Day 6 Evening 2/2

Pixie appeared from the kitchen with a bright smile. “I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I love movie nights,” she informed them. “Follow me and I’ll show you where the media room is.”

The seven women filed out behind the bubbly elf . Cassie walked near the back with Fiona, one hand unconsciously pulling at the shortened hem of her shirt. Cover Girl had turned every reasonable outfit into a negotiation. The least offensive top still exposed a broad strip of stomach whenever she raised her arms, and its neckline plunged from decent to daring.

“This is already too organized,” she said.

“You demanded an anime night,” Fiona replied. “Organization is what happens when other people take your announcements seriously.”

The exchange carried them past framed posters that had not been there at dinner. A silver city floated beneath three moons in one. Another showed a woman in ceremonial armor standing before a crimson sea. Katherine slowed enough to study the corridor joins, then looked ahead to the brass sign over a pair of dark wooden doors.

SCREENING ROOM

She took a hand drawn map out of her pocket and searched it for a moment before balling it up. “This is starting to feel personal,” she said.

“The archive rearranges itself all the time,” Claire added. Her hair lifted around her shoulders, several strands reaching toward one of the posters before she drew them back. “The shops change inventory daily. I guess a stable floor plan may not be one of the facility’s priorities.”

Verena waited beside the doors in a fitted charcoal dress and narrow spectacles. Her hair, severe that morning, had been loosened into a smooth fall over one shoulder. She looked like a headmistress who had scheduled leisure as carefully as classes.

Cassie slowed. “What are you doing here?”

“Greeting you,” came her infuriating response.

“That cannot be the entire answer.”

“You are a reliably perceptive young lady, Ms. Lin.”

Pixie opened the door and crossed a comfortably decorated media lounge. She reached a side cupboard and began setting out snacks from a waiting cart: butter and caramel popcorn, fried vegetables, sandwiches, pastries, tea, coffee, fruit water, and bottled drinks.

The room resembled a private theater. Broad couches occupied three shallow tiers, with smaller chairs at the rear and low tables within easy reach. Heavy curtains covered the walls. The screen filled most of the opposite side. A shelf at the back held unfamiliar equipment in enough different formats to suggest the facility had prepared for more than one universe’s idea of recorded entertainment.

Fiona stopped at the threshold. “This definitely wasn’t here before.”

“No,” Verena said. “It was not.”

Katherine turned toward her. “Did the facility create it just because Cassie asked for a movie?”

“Many facility features are available upon request. Others become accessible when the system identifies a repeated need, an expressed preference, or a suitable group use.”

Cassie folded her arms. The movement pulled her shirt higher, and she immediately unfolded them. “It listens until we want something and then builds a room.”

“The facility monitors requests, schedules, habits, and environmental preferences,” Verena said. “Your phrasing assigns the process an unnecessary degree of menace.”

“You’re the one that built a prison that studies what makes us comfortable.”

Naomi entered first. “The menace seems pretty plain.”

Claire paused beside the doorway. “Does it create new rooms or reveal ones that already exist?”

“Both, Ms. Mercer.” She gave a thin smile. “Sometimes simultaneously.”

Evelyn remained in the corridor, studying the frame, the ceiling, and the visible equipment. “Does it distinguish between a request and an unspoken desire?”

Verena’s smile shifted by a fraction. “Not always.”

That answer kept them hesitating outside longer than they wanted to admit to. The room waited in warm light, comfortable and available. The facility had learned that hospitality could apply pressure more elegantly than force.

Pixie rescued the evening from the silence by holding out the caramel popcorn. “The film is ready whenever you are.”

They chose seats without discussion and still produced an arrangement that revealed more than anyone would have admitted. Fiona took the aisle end of the second couch. Cassie sat beside her with a cushion between them. Mara and Naomi shared the front couch. Katherine selected a chair near the rear with a view of both screen and door. Evelyn sat beside Claire.

Claire set an archive book on the table.

Cassie noticed immediately. “You brought homework to a movie.”

“I can’t just leave it in the dining room. I’m not going to read during the film.”

Cassie pointed toward Evelyn. “You’re the boss, lady. Stop her if she starts doing homework.”

“I expect Claire to govern herself.”

Claire’s hair rose with pleased confidence and drifted to reach for Evelyn, but fell short.

“You’re no good to me if you won’t do my bidding,” Cassie said.

