A Message

The Banquet Hall was never empty, not in the sense of absence—there was always a drift of people, a pulse of utensils, the low fizz of the soda fountain cycling air. But today, when Marissa came in at quarter to three, the room felt as if someone had taken it apart and rebuilt it with only enough pieces to suggest the original shape. Every table was set: white linen stretched tight, napkins folded with military precision, a line of glassware so clean you could read the buffet reflected in each. But the room itself was hollow, a polished echo. The buffet was flush with options, but no one picked at the fruit or made a show of choosing bread.

Marissa crossed the floor with a mug in hand, filled it at the coffee station, and circled to the long table nearest the window. She liked this table—if you angled your seat right, you could watch the terrace but also see the whole span of the Hall, every door and approach. She set her mug down, slid onto the chair, and let the tension in her shoulders settle to baseline.

It had been a day of tension. She’d awoken with the suspicion that someone had rewritten the rules again, maybe not in the big, spectacular way, but in a way she could feel in the shape of her breathing. There was a subtlety to the way the world changed here—a half-degree shift, a different pitch to the wind off the sea. You only caught it if you had been paying attention for a long time.

Liesa entered from the east door, the one by the conservatory. She moved with that effortless, impossible grace she’d acquired a couple of rounds ago; even when she was in a hurry, her hips swayed and her steps rolled like she was floating down a fashion runway. She wore an old UIC hoodie over a short black skirt, and even with the bulk of the sweatshirt, you could see the rhythm of her body making choreography out of the walk.

She clocked Marissa instantly and aimed for the tea. “Two-thirty and already on the hard stuff?” she said, voice warm.

Marissa gave a little wave. “Can’t exist without it.”

Liesa poured herself some tea, then crossed to the table. She slid into the chair opposite Marissa and arranged her mug precisely, aligning the handle with the edge of the table. She waited a beat, then met Marissa’s eyes. “Have you seen anyone else today?”

Marissa shook her head. “Not since breakfast.”

Liesa made a face, like this confirmed a private hypothesis. She sipped her coffee, then set it down, fingers laced around the cup. “Sam is with Andy. But I walked the main lobby, and then the terrace, and then the pool deck. Not a soul. Like the place got evacuated and nobody told us.”

Marissa considered that, her mind going straight to the possible. “Maybe everyone’s on the beach?”

Liesa shrugged. “Could be. But I have not seen anyone there, either.”

“Now that you say it, neither have I,” Marissa said. She scanned the room, as if a Mildred might be hiding under the table or behind the flower arrangements. But no, the room was blank, neutral, waiting.

They lapsed into an anxious silence, the kind that happens only when both people are running the same background diagnostic and waiting for results.

Then Chloe appeared, flustered and red-faced, at the Hall’s main entrance. She wore a striped t-shirt and denim shorts that barely contained the hyperbolic curve of her hips and breasts. She paused a second, scanned the room, then came straight over to the table, walking with a purpose that outstripped her body’s ability to keep up. She perched on the chair beside Liesa, hands braced on the table.

“I’m so glad you two are here! I thought I was going crazy,” Chloe said, “nobody’s here. I haven’t seen anyone since lunch.”

Liesa grinned, “Welcome to the ghost hotel.”

Chloe huffed, brushed her hair off her face, and glanced at the buffet. “I figured the cheese plates would be restocked by now. I even skipped lunch so I wouldn’t have to fight anyone for them.”

“There’s plenty left,” Marissa said, offering a dry smile. She watched Chloe, who made a performance of pouring herself juice, and then stirring it with a straw in a way that said she was buying time.

After a minute, Chloe looked up. “Is it weird that it’s just us?”

Liesa and Marissa exchanged a look. Liesa said, “That’s what we were saying. I haven’t seen anyone else all day. It’s starting to creep me out.”

Chloe considered this, her brow creasing. “I went to the spa after breakfast. I stopped at the art studio, walked the garden paths, and then here for lunch. I can’t remember seeing a single person since, except maybe a few Mildreds through a window.”

