Questions of Doubt

Marissa liked running the garden in the hour before breakfast, before the dew burned off and the rest of the harem started their day. She told herself it was for her legs, her health, the clarity it lent to her mind. But there were days, like this one, where clarity was the last thing she wanted. She pounded the gravel path harder, faster, rounding each bend with a pivot so precise it would make her old track coach weep. The rest of her could be tired, but her mind always seemed to stay a quarter-lap ahead, worry riding shotgun, never dropping the pace.

She was three loops in, legs tingling, sports bra already sticking, when she finally admitted defeat and slowed to a walk. The garden felt too large today, or she felt too small for it. Every inch of the place was cultivated to radiate serenity: low boxwood hedges, winding flagstones, bamboo fountains tucked under flowering dogwood, an impossible number of benches that had never once looked inviting to her. Somewhere, a bellbird warbled from a hidden perch. She took it as a taunt.

She wiped her forehead on her arm and tried not to think about the reason she was running so hard, which of course only made it clearer. In six hours she’d have her date with Andy, and in seven she would see her sister. She did not want to see her sister. Correction: she wanted it so much it made her queasy, and she could not afford to show it, not here, not with anyone watching. She slowed to a stop beside one of the larger benches, the kind with a curve to it, and sat, hands in her lap, eyes on her running shoes.

She counted down her pulse: seventy-six, sixty-nine, sixty-two. It did not make her calmer.

She was still counting when she heard footsteps on the path, measured and gentle, a rhythm so familiar it didn’t take long to ID. Dawn appeared at the far end of the loop, carrying two paper cups and walking with the careful gait of someone determined not to spill. Marissa almost smiled; she did not know anyone else here who moved like that, like her first job in the world was to be unintrusive.

Dawn saw her, smiled, and walked over without breaking stride. She handed Marissa a cup, then folded herself onto the far end of the bench, hands around her own. They sat for a second, side by side, neither looking at the other. Marissa smelled the coffee and took a long swallow. It was, predictably, perfect.

“I saw you lapping,” Dawn said. “That your new record?”

Marissa snorted, then immediately regretted the sound. “Not even close,” she said. “Just had some energy I couldn’t shake.”

Dawn nodded, content to let that hang. They watched the garden for a while. There was a single bumblebee working the hydrangea. A Mildred knelt in the distance with a trowel, tending to something that did not look like it needed help.

Dawn broke the silence first. “You seeing Andy today?” she asked, with the tone of someone who wasn’t just making conversation.

Marissa nodded. “Afternoon,” she said. “I haven’t decided the details yet.” She took another sip of coffee, hoping the caffeine would trick her heart into something like steadiness.

“Big day,” Dawn said. “You’re seeing your sister, too.”

It wasn’t a question. Marissa nodded again, slower this time.

Dawn was quiet, the way she always was with guests at the hotel, or with someone who’d had a rough night and needed more than just a breakfast tray. She let the moment fill itself. “How’s she doing?” Dawn asked, and Marissa knew it was a test: did she want to talk about it, or not?

She found herself slipping into the register she used with clients, a voice built for putting the other person at ease. “Sarah’s fine,” Marissa said, carefully. “She’s got a carer—excellent reputation. The facility where she goes for outpatient care is one of the best. She likes it there. She’s made friends.”

Dawn nodded, a tiny approving smile. “That’s good. Sounds like she’s got a good support system.”

Marissa nodded back, and for a second they just sat, the only movement the gentle steam of their cups.

Dawn let the silence breathe. Then, “You’re worried about something, though.”

Marissa shrugged, but it was so forced even she noticed. “I’m always worried about her,” she said, and hated how bland it sounded. “I just want to make sure she’s happy. That she’s really okay.”

Dawn didn’t say anything. She just looked at Marissa, the way a good nurse looked at a chart before changing the IV.

Marissa looked away, hands clenching the coffee. “I’m making it a bigger deal than it is,” she said, softly. “Sorry.”

Dawn shook her head. “I don’t think you are,” she said. “You ever talk about it, what it was like?”

