Hidden Floors, Part 1

The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it.
And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it.

VP and BP Standings
Erin - 79 VP - 800 BP - 1 Achiev
Claire - 57 VP - 7200 BP - 2 Achievs
Marissa - 56 VP - 4300 BP - 1 Achiev
Liesa - 54 VP - 2900 BP - 2 Achievs
Emi - 44 VP - 3750 BP - 1 Achiev
Dawn - 43 VP - 4500 BP - 1 Achiev
Sam - 29 VP - 4550 BP - 2 Achievs
Norah - 27 VP - 4050 BP - 2 Achievs
Chloe - 8 VP - 2975 BP - 1 Achiev
Riley - 6 VP - 4300 BP

Andy woke to the faint, pulsebeat pressure of a dream receding. The first thing he registered, after the familiar dull ache behind his eyes, was the warmth on his chest—a perfectly-sized weight, not suffocating but absolute, as if the dream had pressed a sandbag over his heart and left a living replacement in its stead.

He kept his eyes closed, letting the details surface in slow, manageable fragments. There had been water, as always, and the frantic scramble of his own hands against the embankment. He knew he had been **** at the time, but in the dream, he envisioned how Laura had hauled him up with impossible strength, her small fingers digging into his forearms. Then she'd slipped back, the current catching her ankles. That terrible day, he had barely regained consciousness, dazed by the time her blue-lipped face disappeared beneath the surface, her hair plastered across one cheek like a veil. In the dream, he screamed and tried to grab her hand, but she slipped away before he could catch her. The last thing he saw: her hand above the waterline, a cry for help that never came, and a cruel farewell as the river took her.

Andy exhaled, a tremor running through his arms as he willed the scene away. The next inhale was full of vanilla, warm linen, and something herbal—rosemary, maybe, or the fresh-crushed stems of wild carrot. The weight on his chest shifted, and when he opened his eyes he saw a curtain of black hair tumbling over his shoulder, the individual strands backlit by the first threads of sunrise and threaded with copper.

Dawn was asleep, nestled tight against him in a posture so trusting it almost hurt to look at her. It must be before 6am, he realized, or she would be awake. One of her arms had snaked under his t-shirt and wrapped around his waist, fingers fanned out as if staking a claim. Her head rested beneath his chin, close enough for him to see every fine hair on her cheek and the way her nose twitched in sleep, faintly echoing the motion of the long black ears draped across his collarbone. It was the kind of intimacy that, even now, felt new and precious, a secret too fragile to share with the waking world.

He lay there for a few minutes, eyes fixed on the ceiling, until the last of the nightmare had been leached away by the first rays of sunlight and Dawn’s soft, contented breathing. He was half-convinced he would never adjust to this: not the physical closeness, which he’d grown to crave, but the sense of being truly safe. In the bright, domesticated space of the Master’s Suite, even his own thoughts felt gentler—like a wild animal realizing the fence around it was for protection, not punishment.

Dawn stirred. She did not open her eyes, but her hand crept up his ribcage and stopped at his sternum, palm pressed over his heart like she was listening for a password. She made a small, satisfied hum, then curled her legs tighter around his. Her ears flicked with each sound in the room, but she did not surface all the way, not yet.

Andy waited. He liked this part of the morning best: the suspended moment before the day could impose its needs, when every detail seemed amplified and real. The sunlight painted the wall in watery rectangles, and each time Dawn exhaled, the warmth of her breath seeped through his shirt. He wondered, absently, if this was how she always woke up—clinging to another body, needing the contact before daring to face the day. Maybe that was what years of holding a broken family together did to a person. Or maybe she just liked the way he fit.

He brushed her hair back from her face, careful not to startle her. Her skin was impossibly soft, and her eyelashes were so long they cast their own shadows across her cheeks. He studied her, taking inventory of each trait: the faint birthmark near her temple, the way her mouth parted on every third breath, the faintest suggestion of a smile lurking in the corners even now.

At exactly 6.00am, Dawn finally woke. Not abruptly, but in a slow, luxurious roll, her whole body stretching before her eyelids even fluttered. She blinked at him, eyes unfocused and sleepy, then registered the world in increments: first his face, then the rest of him, then the fact that she was tangled around him like a cat in a sunbeam. Her ears shot up and she made a small, embarrassed sound, but Andy only smiled and tucked a loose strand behind her ear.

“Morning,” he said, keeping his voice low.

“Hi,” she whispered, and she smiled with her whole face, the embarrassment already evaporating. “Did I crush you?”

He shook his head. “You’re very light, Dawn. I’ve survived worse.”

Dawn looked at him for a long moment, as if memorizing the details. Then, with a conspiratorial wiggle, she propped herself up on her elbows, hair falling in a glossy curtain to either side of her face. Instantly awake, energized. She studied him, her gaze flicking from his eyes to his lips and back, then leaned down and kissed him—just once, slow and full of intent.

“Now it’s a good morning,” she said, and he could feel the truth of it in the shape of her grin.

They disentangled and rolled upright, Dawn immediately tucking her legs under herself in a posture so natural it had to be her default. She ran her hands through her hair, then reached back to smooth the cottontail at the base of her spine. She was wearing one of his shirts, and the way it hung on her was as indecent as any lingerie. She caught him looking and stuck out her tongue.

“Like what you see?” she teased, but there was a quaver in her voice that made it earnest, not cocky.

He nodded. “You look amazing.” He meant it. “Better than I do, anyway.”

She glanced down, then back up, her face turning pink. “I like the way you look,” she said. “I like waking up and seeing you first thing.”

Andy tried, and failed, to find a glib response. He looked away, not because he was shy, but because he knew if he kept looking at her he might never get out of bed again.

Dawn hopped off the mattress and padded over to the window, stretching up to peek between the blackout curtains. She did it in a way that was almost theatrical, her ears flattening as she pressed her nose to the glass.

“It’s going to be a beautiful day,” she announced. “You want breakfast?”

He nodded, even though he wasn’t hungry. The memory of the nightmare clung to him like a cold sweat, and he knew from experience that the best way to exorcise it was to keep moving, to make the morning real and ordinary.