Liesa turned to Marissa. “You?”

Marissa shrugged, “Just the morning. I worked out early, then came here to catch up on my notes. After lunch I went for a nap, and now…” She shrugged.

They let that hang for a minute, each of them sipping at their drinks, eyes tracking the empty room and the wide, gold-washed window.

After a while, Liesa broke the silence. “Maybe there’s some event we weren’t told about. Like an offsite challenge, or a surprise meeting.”

Chloe looked at her, “Wouldn’t Andy be part of it? Or at least Sam?”

Marissa said, “Unless it’s something for the final round. Maybe the teams are being split for some reason.” She paused, watching the pattern of light on the table. “Or maybe it’s nothing at all. We could be imagining it.”

Liesa let that roll off her. “I don’t imagine things, Marissa. If I did, they would be more interesting than this.”

Chloe giggled. “I mean, at least there’s tea, honey, and cheese. If this is purgatory, it could be worse.”

That brought a ripple of laughter around the table, the kind of low, nervous humor that comes out when you’re not sure if you’re being watched.

Marissa glanced out the window, then leaned in. “How are the party plans going?” she asked Liesa, changing the subject with an expert’s touch.

Liesa brightened. “Almost perfect. I got Arabella to sign off on the guest list, but she made me delete half the entertainment options. Apparently, human piñatas are not allowed.”

Chloe’s eyes went wide. “You mean, actual—?”

Liesa wiggled her fingers. “Not really. Mildred suggested it. I just thought it would be funny. There will be cake, and games, and enough novelty cocktails to stun a moose. Also, I got a karaoke machine, and nobody can stop me.”

Chloe blushed, “I can’t sing.”

“Is the point,” Liesa said, sipping her coffee. “The worse, the better.”

Marissa smiled at them, the party talk pulling her briefly out of the tension she’d been holding. “Who’s on the guest list?”

“Everyone who’s not Andy or Sam,” Liesa replied. “Even Mildred is invited.”

Chloe smiled, “I love it. Do you need help with anything?”

Liesa shook her head, “Have it covered. I want you to relax and enjoy yourself. If you don’t, I will be disappointed.”

Chloe nodded, “Okay.” She reached for a cheese cube and popped it in her mouth, then closed her eyes in mock-ecstasy. “Still good,” she said, “even if the world is ending.”

Marissa laughed, but it was thinner than she meant it to be. Then, all of a sudden, she felt a shiver, and something just... switched. She set her mug down and looked at the two of them. “Do you feel it?” she said, softer. “Like the air’s changed?”

The question caught them off guard. Chloe set her juice down. Liesa blinked, then looked around the hall as if seeing it for the first time.

Chloe was the first to answer. “Now that you say it, yeah. Like a storm’s coming.”

Marissa nodded, her fingers worrying the rim of her mug. “I keep thinking something happened, or is about to.”

Liesa’s eyes narrowed, “It’s too quiet. Even for here.”

The three sat with it, the silence now charged, every footstep or clink from the kitchen making them jump. For a while, they just listened, as if the room might cough up an explanation. The answer, when it came, was nothing like what Marissa expected.

A Mildred entered from the service corridor, moving with the measured glide of the entire gestalt, but she was not dressed for the floor. Instead of the standard black dress and apron, she wore a charcoal-gray suit, perfectly tailored, with a cream blouse and no omnipresent golden name tag. Her hair was gathered back, not in the usual bun, but in a sleek, low ponytail. There was a softness to her face, the features less mask-like than usual, and a warmth to her expression that none of them had seen before.

The three women stared as she approached. Mildred stopped at the table, hands folded at her waist, and gave a formal, perfect nod.

“Marissa Holt,” Mildred intoned, her voice precise but pitched lower than usual. “Liesa Claes. Chloe Ramsey.” She paused, making eye contact with each in turn. They were... different from the other Mildreds. Like whatever was on the other side was actually looking back, not simply measuring them.

“Hello,” Chloe said, voice shaky. Liesa just nodded back.

