dragging at my bones.
I thought — for the ninth time — about telling Heiwa what happened within me. But how does one even broach such a topic?
"Oh, by the way, Heiwa, I accidentally erased one of my emotions. Any thoughts?"
How does a sensible person say that? Especially when I'd barely spoken of the ability I supposedly possessed — mostly because there had never been anything noteworthy to discuss. But now…
Now there was something.
Something significant.
Something that made my chest feel hollow and my mind feel strangely clear.
The death of my dread wasn't some trivial matter. It was a symptom. A sign. A beginning, perhaps — or the first crack in something I didn't yet understand.
I was concerned. Yes. Worried. Yes.
But fear?
Gone. Snuffed out like a candle.
Excitement swirled faintly where dread should have lived. A thrill — small, sharp — that gleamed like the edge of a razor. If I could kill one emotion, what else could I shape? What else could I… alter?
The idea tugged at me. It was wrong, perhaps. Dangerous, certainly. But intoxicating.
Still, exhaustion surged stronger. Maybe it was simply my body begging me to sleep. The bath earlier had been magnificent — practically a small lake, steaming and scented with lavender oil. I had swum in it, naturally, as any sane person would. Miss Heiwa did not agree.
"Miss Victoria, you should not be doing that," she'd scolded, hands on her hips like a Victorian governess catching a child climbing the draperies.
I had pretended to be appropriately chastised, though secretly I felt supremely justified in my aquatic rebellion.
Rolling onto my back, I looked once more toward the window.
The moon hung pale and distant, a familiar coin of silver in the sky. But the constellations around her… those were stranger. Twisted. Unfamiliar. Asterisms I did not recognise. The heavens looked like they'd been rearranged by an absent-minded god with a poor memory for star charts.
A celestial sprinkle scattered across the velvet sky — lovely, yes, but unfamiliar in a way that prickled at my instincts.
I tore my gaze away before my imagination could sprint off into wild, cosmic speculation.
Instead, I thought of the deal we'd made with the lady of the house — and the conversation Heiwa and I had afterward. She had insisted that if Miss Lakshmi's eventual request turned out to be outrageous, she could appeal to her father to cover part of it.
"But a blank cheque is a dangerous thing," she had murmured. "Especially when written in desperation."
Practical. Rational. Sensible.
The opposite of me, apparently.
Still, the reassurance had planted a small seed of comfort. Not enough to banish worry, but enough to anchor me.
With something that resembled a plan — faint, wobbly, but present — I turned to my side, curling under the blankets as if I could coax them into retaining warmth.
The sky darkened fully, surrendering the last of dusk to the blue-black fold of night. The estate settled into its slumbering hush, all creaks and sighs and distant carriage wheels from the winter street.
Night was here.
And though I lay still on the bed, wrapped in comfort thicker than any armour, I couldn't shake the chill beneath my ribs — a chill not born of fear, but of anticipation.
Something had changed in me and other stimuli and common sense would habe to be my new driver.
And the stars outside the window seemed to shimmer with the suspicion that they knew exactly what.