Dawn pulled on leggings, grabbed a hair tie, and in under thirty seconds had transformed from soft-edged dream to functional human. She gathered his hand in both of hers, and together they padded down the hallway to the suite’s kitchen, the entire time never letting go. He wondered if she even noticed she was doing it.

The kitchen was already warm, the smell of toasted bread and fresh coffee drifting in from the smart appliances that always seemed to anticipate their needs. Dawn navigated the cabinets with practiced ease, assembling plates, cups, and a jar of what appeared to be homemade peach preserves. She moved with the same efficiency she brought to every task, but there was a lightness to it now, as if the pressure to prove herself had faded.

Andy set the table, then watched as she arranged fruit, granola, and yogurt with the reverence of someone laying out a religious offering. She poured coffee for both of them, topping his off with just enough cream to turn it the color of sand, and set it in front of him with a small flourish.

They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, the only sounds the clink of spoons and the occasional, involuntary hum of pleasure from Dawn each time she took a bite of the preserves. After the third hum, Andy couldn’t help himself.

“You know you do that, right?”

She froze, spoon halfway to her mouth. “Do what?”

“You make this little sound every time you eat something you like.” He smiled. “It’s cute.”

She blushed so fiercely he thought she might combust. “I do not.”

He nodded, then imitated her hum, pitch-perfect. “Mmm.”

She tried to look mortified, but her ears betrayed her, rising high and proud. “You’re making it up,” she insisted, but the smile ruined her protest.

He watched her for a bit, marveling at how easy she made it to forget the weight of everything else. Even when she was off-balance or embarrassed, Dawn had a way of bringing him back to earth—of making the worst days seem like a temporary weather event, not a permanent state.

She spooned more preserves onto her plate, then set the jar between them, suddenly serious. “Do you ever think about what it’ll be like, when this is over?” She didn’t look up, just traced a pattern in the syrup with the tip of her spoon.

He considered. “Sometimes,” he said, choosing his words with care. “Sometimes I wonder if anything will ever feel normal again.”

She nodded, silent.

“I think,” he continued, “that whatever happens, I’ll still need to eat breakfast.” He nudged the jar towards her. “And I hope you’ll make it with me.”

She met his eyes, and there was something raw and **** in her face. “Even if we’re not here?” She gestured around the suite, the implication of the whole magical world contained in the sweep of her hand.

“Even then,” he said. “Although the kitchen may be busier, at that point.”

Dawn went quiet, her fingers unconsciously rising to touch one of her ears. "Do you…" she started, then bit her lip, a mischievous glint replacing her hesitation. "Do you still want me with these?" She wiggled her bunny ears, making them dance.

"Are you kidding?" Andy leaned forward. "They're sexy. And adorable."

She giggled, a sound that seemed to surprise even her. "I actually love them. Is that childish? They'll be a problem in the real world."

"There are things at the Commissary," Andy reminded her, reaching to stroke one velvety ear. "Besides, I like sleeping with this particular bunny girl."

"Good answer," she whispered, leaning across the table to kiss him quickly. Her ears twitched forward as she pulled away, betraying her pleasure more honestly than any words could.

They finished breakfast in comfortable silence. Dawn cleared the plates, humming under her breath, and Andy watched her, feeling something unclench in his chest. When she returned, she paused in the doorway, one ear cocked questioningly.

“Do you have things to do today?” she asked, voice hopeful but not needy.

“Just you,” he said, and it was true.

Dawn laughed, and the sound was as effervescent as champagne—light, irrepressible, a note of brightness that seemed to fill every nook of the suite with impossible warmth. It was the kind of laugh that, if rendered in physical form, would have been a handful of wildflowers thrown onto a white tablecloth. Her cheeks glowed an impossible shade of pink, the faintest down of fur along her jaw and ears turning blushingly rosy as she ducked her head and covered her face with her palms. “I’m meeting the girls in the gardens later, but until then…” she trailed off, voice thinning to a whisper, her fingers peeking apart so one eye could study him, equal parts bashful and hungry. Her ears sank against her scalp in a gesture of anxious vulnerability, or perhaps poorly-concealed excitement, and she looked down at her coffee like it could offer guidance or reassurance.

Andy watched her, heart squeezing in his chest. He had never been the sort to think of himself as cute, but if the look in her eyes was anything to go by, she didn’t need him to be. That realization left him unmoored, not in a dangerous way, but in a way that made him want to try, to do something reckless like reach across the table and touch her hand even though she was clearly bracing for disappointment.

So he did. He stood, the chair legs scraping faintly against the tile, and extended his hand across the gulf of breakfast detritus and sunlight. “Until then,” he said, and the words felt like a promise, or maybe a dare. Dawn hesitated a fraction of a second, but then she placed her hand in his, her fingers trembling but sure. The flush on her cheeks deepened, and she nodded, a single brisk dip of her chin as if agreeing to the terms of a contract she’d been hoping to sign all along.

They lingered at the table for another moment, the mundane world suspended between the gravity of what had already happened and the anticipation of what could happen next. Andy realized, with a jolt, that he was nervous—giddy, even—like a teenager sneaking a partner upstairs while the parents were out. That was a new feeling, and he clung to it as he led her down the hall, their hands still joined and swinging in a rhythm that was both awkward and perfect.

The bedroom was a lazy jumble of sunlight, tossed sheets, and the lingering ghosts of last night’s conversation. Dawn’s watch—one of the few things she’d brought with her into the Hotel—rested on the nightstand, its face turned away from the bed as if granting them privacy. Andy let Dawn step through the doorway first, watching how the light outlined her in a fleeting, golden halo before her silhouette fell into the shady blue of the room.

She paused at the foot of the bed, her hand still in his, though her grip had loosened. “Are you sure?” she asked, barely audible. For a moment Andy thought she meant the bigger question—the one they’d both been skirting for days—but then she glanced at the tangle of sheets, the rumpled pillows, and he understood.

“I’m sure,” he said, squeezing her hand in return. “But you don’t have to—”

Dawn shook her head, silencing him with a look that was more confident than anything she’d shown at breakfast. “I want to,” she said, her voice steady now, her gaze locked on his.