Mildred continued, “I apologize for the intrusion, but your presence is requested at the Sky Archive.”

Marissa frowned. “By whom?”

“By those who are already gathered there,” Mildred said. “You will wish to be present for what is occurring. It concerns you all.”

Liesa blinked, “Why?”

Mildred’s gaze did not waver. “You are a necessary element of the work in progress. Your participation will be required.”

Chloe glanced at the others, her unease climbing. “Is this about the next round?”

Mildred shook her head, slowly, as if explaining to a child. “It is about the matter of the owed debt.” Her words landed like a stone dropped in a still pool.

Marissa sat bolt upright. “What debt?” she asked, the edge in her voice sharper than she meant.

Mildred considered her, and when she spoke, it was slower, almost tender. “The debt owed for a life returned. The price spoken of during the Fourth Challenge, at the beach.” She looked at Marissa, tilting her head, holding her there. Her voice was frighteningly soft, bittersweet. “You overheard Arabella discussing it.”

Marissa’s mind raced. She remembered the beach party: the flash of Andy’s laugh, the sound of the waves, Arabella’s voice low and intimate in conversation with Anna. The word price had caught Marissa’s ear, but she’d written it off as a metaphor for the emotional cost of the whole show.

Marissa found her words. “That price… is about Laura's resurrection?”

Mildred nodded, “It is.”

Liesa’s hand found Chloe’s under the table. Neither noticed they were holding on.

Chloe whispered, “What kind of price?”

Mildred said, “A life, for a life. A cosmic Law. It cannot be avoided, only transferred, unless the loophole is found.” She let that hang, then, “You should go now. There is not much time left before it is due.”

Liesa stared, “Did... did Arabella send you?”

Mildred shook her head, “No. Another.”

Marissa’s heart slammed in her chest. “Who? And what do you mean, ‘not much time’?”

Mildred looked at the window, the line of horizon visible beyond the glass. “The deadline is near. The debt will be called by the wedding, before the end of this show.” She looked back at the three of them, and this time, there was an unmistakable note of sorrow in her voice that somehow frightened them more than anything Mildred had ever done. “It will be the hardest thing any of you have ever done. Do not blame yourselves if you fail, but you should know you can succeed. But a life will be lost either way.” She paused, and something unreadable passed on her face. “You should join the others. I am sorry. I am not permitted to say more.”

With that, she stepped away from the table, moving toward the far doors with the same, measured pace.

Marissa looked at Chloe, then Liesa, and found her own fear reflected in their faces. Liesa stood first, her chair scraping the tile. “Let’s go,” she said, voice shaking only a little. Chloe gathered her things in a daze, then followed. Marissa downed the rest of her coffee, tasting nothing, and moved after them. At the threshold, Marissa looked back. The hall was exactly as they’d found it, except now the air had an urgency, like it was waiting for someone to close the loop. The three women left, the silence following them all the way down the corridor.

The three of them—Liesa in front, Chloe close behind, and Marissa bringing up the rear—walked the corridor to the Archive with the purpose of women summoned to an emergency. Marissa led the last half of the journey, steps measured, face set, already cataloguing scenarios and possible consequences. Chloe stuck to Liesa’s side like a nervous remora, her free hand fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. Liesa’s stride was pure velocity, every step betraying the hum of contained energy; with every stride, her hips made arcs in the air that would have read as comic if they hadn’t been so natural on her.

The Archive doors were open. The old glass gleamed with a honey tint in the slanting light, and inside, the air vibrated with a careful, urgent energy. The space felt different from the rest of the building. Maybe it was the high dome, maybe the layers of history built into the stacks, or maybe just the way everyone in the room moved like the work was a **** rescue. There was a seriousness in the posture of every person inside.