Pixie distributed food and withdrew to the door. The others chattered as the system turned on. Mara had seen a few films and children’s shows while her younger brother was growing up. Katherine remembered a tournament series half her class had watched “ironically” while quoting every episode. Evelyn had endured licensing negotiations for several animated Oracle productions and declined to discuss whether any version included a transformation sequence. Her refusal was immediate enough to answer the question.

Naomi knew Mask of Twilight through her brothers. Her oldest had spent years complaining about the lost distribution rights, the recalled discs, and the replacement of the original shrine music. Cassie’s delight at finding someone who understood the grievance lasted until Fiona reminded them both that normal people did not know this much about alternate releases.

“Do you have the restored version,” Cassie asked Verena, as the lights began to dim. “The one with the original score?”

“The facility has access to any program in the multiverse,” Verena said. “Rights disputes are not a meaningful limitation for us.”

She stepped into the corridor. Pixie followed after placing the final bowl on the nearest table. The doors closed, leaving the contestants alone with the screen.

A low orchestral swell sounded and Cassie went rigid.

A choir rose beneath it. Bells joined the strings in the triumphant theme she had heard in the Master Suite while holding a wing-shaped controller and attempting to pretend the suite had not illustrated her life with relationship mechanics.

A pink heart appeared on the screen. A sword pierced it. Eight gems ignited around both.

“No,” Cassie said with dawning horror.

The title burst across the dark in gold and rose-colored light.

WAI-FU QUEST

MASTER VAN AND THE EIGHT HEARTS OF DESTINY

Cassie stood. “Turn it off.” She looked frantically for a remote.

The preview ignored her.

Anime Van fell through silver clouds in blue-and-black armor, drew the absurd wing-guard sword from a circle of light, and landed before a ruined kingdom. A narrator announced that the reluctant Master must gather eight heart-bound heroines to defeat the Demon Artificer.

The trailer moved with the speed expected of a promise rather than a story. Each contestant appeared remade as an elaborate fantasy heroine: Claire crowned in living crimson hair; Evelyn commanding armies through mirrors and ice; Naomi drawing poison from a village and releasing it against a dragon; Katherine shifting through stolen faces; Mara sheltering refugees beneath a luminous home; Fiona breaking a fortress gate; Cassie hurling pink fire in a cropped battle jacket; and Lizzy carrying a child through the walls of a collapsing prison.

Their names and grandiose titles flashed too quickly to hold. Battles followed. Every woman began alone and capable. Then Van appeared in each scene, and the same victories were edited into proof that their powers had always been waiting for him to make them complete.

Claire’s hair spread behind her in an offended halo. Naomi had stopped eating. Mara’s expression tightened when a glowing ribbon tied her wrist to Van’s. Fiona made a sound at the words WAR HEART but did not give Cassie time to enjoy it.

Cassie’s anime self landed beside Van, insulted him, blushed when he smiled, and turned away too late to hide it.

Fiona inhaled beside her, preparing a scathing rebuke. A shift in the music drew her attention back to the screen.

The trailer collapsed the eight battlefields into a single marketing image. The heroines now shared gold heart emblems and ribbons of light that led toward Van at the center. The final composition abandoned even the weak defense of military formation. Van sat on a throne. Claire and Evelyn stood at his shoulders. Mara rested a hand against the carved back. Fiona occupied one arm with her weapons crossed. Naomi knelt on the steps. Katherine lounged behind them in a queen’s face. Lizzy sat close enough that his hand covered hers.

Cassie’s anime self occupied his lap.

The image held just long enough to show both of them blushing in mutual outrage.

COMING SOON

The screen went black.

Cassie remained standing. “This isn’t what I meant for us to watch.”

Pale-gold light opened in front of the screen before anyone could answer.

ELIZA QUINN GAINED 1 VP

Hand Holding +1 VP

The opening notes of The Mask of Twilight began behind the notification. Every woman read Lizzy’s name while a painted moon rose over a mountain shrine.

—---------------------------------------------------------

The same pale-gold words appeared above the boardwalk before Lizzy and Van reached the carnival gate.

ELIZA QUINN GAINED 1 VP

Hand Holding +1 VP

Lizzy stopped. Van had been looking toward the Ferris wheel, where every gondola changed color at the top. He took one more step before the resistance at his hand disappeared and his fingers closed around empty air.

Her hand had gone translucent from the wrist down. Silver-white ghost light traced the spaces between her bones. Van’s hand passed through hers and swung to his side.