They kissed, not with the frenzied urgency of first encounters, but with the deliberate slowness of people who were learning how to enjoy their own happiness. It was a kiss that said, Let’s see what happens, and also, I’m glad you’re here. Andy felt the shift in her body as she relaxed into him, her arms sliding around his neck, her cottontail bumping lightly against his hip as they gravitated toward the bed.

Dawn’s shyness evaporated in the bedroom’s hush, replaced by a gentle assertiveness that surprised and delighted Andy. She tugged him down onto the mattress, her laughter muffled by his shirt as she pressed her face into his shoulder. They collapsed together, a heap of limbs and overlapping heartbeats, and for a while there was nothing but the sound of their breathing and the slow, seismic thump of his pulse.

Time became elastic, stretching and contracting around the heat of their bodies. Dawn’s hands mapped the whorls of his skin with a reverence that felt almost sacred, as if she was rediscovering the world by touch alone. Andy let himself be held, let himself be wanted, and the vulnerability of it made him dizzy. He found himself talking—soft, half-formed thoughts about the morning light, about how the world looked different from this side of the pillow, about the way her laugh reminded him of being a kid and running barefoot through wet grass. She replied in kind, her breathy voice weaving stories about her family, about the quiet comfort of being needed, about the terror and thrill of starting over.

At some point, Dawn rolled atop him, her hair tumbling around his face like a blackout curtain. She looked down at him, her eyes sharp and serious, and traced the line of his jaw with one tentative finger. “Every time I have you for myself, you’re not what I expected,” she said, and Andy thought he could hear awe in her voice.

“Neither are you,” he answered, and this time he did laugh—quiet and wonderstruck and so full of gratitude it hurt.

They traded secrets, half in whispers, half in touches. Andy learned the precise spot on Dawn’s neck that made her arch and shudder, the way her ears flickered when she was holding back a moan. She discovered the sensitive hollow below his ribs, the way his breath hitched when she bit gently at his collarbone. They practiced their new language, syllables formed from skin and heat and the intricate choreography of two people learning, moment by moment, to trust again.

The sun climbed higher, casting shifting patterns on the blanket and the wall. Dawn’s watch ticked on, unnoticed, time measured not in minutes but in the slow accumulation of shared experience. Andy found himself memorizing the shape of Dawn’s hands, the faint callus on her thumb from years of gardening, the crescent-moon scar at her wrist she said was from a rosebush she’d planted for her mother. He catalogued her quirks—the way she giggled when she was surprised, the way she always started to say something and then doubled back to soften it, the way she sometimes seemed on the verge of tears when she was most at ease. He realized, with a kind of awe, that he wanted to remember all of it, to hold onto these details for as long as possible.

Eventually, when the sunlight had shifted past nine and the room felt like a secret cave, Dawn curled into him, her head pillowed on his chest, her body wrapped around his with absolute trust. They lay there, wordless, the silence so profound it seemed to have mass. Andy stroked her hair, feeling the softness give way to the sweep of her ears, and wondered if this was what real peace felt like: not the absence of chaos, but the presence of something else, something gentle and rare and entirely unexpected.

He didn’t want to break the spell, but eventually Dawn stirred, her hand splaying across his ribs as if testing the solidity of him, or maybe the reality of this moment. She kissed his shoulder, then his jaw, then—after a lingering hesitation—his mouth, slow and sweet.

She propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at him with a mixture of regret and affection. “I really should go,” she murmured, though she made no immediate effort to move. “If I’m late, Liesa’s going to recruit Chloe to come looking.” The prospect seemed to amuse rather than alarm her, but Andy could see the pull of responsibility warring with the desire to stay.

He nodded, knowing better than to try and keep her.

She stood on tiptoe, kissed him gently, then pressed her forehead to his. “I’ll see you at lunch?”

He promised her he would, and watched as she trotted off, ears high, humming as she went.

Andy lingered in the suite, watching the door long after Dawn had gone. The silence rushed in like a tide. He drummed his fingers against his thigh, then caught himself doing it. Stopped. Started again. He circled the bedroom twice, straightened a pillow that didn't need straightening, tugged at the curtains until the light fell exactly wrong. His body hummed with a familiar restlessness—the kind that, if left unchecked, would turn his mind into a locked room where he'd pace for hours. Already he could feel the conversation with Riley scratching at the edges of his thoughts. He jammed his hands into his pockets before the memory could fully form.

His fingers brushed against something solid and warm—the golden keycard.

He remembered it with a little jolt: the keycard Arabella had “enhanced” during the last transformation ceremony, three days ago. She had not made a show of it, touching the keycard with a finger, then telling him to figure it out.

He fished the card from his pocket and turned it over. It looked ordinary enough: thick plastic, gold leaf at the edge, a raised alpha-numeric code on the back. But it was heavier than it should have been, and it prickled his fingers in a way that set his nerves on edge.

He walked back to the touchscreen panel by the elevator. It was the same interface as always: a list of accessible floors, a generic security prompt, a digital readout of time and weather. He hovered the card near the panel, half-expecting something dramatic to happen, but the system only chirped in recognition.

He tapped the floor list, scanning for anything new. Nothing. He tried swiping, pinching, long-pressing—but only three floor options existed: the Suite, the Main Lobby, and the Private Beach he had not even explored yet. No hidden levels, no mysterious destinations.

He frowned, then remembered the Console gift. One of the codes he had received could help, perhaps.

He leaned close to the panel and summoned the keyboard, pressed the tilde key. The blinking cursor of the console appeared. Without thinking, he typed hint.

Nothing happened at first. Then, with a barely perceptible flicker, the floor list slid to the side, revealing a black void beneath. An arrow appeared, small and cartoonish, pointing downwards. It blinked three times, then vanished.

Andy studied the panel, then crouched and ran his fingers along the bottom edge. At the center, just above the join with the wall, he felt a slight dip in the surface—a tiny patch of roughness, almost like a fingerprint sensor. He pressed the card to it.

The panel went dark, then rebooted, this time in a completely different UI: a matte black interface, gold text, and in addition to the three original floor destinations, a single line at the bottomn that read, “H.G.”