They came to a stop just inside the door, the momentum faltering all at once. There, at the main table, the entire rest of the harem: Myra, with her fox tails curled at her ankles, hand stretched over a vast surface of notecards; Riley, leaning over a book with her chin resting on her fist, eyes burning holes in the pages; Erin, holding a volume of obscure theory, her mint-green arms wrapped so tight around the book it looked like she was trying to fuse with it; Dawn, perched on a stool at the card catalog, yellow dress a riot against the gray; Emi, already deep in the archives on the third ladder; even Katherine was there, carrying a stack of books, her face suddenly lit by a shaft of light. Claire sat at the heart of it all, notebook open, her pen racing.

And on the floor, at the foot of the main card box, Laura—both bodies curled inward, one set of knees up to her chest, the other sprawled long, hands running through the index cards in sharp, precise movements. She hadn’t noticed them yet.

The three newcomers stood frozen for a second. Liesa found her voice first. “Um,” she said. “Is this… are we late?”

No one responded right away. The only sound was the shuffle of papers, the click of heels on the ladder rungs, the soft whisper of someone turning a page.

Chloe looked at the other two, lips parted in the start of a question. “What are we doing?” she asked, too soft to carry.

Marissa didn’t wait. She moved to Claire, putting her hands on the back of the chair and leaning in, her voice pitched so only Claire could hear. “What is the debt? Is it what I think it is?”

Claire’s pen stopped mid-sentence. She looked up, met Marissa’s eyes, then turned her gaze to Laura. The pause had an edge. Laura looked up, both heads at once. Her faces were drawn, the skin around her eyes pale and tired, but her attention was complete. The hush in the Archive thickened, like everyone was holding their breath at the same time.

Marissa waited, letting the air fill with pressure. She said, quietly but clearly, “You can tell us.”

Laura’s two bodies shifted at once, one moving to sit cross-legged, the other hugging her knees tighter. She looked at Marissa, at Claire, at the faces gathered around the table. “When I was brought back, Arabella had to use a... an Edict from the Sumerian goddess, Ereshkigal. That made my... my return subject to her Law. And the Law is a life for a life,” she said, both voices in sync, the words crisp. “Ereshkigal doesn’t make exceptions. If you come back, either you or someone else has to go.”

Chloe’s hand went to her mouth, eyes wide. Liesa’s fingers dug into her own hips, the line of her jaw rigid.

Marissa asked, “And you know who it wants?”

Laura nodded. “It wants me. Or anyone close enough to me to count. Blood, or marriage…” She trailed off, both faces tight with effort.

Chloe whispered, “That’s…”

Marissa shook her head. “Andy?”

Laura shook hers. “No. Arabella told him he won’t be allowed. She wouldn’t let him.” She blinked rapidly, looking at Riley and Myra. “But... I found out my family is here, too. Riley and Myra are my half-sisters. My mother, and Myra's mother, are both in the Hollow Garden.” She swalllowed in tandem. “It's a... a long story, but they are all... valid options for the Law.”

The words set off a chain reaction around the table. Dawn’s hands trembled on the index cards. Erin’s eyes went wide, then narrowed, the muscles in her face working through a storm of thoughts. Riley’s face was unreadable, but her jaw flexed and unflexed.

Liesa asked, “So, what? We have to decide? Which one?”

Claire wrote a note, tore it, and slid it across the table to Marissa. In neat, even print: Not if we find a way to break the Law.

Marissa read it, then looked at Claire. “Can it be broken?”

Claire wrote: It’s never been done. But there’s a way. Arabella told Andy there is a loophole, but she’s not allowed to show him. She underlined way three times, then pointed at the growing heap of books and notes and references around them.

Liesa stared at the note, then at Laura. “Mildred said it’s coming, on the wedding day.”

Laura’s faces dropped. “Eight days.” She stopped.

There was a stunned silence. Then Liesa pushed back her chair, looked at Claire, and said, “What do we do?”

Claire smiled, just a flicker, and wrote out three more slips of paper, each with a shelf range, a title, and a set of keywords. She handed one to each of the newcomers. “Is this…?” Chloe trailed off, holding the slip in two hands, as if it were a letter from the President. The Book of the Western Sun, the Antonican Grimoire - look for references to resurrection rituals involving roses, Edicts, or pomegranate seeds.