He turned to find Lizzy staring down. At first he thought she was watching her fingers become solid and fade again, but her attention dropped past them to the gaps between the boardwalk planks. Her free hand pressed hard against the front of her skirt. The color left her face so quickly that the violet blouse looked painfully bright against her skin.

The notification dissolved. She kept looking down.

“Lizzy?”

She flinched. The ghost light brightened. “I’m sorry.”

Van looked at the place where their hands had been rather than anywhere her other hand was guarding. “For what?”

“I lost—” Her voice failed. She swallowed and tried again. “I lost control.”

“You just got surprised.”

“It isn’t supposed to happen like this.”

The complaint sounded childish as soon as she heard it, but the shame beneath it was older than that.

Van stepped toward her and stopped outside arm’s reach. Carnival music carried from beyond the gate. Bells rang at a game stall. A distant crowd cheered as something dropped from a height neither of them could see.

He held out his hand again.

Lizzy stared at his palm. The broad calluses and roughened lines made it look more solid than anything in her own body. He didn’t reach for her or curl his fingers to beckon her. He simply offered the contact back to her.

“Everything is right there, waiting for us,” he said while pointing his chin towards the music.

She looked up. His small smile gave the moment of embarrassment an ordinary place to go without pretending it hadn’t happened.

“The carnival might start without us,” he added with a look of boyish innocence.

“It already started.” Her response was automatic, without any real resistance in it.

“Then this is serious.”

Her hand had become solid. She lowered it slowly, though her eyes returned once more to the spaces between the boards. Avoiding another failure would have been safer. It also would have allowed the first one to define the rest of the evening.

Breathe first, then move.

Lizzy drew one careful breath and put her hand in his.

Van closed his fingers gently around hers. He didn’t comment when she glanced down twice before they reached the gate.

The entrance arch stood between striped ticket booths outlined in shifting lights. Painted dragons curled around the supports, and a gold-lettered sign promised RIDES, GAMES, PRIZES, AND MEMORIES GUARANTEED TO LAST. Lizzy decided the final claim did not deserve a second reading.

The crowd beyond was convincing without being dense. Families wandered between stalls. Teenagers carried impossible quantities of fried food. A little girl rode on a man’s shoulders and waved a glowing ribbon over his head. None of the figures repeated motions or displayed the unfinished faces Lizzy had seen in lesser constructs. That did not make them real. It meant the Hotel had improved its effort for them.

Van stared past the gate. “They have bumper cars, I haven’t seen those in years.”

Excitement reached Lizzy before caution. “Really, I love those!” Her tone changed to one of pride, “I’m a certified menace in a bumper car.”

He looked at her rather than the pavilion. Lizzy became aware that she was still holding his hand while explaining bumper-car mechanics with professional intensity. She nearly withdrew.

The ticket booth lit while she was still deciding.

CARNIVAL ADMISSION

TWO ALL-ACCESS GAME PACKAGES

PRICE: 200 BP

BUYER: ELIZA QUINN

CURRENT BALANCE: 2,225 BP

BALANCE AFTER PURCHASE: 2,025 BP

CONFIRM?

“That is a lot for carnival tickets,” Van said.

“I have no idea what two hundred means here,” Lizzy replied, “But they wasted an opportunity, because I’d have given them two thousand.”

Van’s enthusiasm had cracked and the excitement bled out. “You don’t have to pay for me,” he said. “We can find something else.”

She recognized the concern. Van had spent most of the evening trying not to become another cost someone else carried.

“I know.” Lizzy pressed confirm before he could lose any more momentum. “I want to do this with you.”

Two bands of light formed around their wrists, thin gold bracelets stamped with ticket symbols.

Van turned his over. “That is efficient.”

He turned to the carnival and they unconsciously switched places, with her now pulling him along with determined steps. Her easy certainty surprised both of them. Lizzy smiled first, and they crossed beneath the arch.

The midway reached her through smell before sight: fried food, sawdust, melted sugar, and the faint electric bite of too many lights. A mechanical organ competed with music near the rides. Bells and whistles cut through both.

Her family went to one just like it every July. Her brothers competed at games they knew were crooked. Her father complained about the prices and bought tickets anyway. Her mother carried a small medical kit because she carried one everywhere. For a few hours, Lizzy had not been the youngest Quinn expected to keep pace, the phase candidate waiting for another evaluation, or the girl whose ability might become important once she learned not to panic.