Marissa’s mouth went tight. “There’s nothing to talk about. She was born that way, I knew what I was signing up for when I took over. I just… sometimes I wish I could do more. That’s all.”

The bench creaked as Dawn shifted. “You know, my youngest brother, Sebastian, he used to get in trouble every week. School, home, didn’t matter. We were always picking up after him, my dad and me. When my mom passed, it got worse. But he still turned out okay.” She glanced over, the smile barely there. “You can’t stop the whole world from hurting people, Marissa. Sometimes just showing up is enough.”

Marissa didn’t answer right away. She drank the rest of her coffee in a single swallow, then set the cup down on the bench. “She never wanted to be a burden,” Marissa said, the words rough-edged. “She’d apologize if I had to miss a party, or a trip, or anything. She always said she’d be fine if I wanted to… live my own life. As if that was an option.”

“It wasn’t?” Dawn asked, gentle as spring.

Marissa thought about it. “Maybe. I don’t know. I made her my life. It’s not something I could just turn off.”

Dawn nodded, still quiet. “What about now?”

Marissa didn’t answer right away. She traced the rim of the paper cup, picking at the little seam with her thumb. “I guess… I guess I’m afraid to go today and find out she doesn’t need me anymore. That she’s been fine all along, and the years I spent organizing my whole life around her were just—” She stopped, not knowing the word.

Dawn watched her, waiting.

Marissa shook her head, embarrassed. “Never mind. It’s dumb. She’s my sister, I love her. I’m supposed to want her to be okay, right?”

Dawn tilted her head, giving Marissa the space to answer her own question. Marissa didn’t.

A crow called from the rooftop, sharp and sudden. For a minute, they just listened to the garden, the footsteps of the gardener, the faint rush of water in the fountain.

Dawn said, “My brother Luis moved out a month after I did. I thought he’d never make it. But I think maybe he did better because he knew we were rooting for him, even if we couldn’t always fix it. Maybe it’s okay if she doesn’t need you the way she used to. Maybe it means you did a good job.”

Marissa let out a little huff of air, not quite a laugh. “That’s the therapist answer, you know.”

“Yeah,” Dawn grinned. “Sorry. Learned from the best.”

Marissa smiled back, soft and genuine this time. “It’s not a bad answer.”

From across the garden, the door of the Atelier swung open and Katherine emerged, her arms streaked with blue and white chalk, her black hair caught up in a messy ponytail swinging down to her knees. She looked looser, younger, than Marissa had ever seen her. She paused on the path when she saw them, then started toward the bench, hands planted on her hips.

She stopped a few paces away and looked at Marissa, then at Dawn, then back at Marissa. She didn’t say anything, of course, but the force of her attention was enough to make Marissa’s spine go stiff.

Katherine studied her for a second longer, then sat down at Marissa’s other side, folding her legs onto the bench and leaning back until her head nearly touched the shrubbery. She gave Marissa a side-eye, then tipped her head a little, as if to say: you can finish the story.

Marissa looked at her, then at Dawn, then down at her lap. “It’s just… sometimes I wonder if I spent so long taking care of her, I forgot what I was supposed to want for myself. Like, if I stopped wanting anything for me, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much when I couldn’t have it.” She looked at her hands. “Or if it was gone, or never came.”

Dawn said, “You ever want something for yourself?” The question was warm, not a test.

Marissa’s first instinct was to say no, to default to the answer she gave her clients. Instead, she shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, softly. “I think I do.”

Katherine made a sound—a little huff, just air—but it landed, the right punctuation.

Marissa looked at her, and Katherine caught her gaze, blue-green eyes locked. There was nothing soft about the way she looked, but there was no mockery, either. Just the shared knowledge of a thing too big to fit in words.

Marissa held the look for a moment, then turned back to Dawn. “Sorry,” she said, laughing at herself. “This is so stupid. I’m just nervous. That’s all.”

Dawn grinned, and for a second it was impossible to tell if she bought it or not. “I get nervous, too,” she said. “Sometimes I talk too much when I do.”