He tapped it, and the system asked for confirmation. He pressed yes, more out of habit than expectation, and the elevator doors hissed open with a faint, ozone smell.

He stepped in, the doors gliding shut behind him with unusual finality. The car had no buttons, just a blank wall, and for a moment Andy wondered if he’d just locked himself in an airless box as a prank. Then the floor beneath him shivered, and the car began to descend.

It was faster than usual—almost too fast for comfort, but the acceleration was perfectly smooth. Again, he felt as if the elevator wasn’t only moving vertically. The lights dimmed, and after a few seconds, even the familiar hum of the machinery faded away, replaced by a kind of negative pressure, as if the car was being pulled downwards by something other than gravity.

The digital display above the door counted down in meters, and he watched as it dropped past the known limits of the building: Main Lobby, Private Beach, then into negatives he didn’t know existed. At -100, the car slowed. At -250, it stopped.

Andy’s pulse beat at his wrists, hard and wild. He braced himself, ready for anything, as the doors slid open with a hiss.

He exhaled and stepped forward into the unknown.

The air on the other side of the elevator doors was not air at all, but a warm, honeyed breath—rich with the scent of bruised herbs and slow sunlight, thick enough to taste. Andy stepped out and found himself in a world so impossible, so alien in its beauty, that for several seconds his brain refused to process the scene as real.

He was in a rotunda open to infinity, the ceiling an impossible dome of glass shot through with veins of living gold. Sunlight streamed in slantwise, not from any visible source, but through the mosaic of vines and flowers that twined their way up marble columns and disappeared into the light. The ground was soft, not grass but a dense, living moss that sprang back underfoot. Across the open floor, low couches grew directly from the earth, their cushions shaped from woven vines and dappled in delicate blooms.

Somewhere nearby, a stream burbled, the sound weaving between birdsong and the rustling of unseen creatures. There were no walls—just the endless ring of green, punctuated by archways that led, presumably, deeper into whatever lay beyond. Andy half expected the world to flicker and revert to concrete, the spell to collapse and show him bare stone and dust. Instead, the illusion only deepened, every detail becoming more crisp the longer he stood in it.

He felt naked in his t-shirt and jeans, as if he’d arrived wildly underdressed to a secret meeting of druids.

A voice, low and melodic, drifted across the chamber. Andy turned and saw what he thought, at first, was a woman kneeling in a patch of clover. She was slender and long-limbed, her hair the color of dark roast coffee, her skin dusted with pale gold freckles. She wore nothing but a loose slip of white linen and a necklace strung with polished river stones. As she bent to pluck a fistful of herbs, Andy saw the horns—small, elegantly curved, set just above her temples—and, when she turned, the broad, velvet-soft ears that belonged more to a Holstein than to anything human. With a start, he saw that her hands had three fingers, two of which were black, and her legs were the legs of a cow, with a huge udder between them, in addition to her enormous breasts.

She caught his gaze, her expression open and almost childlike, then returned to her grazing. He stared, not out of rudeness, but in awe at the sheer audacity of the world to invent a woman like her. The whole place felt engineered to short-circuit his sense of the plausible.

Before he could approach, another presence announced itself—not with birdsong, but with the sharp, practiced click of high heels on polished stone. A woman in a sharply tailored black dress and impeccable makeup strode toward him, a digital clipboard cradled in one arm and a customer-service smile fixed in place. She was unmistakably a Mildred, but this one’s badge read “Florence – Guest Services,” and her hair was pulled into a bun so severe it looked like a sculptural threat.

“Welcome, Master Andy,” she said, her voice as smooth as whipped butter but with a faint chemical aftertaste. “You’ve found your way to the Hollow Garden. How delightful!” The deadpan delivery suggested she felt anything but delighted. “The Host will want to see you at once.”

The Mildred made no effort to conceal her scrutiny as she sized him up. “If you’d follow me, please.”

Andy nodded, mostly because he didn’t trust his voice not to quaver. Florence led him across the rotunda at a brisk clip, her stride only occasionally interrupted by the need to step around a particularly stubborn patch of wildflowers or a tangle of moss. They passed beneath an arbor bursting with lilac and something that glowed faintly blue, the scent so intense it nearly made Andy dizzy.

On the far side, the path narrowed and wound through what could only be called a miniature forest—every inch of space claimed by riotous plant life, leaves so large and lush they blocked out the artificial sun above. The moss was replaced by a springy, loam-rich soil, and the temperature ticked up by a degree with each step. The air was full of tiny, floating motes—seeds, maybe, or something engineered to look like them.

Florence did not bother with small talk. She guided him with the efficiency of someone running on a timer, pausing only once to gesture at a field where half a dozen women lounged in the grass, their bodies glinting with improbable scales or fur or the occasional iridescent wing. One had no arms and the lower body of a snake. Some napped; others grazed, or simply stared at the canopy, utterly unbothered by the parade of strangeness around them. None of them spoke, and some barely looked human. None looked sapient. One reminded him faintly of Harper, though this one was far less elegant, and far more… lost.

“What is this place?” He murmured, but Florence didn’t answer.

Florence led him to a low building grown from living wood and glass, a cross between a greenhouse and a cottage. She rapped twice on the door, waited exactly three seconds, and then opened it for him.

“Please wait here,” she said, bowing slightly. “The Host will arrive presently.”

He stepped inside. The office was shockingly normal, if one ignored the fact that the ceiling was a lattice of living vines and the floor was a single slab of green-veined marble. A desk—plain, modern, slightly scuffed—stood at the far end, and behind it, a window looked out on what seemed to be a perfectly ordinary vegetable garden. The only decoration was a vase of wildflowers and a battered leather chair.

Andy sat on a bench and tried to regulate his breathing. The scents and the silence worked quickly, and by the time the door opened again, he felt almost at peace.