Marissa read her own. Threshold Rites, Janus Iteration, cross-reference with all documented escapes.

Liesa read hers, Case histories, Host Island anomalies, and all notes on countervailing law.

None of the three hesitated. They fanned out, each to their section, and the energy in the room changed. What had been tension became action, a current that swept everyone into the rhythm of the Archive. Dawn joined Chloe at the side aisle, guiding her to the right spot on the shelf. Emi saw Liesa pause by the card catalog and called down from the ladder, “It’s faster if you take the top rung—second row on the left.”

Erin crossed the floor to Marissa, set a hand on her arm, and said, “If you find anything on recursive logic in the binding rules, shout for me.” Her voice was quiet but clear.

The work restarted. The room was a mesh of voices and footsteps, the scrape of chairs, the shuffle of cards. Myra’s tails glowed faintly as she ran her fingers over the volumes, trying to draw out emotional imprints beyond what was written on the paper. Riley read aloud to herself, as if the sound would **** the truth into the open. Even Katherine leaned forward, eyes intent on the work.

Laura’s attention was on the steady rhythm of her hands, the index cards flipping and stacking, but her mind skittered everywhere at once. She tried to channel the old sense of purpose, the tunnel vision she’d had as a girl when every problem could be solved with enough cleverness or spite, but the concentration wouldn’t quite hold. The voices in the room worked their way into her: the low, almost reverent murmurs from the working table; the scrape and click of ladders as bodies moved through the aisles; Claire’s pen, which seemed to make more noise than anyone else’s, and which never, ever stopped. Even now, surrounded by the raw proof of how badly she was wanted, Laura felt the old reflex: keep quiet, keep moving, don’t expect anyone to notice if you suddenly stopped.

For years, Laura had believed rescue was a thing you had to earn. That if she just tried hard enough, suffered beautifully enough, evened out the scales of her worth with some grand act, she’d be permitted to live. That good things were for other people. Andy had managed to shake that belief loose, but for all that he was the center of her universe, he was still only one person. It was only now, with the room vibrating with the combined will of eleven other people, that she felt the old belief snap loose inside her. All these women had assembled with purpose—none of them because Laura had asked for it, all of them because they’d decided, at some point, that she deserved it.

The realization sat unpleasantly on her skin for a moment, hot and raw, as if she’d stepped from shadow into sunlight and only now noticed the burn. Laura’s eyes prickled with the ache of something being cauterized and healed at the same time. Vulnerability, red and inflamed, exposed to the air of the Archive.

She tried to blink it away, but both her bodies betrayed her: she wiped at her cheeks with a quick, almost irritated flick, and ducked her heads, dark hair sliding like a curtain. She cleared her throat (in stereo, as always) and tried to speak, to put a buffer of sarcasm or distance between herself and the thing she was feeling. Instead, what came out was nothing but the brittle, unaesthetic truth:

“Why are you all here?”

Neither voice managed more than a whisper, but both carried across the Archive, echoing down the old stacks, bouncing off the honeyed glass and the high dome. She heard it land, embarrassing and thin, and felt a hot, immediate regret. But it was too late to take it back.

For a moment the only answer was the movement of the others: Erin bracing herself between two shelves, green skin bright against the books; Dawn’s dress glowing like a lamp at the end of the table; Norah’s sharp profile outlined against a column of books; Marissa, hands busy with a volume but head cocked just enough to show she’d heard. The silence was not a void, but a weight, as if they were all waiting for someone else to go first.

Erin, being Erin, went first. She didn’t even bother looking over her shoulder. “Because you’d do it for any one of us, and you know it.” Her voice was flat and certain, and a little rough around the edges, but it was not fragile. It was the kind of statement that presumed agreement, and left no room for argument.

Dawn’s voice drifted down the length of the table, bright but saturated with a sadness that made it clear she’d rehearsed this in her own head for hours. “And because we want you to have a future. Not just a past.” The sentence hung in the air, bright as a string of pennant flags, and Laura felt herself reaching for it with both hands, even as the words stung.