She had been allowed to leave all of that at the gate and just be Lizzy.

“This way,” she said, and pulled Van toward the first game before realizing she couldn’t really pull him anywhere he didn’t want to go.

The ring toss occupied a red canopy crowded with glass bottles. Van studied the narrow spaces between their necks, accepted five rings, and told her that he never won these things when he was a kid.

“They’re not difficult,” Lizzy said. “That is why nobody wins. Everyone treats it like a given.”

His first throw crossed the booth, struck the painted back wall, ricocheted over the bottles, and struck the rear of the attendant’s head.

Van lowered his hand. “I may have used too much force.”

Lizzy pressed her lips together.

He scratched at the back of his head, “You can laugh.”

She did. The sound came easily enough to startle her, and Van grinned while collecting his next ring with an apology to the attendant.

The rest of his attempts were less dangerous but no more successful. He threw as though every ring needed to defeat the bottles rather than settle around one. Lizzy finally took the last two, used almost no force, and dropped them over two necks near the front.

The attendant handed her a small stuffed bat with purple wings.

She gave it to Van who held it by one wing. “This feels like mockery.”

“It’s for luck,” she said. “Official Quinn family rule; you can only keep the last stuffy.” She said the last part in a fake gruff voice, obviously mimicking her father. “We give the rest away to random kids.”

The balloon darts were worse for him. Their blunt, badly balanced shafts ended in crooked points. His first struck the board between two balloons hard enough to bury itself. The second tried to pass through an underfilled balloon but bounced off crazily.

Van stared at the unharmed target. “How did that not break?”

She gestured with a phantom toss, “You hit it too straight.”

“The point has to catch the side.” Lizzy took the final dart, placed it back between his fingers, and adjusted his grip. “My father spent twenty dollars every year refusing to learn that.”

She moved his thumb lower and guided his wrist. Van watched her hands with complete seriousness, which made it easier for her to forget the rest of him until she stepped closer to correct the angle of his arm. One hand circled his wrist, the other rested against his forearm where his rolled sleeve left warm skin exposed. Her chest nearly touched his upper arm. One foot stood between his.

“Don’t throw through it,” she said. “Let the dart come down into the center.”

He tried to relax and instead stiffened every muscle in his arm in an attempt to follow her instructions.

“You’re not throwing bricks, Van. The weight of the dart does all the work.”

Van released a breath. His shoulder lowered beneath her hand.

“Better. Now let it fall.”

He threw. The crooked point caught the upper edge of a yellow balloon and burst it.

Van turned with immediate delight. “I got it.”

His face stopped inches from hers.

The booth, the music, and the attendant vanished beneath sudden awareness: his arm inside both of her hands, his breath warm across her forehead, their legs nearly touching, the delighted smile changing as he realized how close she stood.

Lizzy stepped back too quickly. Her heel caught the booth’s raised edge. Both hands seized her skirt and held it in place while the first pressure of her power moved beneath her skin.

She breathed and clenched her will around the fabric of her skirt that was going thin at the edges. The silver wave of her power didn’t spread. The skirt stayed where she held it. Her fingers became fully solid around the fabric as her breathing steadied.

Van lowered his arm. “Lizzy?”

She released the skirt one finger at a time. “I’m okay.”

His expression showed that he wasn’t fully convinced.

“No. I mean it.” She looked up, still flushed. “It started but I stopped it.”

Understanding arrived slowly. His gaze flicked toward her clothes and returned at once to her face.

“You’re getting better at that.”

The pride in his voice struck her hard enough to make retreat tempting. Instead, Lizzy forced her shoulders straight and pointed toward the flashing pavilion. “Bumper cars,” she said with her chin thrust out. “I am going to destroy you.”

Van’s smile returned. “That seems unfair. You have a lot more practice than me.”

“Keep up,” was her only answer. She started toward the pavilion. This time she hooked two fingers around the fabric of his sleeve rather than taking his hand, using the small contact to pull him after her.

* * *

The handholding notification remained over the opening credits long enough to make the movie’s shrine music feel like accompaniment.

Cassie sat down because standing in front of the screen only made her feel as though she were presenting the announcement to the room. Fiona looked from Lizzy’s name to the empty seat beside Mara.

“Well, that didn’t take long.”

“She made it through dinner I bet.” Naomi said.

“I know the information is public, but do we think she wants it dissected?” Evelyn asked.