Marissa made a face. “Yeah. Me too.”

“Want to run another lap?” Dawn offered, bright and utterly sincere.

Marissa almost laughed, then stopped. “No. I want to sit for a second.” She looked at the sky, then at the gardener, who had moved on to the next bed.

Katherine reached over and covered Marissa’s hand with her own. Her palm was warm and dry, and the gesture was so immediate it startled Marissa into silence. Katherine just held it there, the grip gentle but unrelenting, until Marissa felt her breathing slow for the first time all morning.

“Thanks,” Marissa said, and she meant it.

Dawn sipped her coffee and nodded at Katherine. “You know, I think you might be the best therapist here.”

Katherine made a face at her—an utterly deadpan, slow blink that was more eloquent than a page of text.

Marissa couldn’t help it. She laughed, sharp and unguarded, the relief of it crackling up her whole body.

Dawn grinned at her, and Katherine just squeezed her hand.

The tension bled out of Marissa, finally. The rest of the world felt a little less huge. She sat up straighter, shoulders squared, and looked at her friends on either side of her. She was still nervous, but it felt smaller now, a thing she could pocket and take with her instead of a wave she was about to drown in.

She said, “I should get ready for breakfast.”

Dawn stood, brushed the crumbs from her lap, and offered Marissa a hand up. Katherine let go, standing as well, and for a second all three stood side by side, looking out at the garden as if they owned it.

Marissa turned to them, suddenly shy, as if she was about to ask a favor she’d never allowed herself before. “Will you—can you two come with me? I can use the company.”

Dawn nodded. “Of course.”

Katherine smiled, a closed-lipped, knowing thing, then nodded too.

Marissa let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

Together, the three of them walked back up the garden path, their footsteps soft on the gravel, the morning sun at their backs.

The Sky Archive in the late morning was all fogged glass and soft echo, a city of stacks just waking. Claire was there first, as always, set up at the long central table with her leather notebook, her writing pad, her collection of colored pens, and three mechanical pencils that looked like they’d been through a war. Her hands moved in sharp, unhurried bursts—notes copied, web pulled tighter, then a moment to unspool a tangle of her own hair from the pencil tip before attacking the next node in the graph.

The blue rose was there too, sitting under a glass bell. It wasn’t the one that was present at Laura’s resurrection, of course. But it was the one Arabella had gifted Emi, back in the First Round, and Emi had offered for Claire’s study. Claire didn’t look at it as she worked, but sometimes her left hand drifted to tap the glass, as if it might speed the process.

Chloe showed up an hour in, carrying a tray with two thermoses and an overstuffed folder from the botany section. She made the mistake of calling out “Good morning!” before remembering, again, that Claire couldn’t answer, then caught herself and poured coffee for both, setting a cup at Claire’s elbow like a peace offering.

“You been here since dawn?” Chloe asked, trying for gentle but landing a bit bright.

Claire lifted her hand and waggled it so-so, then scrawled a quick response on the pad:

I have been here since before you went to sleep. She paused. Digging deeper into the ritual. I think there could be an answer there.

Chloe snorted, immediately blushing at the sound. “Touché,” she said, then set to her own work: a color-coded notebook starting to gather all known documentation on the genus Rosa, focusing on anomalous species and a third for all mythic or legendary roses. She went at it with a vigor born of nerves, her fingers never quite still. A half-composed letter to Shar sat next to her.

Emily arrived not long after, hair damp from a hasty shower and tied up in a ponytail, arms full of legal treatises and the enormous black casebook. She hesitated at the door, saw Chloe and Claire already deep in, and made a soft “eep” before shuffling to her favorite corner with the casebook and a yellow legal pad. She leafed straight to the substitution chapter, underlining as she read, lips moving in silent recitation. She liked to say she was allergic to mornings, but the truth was that she craved them—the sense of being in on a secret before the rest of the world caught up.