Arabella entered without preamble, and for the first time since Andy had met her, he saw her not as the glittering Host of the Harem Hotel, but as a woman—real, raw, and momentarily unguarded. No sequined gown clung to her frame, just a pair of loose linen pants and a crisp white blouse, the sleeves rolled up to expose her slender, freckled forearms. Her signature mane of copper hair, which usually unfurled in an elaborate, impossible wave, was that day merely swept back into a ponytail that had surrendered to gravity and let a few loose strands frame her face. She wore no jewelry aside from a thin silver chain with a dull, unadorned pendant; her lips were bare of color, her skin unvarnished. She looked, for all the world, like a research scientist on a field day in her own botanical oddity.

Yet even stripped of her usual pageantry, Arabella radiated authority. When her eyes met Andy’s, they were tired but unflinching, and her smile—when it arrived—was genuine, warm, almost maternal.

“Andy,” she said, and something in her voice bypassed the Hosty bravado altogether. It was the way a loving teacher might greet a student who’d just returned from a very long, very dangerous journey. “I’m so glad you found your way here. I had feared it would take you longer to figure out the way.”

Andy, who had been about to rise in greeting, hesitated in confusion. He felt ridiculous—uncertain whether to bow, salute, or simply offer a handshake. He opted for a half-stand, awkwardly settling back onto the edge of the mossy bench when Arabella waved him down with a gentle flick of her wrist.

She took the chair behind the desk, crossing her legs, and regarded him for a moment with an expression that hovered between fondness, regret, and a trace of professional pride. Andy busied himself studying the room until it bordered on rude. There was a faint sound—like the ticking of a metronome or a heartbeat—emanating from somewhere beneath the marble slab of the floor.

Arabella waited until the silence became laden, then broke it with a sigh. “Did you enjoy the elevator ride?” she asked, her tone sly but devoid of mockery.

Andy let out a nervous laugh, surprised at himself for being able to summon one. “I’ve had weirder, but not by much. I thought I’d end up in a maintenance tunnel or get gassed with sedative. Instead I get… this.” He gestured at the impossible garden visible through the glass, the campfire-smoke edge of his skepticism dulled by genuine awe.

Arabella’s lips curled, then faded back to neutral. “The Hollow Garden,” she said. She gestured, encompassing the rotunda, the riot of flora, the world beyond. “It’s where I care for those the game has broken. Or left behind.”

Something in the way she said it—soft, like a confession—made Andy sit up straighter. He waited, expecting her to launch into a pre-planned monologue, but she seemed in no hurry. Instead, she folded her hands on the desk, fingers interlaced, eyes lowered in what struck Andy as genuine contemplation.

“Most people,” she began, “assume eliminated contestants always go home with their Masters, and live out their lives, as they are, in the Master’s care. Like a conjuring trick with pretty girls as the handkerchiefs.” She looked up at Andy, her gaze steady. “But that isn’t how it works, Andy. It never was.”

Andy’s mind tripped over old memories—of Katherine, of the rumor-mill speculation he had heard about the fates of the losers. Of Jenny, the woman Harper had mentioned two weeks earlier, doomed to live eternity as an eternally aware coffee table.

He glanced past Arabella, through the window, at the distant figures moving in the garden’s outer ring: at the woman with blue moth wings, at the horned, cow-footed grazer, at the small, hunched shapes curled beneath the shade of giant curling ferns. He realized, with a jolt, that the air was full of them—half-hidden in the brush, the rocks, the trees. Some watched him with the vacant curiosity of livestock; some never looked up at all.

Arabella’s gaze followed his, and for a heartbeat the two of them watched the wild, altered women in silence.

She spoke again, her voice so low and even that Andy nearly missed the words: “Some are abandoned by their Masters, even before the game is over. Their stories end not with a bang, but with a long, cold nothing. Katherine, for example. Others, not always the luckier ones, make it out into the world—fragmented, altered, helpless, sometimes not even knowing who they are. A few I found and brought back here when their Masters died, or when their lives went… poorly. In one instance, I brought some back when their Master broke one of the tenets of The HH, even after the show was over. The Hollow Garden is for all of them. Even the ones who never made it through a full Season—contestants that were not eliminated, but whose season was canceled, or put on hold, and who were… redistributed, the accidental children of the system. Those I have claimed stay here, a respite before they choose their next step.” Her face was serene, but he could hear a current of pain beneath it.

Andy’s mind rebelled at this, tried to fit it into a schema of justice, or even of karma, and found only unease. “I thought they all went home,” he said, because it was the only thing he could think to say. His voice was thick, and he was ashamed of how boyish he sounded.

Arabella’s answering smile was gentle, almost apologetic. “Many do. Not all. Some are too broken to function in the real world on their own, and ask to stay. Others are left behind because their Master does not wish the burden. ****, trauma, exploitation—those wounds run too deep. Some are too changed to be permitted in public, unless you think people would ignore a woman with an udder and a tail, the mind of a toddler or a predilection to eat grass. When their Master is gone, their lives can end rather quickly if they are not rescued.” She nodded to the window, where the cow-woman from before had now lain down in the clover, udder visible and unembarrassed, napping in the sun.

Andy tried and failed to picture what would have become of Katherine if she had ever made it out of the island. Would she have lived in a box, a curiosity in some private collection? He felt a wave of guilt and sympathy so strong it nearly made him sick.

Arabella continued: “When I can, I bring them here. It’s not paradise, but it’s safe. I can’t make them whole again, but I can give them a life, and some measure of happiness. Some of them even help care for the new arrivals. Sometimes there are even friendships, though…” She trailed off, shaking her head, then allowed herself a tiny, wry smile. “I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

He shook his head. “No. I… I want to know. I need to.” He meant it, too. It was as if seeing this place, as well as Arabella’s unmasked honesty, had pulled a splinter from a wound he didn’t realize he’d been carrying.

She nodded, her gaze dropping again. “Most Masters don’t care. They’re told what they want to hear. The one in a hundred who asks is comforted with a lie about rehabilitation, or a happy transfer to a better life. But the Hollow Garden is where the stories really end.” She let the words stand, unsoftened.

He drew in a long, slow breath. “But did you not do this to them in the first place? So you’re… what? Their warden?”

