**Chapter 35 – The Thirty-Percent Threshold**
Saturday, February 19, 2028 – 11:11 p.m.**
She comes in person this time.
No mirrors.
No tricks.
No half-stepping out of glass.
The Forty-Eighth simply walks out of the steam rising from the Arlington springs at midnight, barefoot, wearing my face, my body, my exact outfit from last Halloween (black cropped hoodie, pink Vans, twin tails sharp enough to cut).
Only the crown is complete.
Forty-seven pieces blazing like dying stars.
The entire valley goes dead quiet (no crickets, no traffic, no ghosts).
She stops ten feet away from me on the empty lawn of the Arlington Hotel.
Remy is at my left, claws out, locket pulsing crimson.
Seras at my right, hair already on fire, the Blazing Wukong outline flickering around her like a second skin.
Kayo behind me, nine golden tails fanned wide.
Aki and Riku flanking, horns glowing.
Rowan Vale stands farther back, galaxy eyes unreadable, but his hands are glowing with Shambhala wards.
Al, Frankie, and half the Ohio Club ghosts form a loose circle, tommy guns and ghost jazz ready.
The Forty-Eighth smiles with my mouth.
**Not-Celeste (soft, terrible):**
"Thirty percent.
Congratulations, little storm.
You're officially a threat."
She raises one hand.
The air ripples.
Every drop of geothermal steam in the valley condenses into a perfect mirror surface on the ground (black glass, endless).
**Not-Celeste:**
"Here's the new rule.
No more games of choice.
No more stealing trinkets.
You hit thirty pieces of the crown, I take thirty lives.
Starting tonight."
She snaps her fingers.
Thirty reflections rise from the glass (perfect copies of every person I love).
Remy. Seras. Kayo. Mom. Dad. Holly. Al. Even Rowan.
All wearing the full crown.
All smiling with her smile.
**Not-Celeste:**
"Kill them yourself, or watch them kill everyone else.
Your move, queen."
Remy growls so deep the ground shakes.
Seras's fire goes supernova white.
Kayo's tails lash hard enough to crack reality.
I step forward alone.
**Celeste (calm, thirty percent steady):**
"No."
I speak one word in the language only I own now (not Vinča, not Latin, something older).
The word means **remember**.
The reflections freeze.
Then they scream.
Because every single one of them suddenly remembers every story I've lived in the last four months (every grandmother, every sacrifice, every time we chose love over power).
The crowns on their heads crack.
The glass beneath our feet shatters into harmless steam.
The Forty-Eighth staggers, crown flickering like a dying bulb.
**Not-Celeste (actually afraid):**
"You can't—
That word was sealed—"
**Celeste (smiling with all my teeth):**
"Thirty percent means some things are unsealed now.
You wanted a war of pieces.
I just changed it to a war of stories.
And you don't have any."
I take one more step.
The silver scar on my forehead blazes white.
**Celeste:**
"Leave my valley.
Or I'll make you remember what it feels like to lose."
For the first time, the Forty-Eighth backs away.
She dissolves into steam and is gone.
The valley breathes again.
The HUD flashes once.
```
15 / 47
The Forty-Eighth retreats.
Stories > pieces.
```
Remy pulls me into his arms.
**Remy (awed):**
"You just made a goddess run."
Seras whoops, flames painting the sky.
Kayo's tails curl around all of us like a hug.
Rowan actually smiles (small, proud, ancient).
**Rowan:**
"Thirty pieces is going to be very interesting."
I look at my family (living, dead, shifter, yokai, ghost).
**Celeste:**
"Let her come.
We've got better stories."
Junior year just hit the halfway mark.
And for the first time, the Forty-Eighth blinked first.
Your move, mirror girl.
We're just getting started.
– The Quiet After the Storm**
Sunday, February 20, 2028 – 6:02 a.m.**
The Arlington lawn is still steaming when the sun comes up.
The grass is scorched in a perfect thirty-foot circle where the Forty-Eighth stood.
In the center: a single black-glass feather, sharp enough to cut skin.
I pick it up with a tissue (evidence, or maybe a trophy).
Remy's hand finds mine immediately.
**Remy (quiet):**
"She left something behind."
**Celeste:**
"Yeah. A warning. Or a mistake."
Seras kicks at the scorched earth, still glowing faintly around the edges.
**Seras:**
"She ran. From us. On our turf."
She grins like sunrise. "I'm framing this day."
Kayo crouches, studies the feather without touching it.
**Kayo:**
"It's a fragment of her true name.
She didn't mean to drop it.
You scared the word out of her."
Rowan appears beside us, coffee in hand, looking like he never sleeps.
**Rowan:**
"Collect it.
When you hit fifty percent, that feather becomes a leash."
He glances at the sky (clear, gold, ours).
**Rowan:**
"Shambhala just sent word.