Norah was elbow-deep in a pile of old Contestant Diaries, her face hidden but her voice as dry as ever. “Because I walked up a very long staircase in heels,” she said, “and I’d like it to have been worth it.” The crack was pure Norah, but the warmth underneath was unmistakable, even to someone who had once made a sport of missing such cues.

Marissa, who had not even looked up from her shelf, suddenly did. She met Laura’s gaze, eyes steady, and held it. “You were the reason he became who he is.” She said it like the verdict in a trial. “I figure a woman like that is worth a few hours in an archive.” Then she went right back to her reading, but the words lingered, acid and sweet at once.

There was a pause, and then a shuffling from the far stacks where Chloe was hidden. Her voice came low, careful, almost apologetic. “I was there. At the start. I’ve been trying to do something about that for a long time.” The admission was delivered like a confession in a makeshift confessional, the kind that rattled around the inside of a chest and left bruises.

Liesa didn’t even look up from her notes. She just reached over, her hand moving with the efficiency of a mother at a breakfast table, and refilled Laura’s water glass from the carafe at the center. The gesture was so gentle, so perfectly unremarkable, that it made Laura’s throat close up again.

Halfway up the rolling ladder, Katherine looked down, made deliberate eye contact, and pressed two fingers to her mouth, holding them there. It was not a joke, not even a little. The gesture was clear: I see you. I am not leaving. There was no translation needed.

Riley’s voice came from somewhere behind a shelf, rough and a little ****, as if she’d been arguing with herself about whether to say it: “I was in the water, too.” That was all. But it landed with the full weight of everything she hadn’t said.

Myra’s tails stilled for a moment. She didn’t look up from the volume in her hands, but her voice, when it came, was quieter than usual. “You’re our sister,” she said. “How could we not be?”

Emi, who had been quietly keeping pace with Laura on the floor, nudged closer, her small shoulder warm against Laura’s. She didn’t say anything. She just stayed, hip to hip, matching Laura’s rhythm with her own, the way a person might sync breathing with a friend who is about to break.

From deep in the reference stacks, Emily called out, voice clarion and unfiltered: “Because Andy loves you. And so do we.” The words could have sounded corny, but Emily’s delivery was absolute, so present it almost dared anyone to contradict her.

The rest of the Archive paused, just for a heartbeat. Even Claire’s pen stopped moving; the click of the old clock on the far wall was suddenly audible, ticking away the moment into permanent memory.

And then, quietly, with a slowness that suggested she’d thought about this in advance, Claire tore a narrow strip from the bottom of a notebook page, wrote something in her tight, careful hand, and set it on the edge of the table. She didn’t speak, didn’t look up, just slid the note until it sat within Laura’s reach.

Curiosity won. Laura reached for it, unfolded it, and read:

Because we could not be there for you, a long time ago. You only had Andy then. Now you have all of us.

The handwriting was precise, the lines under each word deliberate, as if they might matter more if pressed a little harder into the page. Laura stared at the sentence, then at the row of faces—at Erin, pretending not to look at her; at Dawn, who was openly wiping at her nose; at Norah, whose head was still buried in books but whose foot bounced in solidarity under the table; at Riley and Myra, both looking at her with affection and concern; at Katherine, haloed in the high window’s light; at Emi, whose gaze was absolute and unblinking. She tried to fit the feeling into any of the old categories—anger, embarrassment, gratitude—but it didn’t fit. It was more like a rearrangement, a tectonic slide of old grounds giving way to something stranger, and possibly better.

She tried to speak, but both bodies failed her. All she could get out was a scraped-thin “Thank you.” She meant it with a depth that would have embarrassed her at any other time in her life.

She wanted to say more, but Claire had already turned the page, and the others had gone back to their tasks, and the spell of the moment was broken in the way only beautiful, true things ever really break.

So Laura wiped her eyes, and straightened her back, and pulled the next card from the index box. She read it with a little more hunger, a little more hope, and a lot more belief that maybe, one day, she’d be the one to save someone else.