Claire remembered her own date night, her taking Van’s hand as part of a joke, and the first chime that had followed. “At least she knew in advance. She still chose to do it. Mine was a surprise.”

Mara held the popcorn bowl without eating. “I know we shouldn’t talk about system things, but if we were at home we’d still gossip about office romance.”

Cassie turned. “That’s a good point. Lizzy is the opposite of subtle about Mr. Big Shoulders.”

“No mocking,” Mara said. “I think she’s being sweet.”

The notification dissolved before Cassie found a response she liked. Onscreen, servants crossed a palace throne room carrying ledgers through Prince Renji’s cursed and intangible body. No living person could see, hear, touch, or remember evidence of him. His aunt, Lady Yurei, announced his death while he stood beside the throne shouting that he was alive.

The film moved through its tragedy with delicate patience rather than the usual rush of adventure. Renji failed to leave messages because ink vanished and objects returned to their original places. He followed his own empty coffin through grieving streets. At the city’s edge, a ghost named Aika called to him from a shrine roof. The curse ignored her because she was already dead.

Aika became his only companion and messenger. She carried letters to Hana, the shrine maiden promised to him since childhood. The letters were accurate; Hana’s understanding was not. She believed Renji had died and was writing from the afterlife. Every explanation of the curse sounded like proof that his spirit could not move on.

The hidden shrine inscription promised that the one who loved the nameless prince could stand as his equal beneath the twilight mask. Renji believed Hana’s pledge would restore him. Lady Yurei reached her first and gently supplied the crueler interpretation: equality between the living and the dead required death.

Naomi set down her drink. “She is telling Hana to kill herself.”

“She is leading her toward the conclusion without stating it,” Evelyn said.

“How sinister.”

Aika tried to correct the lie, but Yurei’s second spell turned every warning into evidence of jealousy. Hana finally asked the question the ghost had avoided.

“You love him.”

Aika’s denial was quiet and unconvincing. She admitted only that wanting something did not give her the right to interfere with someone else’s choice.

At twilight, Hana prepared the ritual with an ancestral blade against her chest. Renji fought an invisible battle to reach her while Aika struggled against the witch’s spirit. The turning point came when Hana rejected both obedience and disappearance.

“I will not wait here while you suffer, trapped between life and death,” she said. “I will not kneel quietly and wait for your relief. Wherever you are, I choose to stand beside you. Together we will cross over to wherever destiny calls us.”

The curse broke. Renji appeared in time to stop the blade with an outstretched hand.

Aika ended the battle by possessing Lady Yurei and forcing the witch toward the open gate of the afterlife. Before dragging her through, the ghost confessed her love to Renji without asking him to answer it. She wished him and Hana a long life and warned Hana never again to confuse devotion with disappearance.

Years later, children left flowers beneath Aika’s statue. The inscription read:

TO STAND BESIDE ANOTHER IS NOT TO VANISH.

The credits began over the restored shrine music.

Fiona waited until the third name before looking toward Cassie. “You are crying.”

“I’m not,” she said while rubbing at her eyes. The reflected light beneath Cassie’s eyes disagreed. Fiona considered saying so, then held out the popcorn instead. Cassie took it without looking at her.

Mara leaned back with her hands folded over her stomach. Naomi looked toward Lizzy’s empty seat.

“She would have liked that.”

* * *

Lizzy struck Van’s bumper car hard enough to turn him sideways.

He corrected too late, hit the barrier, and became trapped between two children driving with the coordinated cruelty of experienced professionals. Lizzy swept past in a blue car, laughing while he complained that his vehicle could only turn left.

“That sounds like a personal problem,” she cried over one shoulder while executing a sudden right turn for emphasis.

He escaped the wall and aimed for her. She crossed in front of him, clipped his bumper again, and sent him through a full circle. The children cheered.

By the final bell, Lizzy had registered eleven impacts. Van had three, one of which belonged to the barrier.

He climbed out with one hand against his lower back. “You drove like you had a grudge.”

“I warned you.”

“I thought you were exaggerating,” he said as he handed his purple bat to one of the screaming children as a reward for their skill.

“It was clearly a threat.”

The next game was skee-ball. Lizzy won that too. Van sent his first ball over the scoring board and nearly into the neighboring stall. Under her direction he reduced the force enough to earn a plastic whistle, which he gave to the other of the two children who had trapped him.

The girl blew it directly at her brother’s face.

Van nodded with satisfaction. “A predictable result.”