Arabella blinked, startled, then began to shake her head—but stopped, reconsidered, and shrugged. “I did. And it is a burden I cannot shed. But even Hosts as old as me can acknowledge their responsibilities. When a Master dies, or a contestant is left behind… those are the Host’s duty to handle, at least as long as the Host cares at all. Caretaker, maybe. Sometimes therapist. Sometimes mother. Maybe warden, too, for a few of them. I think I’m more like a nurse on an old asylum ward, if you want the honest truth.” She gave him a look that dared him to be repulsed.

He wasn’t, not exactly. If anything, the care in her voice made the idea more tragic, not less. “Why tell me? Why let me see this?”

She leaned back in her chair, the wood creaking softly beneath her. “Because you asked, Andy. Because you fought so none of your women would end up here, and I suspect you will continue fighting, no matter how much harder it gets from here. Or because you saw something no one else noticed—something that would have driven anyone else mad.” She tapped the side of her temple with a forefinger. “You’re the only Master I’ve ever met who noticed the discrepancies in the system, who realized the numbers never added up. You are the only Master who has earned the love of his harem so quickly, and welded them to each other into a family faster than I have ever seen. You are the only Master who, given awesome power, immediately sought to limit its use. How often have you used Command? Have you even thought of using Coauthor, yet? Or using Console on any of your Contestants? And you’re the only one who ever tried to crack the elevator. So you earned a tour, and, I suppose, the truth.”

Andy tried to decide if this was a reward, a punishment, or some cosmic joke at his expense. He felt unmoored, like a character in a story who’d wandered onto the wrong set.

He gathered himself. “Are they happy?” he asked. “Any of them?”

Arabella considered this for a long time. “Some are. A few find peace. Most… adapt. Some never do.” She gave a small, sad smile. “But here, at least, they’re not forgotten. They are taken care of. That matters more than you think. I can think of only one or two other Hosts who have chosen to take responsibility for eliminated Contestants. You know one of them, Shar, though in her case, the Contestants were not of her making. Another one, Cassandra, is the Host of a season with a Master named Mark Garret. A season, I may add, suspiciously similar, in many ways, to ours.”

He nodded, his mind shuddering through the implications. He tried to imagine the kind of person who would leave women like this behind. He tried, and found he couldn’t. Not really.

Arabella turned back to him, and for the first time since he’d met her, she seemed genuinely tired—not in body, but in spirit. “You can go back upstairs whenever you like. But I hoped… perhaps… you’d want to see more.”

Andy swallowed, the words sticking. “I do,” he managed. “I want to see everything.”

Arabella nodded, as if she’d known he would say that. “Thank you,” she said, and it sounded like she meant it. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

She pressed a button on the side of the desk, and a door at the rear of the office swung open, the hinges sighing like a satisfied cat.

“Shall we?” she said, and the game, for once, felt like something holy.

He followed her out, and the light swallowed them whole.

The light was so pure and direct it was almost a liquid, sluicing around corners and through leaves, pooling on the ground in shallow, golden basins. Arabella led Andy along a winding flagstone path, her steps sure but unhurried, as if she wanted him to absorb every nuance of the place. The farther they walked, the less the world above seemed to matter; even the memories of the suite, the ocean, the endless drama of the contest faded in comparison to the absolute now of the Hollow Garden.

She stopped at a fork in the path, beside a low, hand-built wall that divided a carpet of purple clover from a more formal garden lined with feverfew and glossy-leaved camellia. A wooden sign, carved in simple script, read: “Clinic.”

“The heart of the operation,” Arabella said, gesturing toward the entryway. “Come in, please.”

Andy followed, the door opening onto a wide, sun-bright atrium that hummed with a gentle undercurrent of order. Staff moved quietly along the edges, some Mildreds in stark black, others—clearly more specialized—wearing crisp, black coats or soft black scrubs. Everything was alive with purposeful activity, but the mood was softer than any hospital he’d ever known. There was laughter, here and there, and the low, musical cadence of voices that belonged to people who genuinely liked what they did. Andy blinked. Were those the voices of Mildreds? Arabella seemed to notice his disquiet and smiled. “The HH is a place of healing for everyone, Andy. And anything that steps, crawls, squirms, walks, flies, or swims on its set. Mildred is unique, and most of it has grievances it may take aeons to smooth over. But some of it understands. It’s a start, I think.”

A woman waited for them at the check-in, her uniform a simple white tunic with a black armband embroidered in gold. She had the familiar Mildred face, but there was a warmth to her that the others lacked—a gentle tilt of the chin, a smile that didn’t overreach. “Welcome, Dr. Hornblower is expecting you in her office,” she said, gesturing to a hallway lined with potted citrus and slow-turning ceiling fans. Andy started at the name, and found he was smiling. He followed, his mind racing ahead to catalogue all the ways this place refused to be ordinary.

They stopped before a glass door, the name etched in neat script: Dinah Hornblower, MD. “She’ll be with you in just a moment,” the Mildred said, then glided off, leaving Andy and Arabella in the hush of the waiting area.

He tried not to fidget, but the urge was impossible to resist. “So, Dinah runs this place?” he asked, hoping to fill the silence.

Arabella’s lips curved, but her eyes stayed fixed on the framed art behind the reception desk—botanical illustrations, some of them quite old. “Dinah has become the heart of the clinic, since her arrival,” she said. “She’s very talented. And she’s seen more of Harem Hotel, first-hand, than almost anyone. I think you’ll enjoy reconnecting with her.”

The click of the door handle stilled the air.

Dinah Hornblower entered like she’d been born to command a room: 5’7”, lean and sharp, her bobbed brown hair tucked behind lynx-like ears, the white coat cut perfectly to her six-breasted frame. Her face was slightly older than he remembered from her flight through the Backstage weeks ago—not aged, exactly, but settled, like marble that had learned to enjoy being a statue. The first thing Andy noticed was her confidence, so different from when he had last seen her. At peace. The second was that she looked directly at him, no trace of awkwardness or submission in her posture.

“Andy,” she said with a smile, warmth rising in her voice before the rest of her caught up. “I didn’t believe it when Arabella said you were down here.” She crossed the room in three strides and hugged him—not a clinical, we’ve-met-once-before hug, but a proper squeeze, like she’d been holding it in all year.