The Thirteen Candles are… unsettled.
They've never seen the Forty-Eighth retreat before."
**Celeste (dry):**
"First time for everything."
Mom and Dad pull up in the old Suburban, both still in pajamas, eyes wide.
Mom takes one look at the circle, the feather, and me (covered in ash and victory).
**Mom (soft Romanian):**
"Breakfast. Now. You're all eating whether the world ends or not."
Dad just opens the back door.
**Dad:**
"Shotgun's taken by whoever gets in first. Move it, supernatural or not."
We pile in (six teenagers, one ancient monk, two worried parents, and a black-glass feather in a Ziploc).
As we drive away, the Arlington's windows reflect the sunrise.
For the first time in months, nothing stares back.
Back home, the kitchen table is chaos:
- Papanasi the size of softballs
- Bacon mountain
- Seras stealing half the syrup
- Remy feeding me bites while I lean against him, too tired to lift my fork
- Kayo eating with perfect manners but somehow finishing first
- Mom watching us like we're a miracle she never expected to get
Dad finally breaks the silence.
**Dad:**
"So… the evil mirror version of my daughter just got chased out of town by a bunch of teenagers and gangster ghosts?"
**Celeste (mouth full):**
"Pretty much."
He raises his coffee mug.
**Dad:**
"To the Morua family tradition of scaring gods before breakfast."
We clink root beer, orange juice, coffee, and one suspicious ghost-whiskey that Al definitely snuck in.
The HUD flickers once, gentle this time.
```
15 / 47
The valley is quiet.
For now.
Love endures.
Stories endure.
You endure.
```
I rest my head on Remy's shoulder.
Outside, Hot Springs wakes up like nothing happened.
Inside, we know everything did.
Junior year is halfway done.
And the Forty-Eighth just learned our names taste like fear.
Good.
Let her choke on it.
**The Severed Circle Moves**
** Friday, March 10, 2028 – 11:47 p.m.**
They come at the new moon, when the valley's magic is thinnest.
Seven figures in black-glass masks step out of the steam vents on Central Avenue like they were born from the springs themselves.
The Severed Circle.
I know because the bloodstone on my forehead burns cold the second they appear.
Remy's already shifting beside me (we were just walking home from the Ohio Club, holding hands like normal idiots).
**Remy (growling):**
"Company."
Seras's hair ignites.
Kayo's tails snap into existence.
The lead figure raises a hand.
The streetlights die.
**Masked Leader (voice layered, wrong):**
"Thirty pieces or thirty lives.
The Forty-Eighth was merciful.
We are not."
They fan out.
Each mask is carved with one of the original seven symbols that tried to break the crown eight thousand years ago.
Rowan appears from nowhere, silver mug still in hand.
**Rowan (quiet, deadly):**
"You're early.
The treaty says forty pieces before direct action."
**Masked Leader:**
"Treaty changed the day the heir bled the Forty-Eighth.
Hand over the girl.
Or we take the pieces from her corpse."
Seras steps forward, Blazing Wukong already flickering.
**Seras:**
"Try it."
The fight is instant and brutal.
Seven ancient sorcerers versus one storm queen, her coyote, her sun, her fox, her oni twins, and one very pissed-off four-hundred-year-old monk.
We hold.
Barely.
I'm bleeding from a cut on my arm that won't close (their blades are made of the same black glass as the feather).
Remy takes a hit meant for me and goes down hard, ribs cracking.
Seras is burning so hot the asphalt is melting under her feet.
Kayo's tails are bleeding gold.
Then the ghosts arrive.
Al, Frankie, Holly, and the entire 1920s crew come roaring out of the Ohio Club like it's Prohibition all over again.
Tommy guns made of pure ectoplasm.
**Al (grinning around a phantom cigar):**
"Nobody touches the Morau kid on my street."
The tide turns.
The Severed Circle retreats (two of them limping, one mask cracked clean in half).
The leader pauses at the edge of the steam.
**Masked Leader:**
"This was a warning.
Next time we bring the Choir.
And the Forty-Eighth will be watching."
They vanish into the vents.
Silence.
Remy coughs blood but forces himself upright, arm around my waist.
**Remy (hoarse):**
"Thirty pieces just got a deadline."
Rowan kneels, touches the cracked mask left behind.
**Rowan:**
"They're scared.
That means we're winning."
Seras extinguishes, swaying.
**Seras:**
"Winning feels a lot like losing right now."
I look at my family (bleeding, burned, unbreakable).
**Celeste:**
"Then we get stronger.
Faster."
The HUD flashes crimson.
```
15 / 47
Severed Circle engaged.
First blood: ours.
Next blood: theirs.
```
I pocket the cracked mask.
The war just went street-level.
And I'm done waiting for the next move.
Tomorrow we start hunting.