Lizzy checked her ticket bracelet. Most of the symbols had vanished by the time they reached the final row of games.

The strength attraction stood beneath an arch shaped like a dragon’s open mouth. A vertical tower rose between painted wings, with a bell beneath a crown of lights. The mallet was oversized, and glowing instructions covered the base.

STRENGTH TESTER

ONE ATTEMPT PER TICKET.

Along one side of the tower were a graded set of animals representing the players strength; rabbit, deer, wolf, tiger, bull, and all the way at the top - dragon.

“I wonder who picks the animals for this.” He rubbed his chin in contemplation. “Is a bull stronger than a tiger?”

Lizzy barely heard him. A stuffed purple dragon hung above the prize counter, two feet long with lavender scales, darker wings, a round white stomach, and gold felt horns over an expression of permanent concern.

Van followed her gaze. “You want the dragon.”

“No,” She turned to him with a wide grin. “Yes! I’m sorry, but look at him. He looks so serious.”

Lizzy pressed her hands together and made a pleading motion. The final symbol on her bracelet glowed. She couldn’t win the game herself.

She touched the ticket mark. “Can you win him for me?”

The question came fast. Warmth crossed her face, making her glow in the colored lights.

Van looked from her to the mallet. “I can try,” He eyed the target. “I might miss, so don’t get excited yet.”

Lizzy nodded. “I have faith in you.”

The words caught him off guard. He didn’t want to let her down. Van extended his bracelet to the stand and the last ticket vanished with a happy chirp.

He tested the mallet without lifting it high. Lizzy told him not to crush the plate, which ruined most of his strategy. He set his feet, and raised the mallet to shoulder height.

The swing went high, then arced down cleanly. Gold light shot up the tower, slowed beneath the final section, and reached the bell. The metallic ring cut across the carnival.

Lizzy caught both of Van’s hands in hers and bounced once on the balls of her feet, too excited to monitor the contact before it happened. “I knew you could do it.”

Van looked down at their joined hands, then at her. “You did.”

She released him as the attendant brought down the dragon. The toy was softer than expected, its wings folding against her blouse and its concerned face resting near her shoulder.

“His name is Martin,” she said. “He works in the aerospace industry.”

“You already decided?”

“Look at him,” she insisted. “He looks like a Martin.”

Van accepted that. “Welcome to the team, Martin.”

They left the game row as the boardwalk curved toward the lake. The rides remained visible through the trees, bright machinery turning against the false night, while the music and bells softened with distance. Lamps along the water broke into gold reflections.

Lizzy held Martin against her chest. Van kept beside her without reaching for her hand. The absence became noticeable enough that she adjusted the dragon twice without improving anything.

“You were terrible at almost everything,” she said.

“I secured Martin’s freedom for you,” he said with a mock affront.

She laughed, and the quieter boardwalk made room for it.

Van walked several more steps before speaking. “You were really good.”

“It was just carnival games,” she waved a hand dismissively.

“You knew how all of them worked. You saw what I was doing wrong before I did.” He glanced at Martin. “And you drove like a criminal.”

“Bumper cars are not exactly a skill.”

“Tell that to Fiona,” he joked. “I bet she drives regular cars like that.”

The name tightened something in Lizzy, though less sharply than it had at dinner. She could still imagine Fiona on Riverstone Trail, teaching Van things Lizzy could not. Comparison began building itself from familiar pieces.

Van spoke before she disappeared entirely into her thoughts. “Cassie told me I was treating you like you might break.”

Lizzy looked up.

“She called me an idiot several times, so I think she meant it.”

“That sounds like Cassie.”

“She said you get scared and do things anyway. Claire said you were one of the top students before all of this mess. Evelyn explained the thing you do where part of you stays solid while the rest phases.” His brow tightened as he tried to keep the details straight. “I used to think going through a wall was the whole power. It isn’t.”

Lizzy held Martin closer. “No.”

“I know that now.” He rubbed one thumb over the opposite palm, searching for words without finding a polished version. “You notice things. You figure things out. Tonight I kept doing everything wrong, and you kept seeing why.”

“They were games.”

“It’s thinking on your feet,” he was speaking casually but Lizzy was hanging on every word. “Like in the survival course. “You found a way to force a win even when you couldn’t fight.”

“I hid,” she said quietly, uncomfortable with how directly he was examining her but unsure how to stop him.