He laughed, the tension draining from his shoulders. “Dinah, you look incredible. I—wow. I honestly thought you’d end up… somewhere else.”

She stepped back, hands on his upper arms, eyes bright. “I did, too. For a while.” She shot a look at Arabella, who only nodded, as if this were an old conversation. “But here I am. Running the ward, as my first intern used to call it. And I love it.”

Arabella smiled, stepping aside to give them space. “I’ll leave you two to catch up. I have some rounds.” She vanished as smoothly as she’d entered, the door hissing shut behind her.

Dinah gestured to a pair of armchairs set by a living wall, the air rich with the scent of basil and mint. “Sit,” she said. “You want water, coffee, maybe a—” She paused, ears flicking. “Sorry. I still do the whole ‘hostess’ thing even though everyone here already has what they need.”

Andy took the chair, feeling oddly seen. “A coffee would be great. You’re really the doctor here?”

She grinned, showing the faintest suggestion of fang. “OB/GYN, psych minor. That was before… well, you know. Season Clusterfuck. But I’m the only medical staff down here who actually remembers going to med school, so Arabella put me in charge.” She scanned his face, as if reading his pulse at twenty feet. “Do you remember our meeting?”

He winced. “I do, now. Arabella fogged my memory before I voted for the challenge, but after that, it came back to me. I remember you were running. And that you looked scared to ****.”

Dinah shrugged, her mouth twisting in a self-effacing smile. “I was. For a while.” She sat across from him, legs crossed, the tails of her white coat flicking with each movement of her stubby lynx tail. “It was… what’s the polite word? Unmooring. Waking up somewhere you’re not supposed to be, surrounded by women who all think you’re either a threat or a victim.” She let her hands rest on her knees, and Andy was struck by their steadiness.

He watched her, trying to reconcile the memory of the wild-eyed, panicked woman who’d landed, broken knee, onto the white sands of the beach on the night of the first challenge, with the person in front of him now—composed, alert, even a little sly. “You seem different,” he said, not intending it as a compliment but unable to keep the admiration from his voice. “A lot more together.”

Dinah’s ears flicked forward. “Funny, that’s what the staff here says too. Turns out, if you stop running and start helping, it gets easier. I like having something to do with my hands. Always have.” She drummed her fingers against the armrest, then looked up, gaze sharp and direct. “But you—you’re the real surprise. I feared you’d end up like every other Master they put through the wringer.” She didn’t say the name, but Andy almost heard it in the omission. “Instead, you’re here. And you want to know how the story ends, not just how the game is played. That’s rare, Andy.”

He tried to laugh, but it came out as a sigh. “I’m not sure I have much of a choice. Arabella made it sound like I was the only one who ever cared.”

Dinah cocked an eyebrow. “She’s right. Most of them don’t even see us, not really. Not even when we end up like…” She gestured out the window, where the half-moth, half-girl woman sat beneath a fruit tree, wings spread to catch the simulated sun. “You’d be surprised how many just discard us. It’s easier than taking responsibility.”

He nodded, feeling the old ache in his chest again, the one he’d tried to outrun for half a lifetime. “I’m sorry,” he said, and this time he meant it in every possible way.

“Don’t be.” She smiled, softer now. “You didn’t make the rules. But I hear you might be able to bend them, a little.” Her gaze flicked down to his hands, the coffee cup cradled between them, and then back up to his face. “Besides, I like what I do now. Arabella lets me run the clinic my way. We focus on care, not compliance. Nobody’s **** to do anything, and everyone gets a say in their own recovery. Or at least, in their care. Even the really lost ones.” Her mouth twisted again, but not in bitterness. “You should see it. It’s… different from the Upstairs. Calmer. Realer, I think.”

Andy found himself smiling back at her. “You’re happier here.”

Dinah nodded. “I am. Even with the tails and extra boobs. Actually, those help. Keeps the staff on their toes. Ms. E wasn’t kidding, you know. This was really a mild exit transformation.” She glanced down at her chest, then made a show of adjusting her coat, as if to illustrate. “You get used to it. The weird, I mean. It becomes just another thing to solve.” Her voice warmed. “Honestly? I think I found my calling.”

He blinked, surprised by the sudden pride he felt for her. “Good. I mean it. You deserve to be happy.”

She looked away, and Andy could see her wrestling with a response, something she wanted to say but couldn’t quite get out. After a moment, she shook her head, ears flicking in amusement. “You know what the best part is?” she asked, voice dropping conspiratorially. “Nobody’s trying to make me into a pet, or a doll, or a pornographic science experiment. Just a doctor. Just a person.” She snorted, then added, “That’s not nothing, in this place.”

He started to ask, but the door opened, and Arabella returned. She wore the same linen and lightness as before, but this time she held a small, leather-bound notebook in her hands, its spine creased with use.

“Did I miss anything?” she asked, her voice as breezy as the air outside. She looked between the two of them, her gaze sharp but not intrusive.

Dinah answered first. “Just catching up.” She stood, rolling her shoulders as if loosening a knot. “Andy’s curious about the program.”

Arabella smiled, but there was a flicker of something behind her eyes—pride, maybe, or gratitude. “He’s always been curious,” she said. She set the notebook on the arm of the couch and sat beside it, tucking one leg under the other in a posture that was both graceful and utterly at odds with her usual stage presence.

Andy glanced at the notebook, then back at Arabella. “Is that my file?” he joked, only half sure he wanted the answer.

She shook her head, but her mouth quirked at the corners. “No. It’s a diary. The first one I kept when I started running the Garden. Well, a copy of it, at least.” She opened it to a random page, her fingers tracing the words as if re-reading an old letter. “I was terrible at it, at first. I wanted to fix everyone, make them whole again. It took years to understand that sometimes the best thing you can do is just… let people be. Let them find their own way.”

Dinah nodded, and for a moment the two women shared a look that was equal parts teacher and student, mentor and mentee, mother and daughter. Andy felt like an intruder, but also like a witness to something important.

Arabella closed the notebook and looked at Andy. “Would you like to see the rest of the Garden?” she asked. Her tone was gentle, but there was an undercurrent of challenge—a dare, almost, to face what most Masters would have run from.