The last was Norah. She came in late, carrying not just her own notes but a battered stack of cuneiform photocopies and a sheet of translation so dense it was more footnotes than text. She didn’t greet the others. Instead, she went straight to a standing desk at the head of the table, spread her sources out, and started marking up the margins in green ink. Every so often, she’d look up, catch Chloe watching her, and arch an eyebrow like: do you mind?

Three days ago, not one of them could have read a word of ancient Sumerian. Then Claire had pulled a tablet scan on a long shot and simply—read it. Clean, effortless, like a language she’d always known. She’d written it down at the bottom of her flareup list, underlined it, and moved on. Whatever the effect was, it radiated outward: Norah was burning through cuneiform at a pace that would have staggered a career specialist, and nobody had remarked on it, because there wasn’t time to remark on it.

The Sky Archive had been built to look infinite: every surface was reflective, the shelves spaced just irregularly enough that no sightline went straight, no echo came back unchanged. The light was always the same—gray, with the possibility of blue—but today there was something tense in the air, like the Archive itself wanted an answer and would not let anyone leave until it had it.

They worked in parallel for a good half hour. Then, Claire’s left hand stopped moving. She stared down at her notebook for a solid minute, then underlined a single word—elixir—four times in succession. She tapped her pen, once, hard. Chloe, closest, heard the knock and looked up, saw the stillness, and shivered.

Claire wrote something in big, block capitals on her whiteboard, then carried it to the center of the table so all four could see:

THE WATERING ELIXIR HAD 4 INGREDIENTS THAT I SAW.

3 WERE NAMED: SEED (UNMOORING), FEATHER (TRUTH), EDICT (PASSAGE).
THE 4th IS “WATER.” NO SOURCE, NO INVOCATION.
WHAT IS IT?

She set the board down and looked, deliberately, at Norah.

Norah, arms folded, took a full ten seconds to finish her line of translation before responding. Then, voice level: “Every ritual tablet I’ve found and translated so far says that the transfer medium has to be a tether, not a neutral. If you use, say, generic water, the ritual fails. If you use a medium that’s already linked to the target, the transfer works.”

She picked up her own notebook, flipped to a tabbed page, and pointed at a line written in crimson marker:

‘Let the claim be carried by the matter most attuned to the soul in question, else it will be as wind passing over stone—unfelt, unheard.’

She looked at Claire. “So, if the ritual is meant to retrieve or rebind a soul, the water has to be from somewhere it knew, or somewhere it left a trace. Otherwise, it’s inert. No power.”

Claire nodded, then scrawled again on her board:

DID ARABELLA USE LOCAL WATER?

Emily, who had been following with both eyes and ears, held up a finger. “In the casebook—at least, the one successful case of resurrection described in it—they say that they always used something from the site of death. They mention two failed cases. First failed case used blood, but it failed. Second, river water with no known connection. Only successful case used burial earth from the grave.”

She met Claire’s gaze and underlined her own point: “So if the fourth ingredient is just ‘water,’ and it’s attuned, then—”

Claire stared at her board for a long moment. Then she picked up her marker and wrote two words, slow and deliberate, in the center of the board. She turned it to face the room.

WILLOW RUN.

The room went so quiet that Chloe's breath caught in her throat.

Norah read it, then closed her eyes for a second. Emily went still. Chloe's hands stopped moving.

Claire wrote beneath it: THAT'S HOW SHE TIED THE SOUL TO HERE.

Emily, hand trembling, scribbled in her legal pad, then said: “That’s why it worked. Why Laura is here, but also why the hold isn’t perfect. She had to dissolve the Edict in it, to open the door.”

Chloe finally spoke: “So if the connection is frayed, or the medium contaminated—”

Norah finished: “—the claim can be challenged.”

The four of them looked at each other, the implication settling like dusk.

Claire, with unusual slowness, erased her board, then wrote, neat and centered:

REMOVE CONTAMINATION?
WAS THERE ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WATER?

A pause.

No one answered.

Claire circled the question, marked it OPEN, and underlined it twice.

The four women turned back to their work, but now there was an edge to it—a sense that the last answer was close, and the Archive was waiting, patient, for someone to write it down.