He nodded, his curiosity outweighing his dread. “I’d like that.”

Dinah grinned, the old mischief returning. “You’ll need a lab coat,” she said, then added, “I’m kidding. But seriously, some of the patients here are… intense. Don’t stare.”

Andy laughed, surprised at the ease with which the tension had dissolved. “I’ll try not to.”

Arabella rose, gesturing for him to follow. As they stepped out into the hallway, the light hit them in a wash of gold and green, the scent of basil and sunlight growing stronger with each step.

Dinah moved with the brisk, determined grace of a woman who had spent a lifetime navigating labyrinths: hospital corridors, university hallways, or the twisting, metaphorical passages of life as a transformed contestant. Her six-breasted silhouette and clipped tail were as much a part of her now as her crisp, confident stride. Andy found himself falling in step behind her, Arabella close at his side, her presence a low, steadying thrum that made the unfamiliar fade into mere peculiarity.

It struck Andy, as they passed through the automatic doors of the recovery wing, that this place—this Garden—was something else entirely. If the floors above were a casino built for spectacle and sensation, this was… a sanctuary for the aftermath. The liminal zone where contestants too broken or too strange to return to the "real world" were offered a chance, however slim, to reassemble the story of themselves.

He stole glances through each open doorway. Some rooms glowed with sunlamp warmth, growing basil and climbing beans in windowboxes; others were dim, cool, and silent, the beds occupied by women in various states of transformation. One patient, long and willowy as a willow itself, lay in a hammock, her arms and legs extended by delicate, green-tinged branches; she blinked serenely from her cocoon, unbothered by the world. The tag next to her door named her “Maureen F.” Another sat propped against the headboard, eyes glassy with sedation, her lips parted to reveal a tongue that looked more like a bluebell flower than human musculature. The tag called her “Joan C.” A third one, black hair spread around her like a halo of darkness, curled up in the fetal position, shivering, wearing a simple blue dress that resembled those of ‘50s housewives. He couldn’t see her face, only the tag of her name on the wall next to the door: “Sarah W.”

Every so often, a pair of eyes would track Andy’s movement—or rather, his scent, his presence, his ineffable status as “Master.” He saw the tension in their shoulders, the way arms curled tighter around knees, the microsecond of flinch as he and his retinue advanced down the corridor. It was not fear, precisely, but the wary, animal expectation of someone who’d learned that kindness did not always follow proximity. A fox-tailed woman in a patient gown froze mid-stretch, hackles rising; down the next hall, a girl with dragonfly wings and enormous eyes flicked them with involuntary speed, her whole body vibrating between the impulse to flee and the inability to move.

He felt it all, and it scraped at something in him he’d thought long ago callused over.

Without turning, Arabella reached out and let her hand rest for a moment on Andy’s forearm, as light as a feather and twice as reassuring. “You’re doing fine,” she murmured, so quietly that only he could have heard. Dinah, ahead, had already pivoted into a side corridor, her white coat flashing like a signal flag.

Andy became acutely aware of his body: the breadth of his shoulders, the natural timbre of his footsteps, the heaviness of his stance. He realized, with a peculiar blend of shame and clarity, that he was projecting Master in a place defined by the harm that Masters had left behind. He let his posture soften, let his eyes dip, his stride go from confident to cautious. Instinctively, Andy let his body relax into the form he suspected the women would find more comfortable: Andi, the softer, smaller, and almost painfully nonthreatening version of himself.

The change was nearly invisible, but it rippled ahead of him. In the next room, the moth-woman who'd been clutching at the sheets released her grip, her antennae lowering. The fox-tailed patient uncurled slightly, her tail wrapping around her knees. Dinah, checking something on her terminal, glanced back—and froze, blinking rapidly.

"Andy?" she whispered, her clipboard lowering. "You're… a woman?"

"It's Andi with an 'i', when I'm like this," she said softly. "Gift from two weeks ago. Thought it might help. Most of them were hurt by men, weren't they?"

Dinah's clinical mask slipped, revealing something raw underneath. "Yes," she murmured, ears flattening momentarily against her head. "Most of them were."

Arabella's fingers brushed Andi's wrist—the lightest touch, but electric with approval.

For the first time since stepping into the Hollow Garden, Andi felt something like belonging. Not comfort, not happiness; those were too far-off and too conditional. But a sense that she was, at the very least, permitted to share the air with these women, to witness their fragility and to hold space for it, instead of adding to the pile.

Dinah slowed, then stopped completely. “This is my favorite part of the job,” she said. Her voice had changed, too—gone was the brisk, clinical affect, replaced by something softer and more reverent. “They all think I’m here to keep them in line, but really, I just want to make sure they get to remember who they are. Or find out, if they never got the chance.”

Arabella had wandered to the window, arms folded, gaze on the distant gardens. She seemed content to let the conversation unfold without steering it, which was so unlike her usual role as Host that it made Andi uneasy. Did Arabella trust that things would unfold as they needed to? Or was she, too, getting something out of this small experiment in empathy?

They lingered in the lounge until the next set of rounds. Dinah pointed out some of the more extraordinary patients: the woman with a literal heart of gold, whose blood glittered but who could never refuse any favors, any requests; the girl whose limbs were replaced with articulated clockwork (she could time her speech to the second, never stuttered, but had nightmares of winding down and never waking up). Each story was weirder than the last, but never played for shock. Dinah spoke of them with the fond specificity of someone who’d read every chart and learned every secret, and Andi listened with a hunger she didn’t know she’d had.

At last, Dinah led them down a quieter corridor, past what looked like an indoor greenhouse—a literal garden, lush and humid, filled with bioluminescent orchids and the sound of trickling fountains. They stopped before a blue-painted door, above which a hand-carved wooden sign read Gentle Hearth.

Dinah turned, her posture as straight as a question mark. “Ready?” she asked. This time, there was nothing performative about it. She was giving Andi the choice to enter, or not.

Andi looked to Arabella, who was watching her with an intensity that bordered on worship. Or perhaps hope. Andi nodded, feeling the strange coalescence of past and present, masculine and feminine, dread and anticipation, settle around her like a second skin.