“You survived on purpose.” Van’s voice remained direct, almost blunt. “That counts.”

He continued because stopping now would make the attempt worse. “You are nice. You are brave. You are much better at this stuff than you act like you are. I know you are only here because they made you spend time with me. I know that. I just don’t want you thinking I look at you and see someone who needs everybody else to do things for her.”

The speech was uneven. He had repeated words, hesitated and offered no elegant conclusion. The honesty made it harder to dismiss.

Lizzy’s mouth tried to smile and failed under the pressure behind it. Praise had always arrived with a purpose: coaches reinforcing performance, public-relations teams preparing her for cameras, brothers trying to settle her down, Mara carefully building a safe place for truth. Fiona gave almost none, which made every scrap feel earned.

Van looked as though he had just dumped out his thoughts for her to examine.

A small laugh escaped her. He relaxed, then immediately looked worried that he had made light of something important.

“I wasn’t trying to lecture you,” he said, worried now that he had overstepped. “I just wanted you to know how I see you, because I think this whole ‘Master’ thing makes you nervous.”

The simplicity struck deeper than the longer speech had.

Lizzy shifted Martin beneath one arm. Her free hand trembled, and she pressed it into the dragon’s soft stomach.

“Van, I need to say something.”

He straightened. “All right.”

“Please don’t interrupt or I’ll lose it.”

Concern crossed his face, but he nodded.

Lizzy looked toward the lake. The Ferris wheel turned in the reflection, red and gold breaking whenever the artificial water moved.

“This place keeps taking things away,” she said. “It already took a lot. I know we can still make some choices. But every time something happens, there are points, or a screen, or a new rule. Not to mention they plan to keep transforming us. One day, we won’t know where the changes end and we begin.”

Van stayed quiet.

“I like you.” The sentence came out too quickly. Lizzy’s face burned, but she forced herself onward. “I don’t know what that means yet. I barely know you. I know that. Claire would probably make me repeat it.”

His mouth moved, but he remembered the instruction and closed it again.

“I had a nice time tonight. A very nice time.” She looked down at Martin and continued. “And maybe later the Hotel changes me again, or gives me something that makes all of this more confusing. Maybe I will still want the same things. Maybe I won’t. I can’t know any of that.”

Her voice thinned. She drew a breath.

“I just don’t want every choice to happen because a card tells me to, or because I get points for it, or because I’m scared I have to. I want to do something because I want to do it myself.”

Van looked startled, but he didn’t move away. The uncertainty in his face belonged to the situation, not to disgust or refusal. He liked her. Lizzy could see that much, or believed she could.

Every instinct demanded one more explanation, a qualification, or an apology prepared in advance. She had asked him not to interrupt because she didn’t think she could survive the space between intention and action.

Lizzy stepped close, caught his face in both hands, and pulled him down.

Their lips met awkwardly. His mouth had been slightly open in surprise, her nose struck the side of his, and Martin compressed between them with one purple wing folded beneath Van’s arm.

Van froze for a heartbeat.

Lizzy held his face while heat swept through her. The edges of the world threatened silver, and she felt the blouse loosen against her skin before she forced herself to breathe through it.

Van understood what she had done and what she was asking. One hand settled at her upper arm. The other touched her waist without pulling her closer. He left her enough room to retreat, then kissed her back.

His answer was uncertain and warm. It lasted only a few seconds, long enough for the contact to become deliberate and for Lizzy’s heart to strike painfully against her ribs and for heat to pool even lower.

Then the Hotel found them.

A chime rang over the lake. Pale-gold light opened above their heads.

Lizzy broke the kiss but remained close, her hands still against Van’s face and his hand still at her waist.

ELIZA QUINN GAINED 6 VP

Kissing the Master +3 VP

First Time Bonus x2

Lizzy threw her arms around Van and buried her face in his chest, refusing to look at the screen.

Van’s face changed over her shoulder. Anger at the intrusion, embarrassment, and the reflex to apologize arrived together.

“No,” Lizzy whispered before he could give the system ownership of his first response. “Don’t.”

His mouth closed.

ELIZA QUINN GAINED 1 VP

Hugging the Master +1 VP

The notifications told the facility, the contestants, the staff, and the audience what had happened. It attached a value to her act of agency. Lizzy’s face burned under the knowledge. The Hotel had contaminated the moment almost as soon as it existed.

Van waited, still holding her carefully as the panels dissolved.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Lizzy drew Martin against the space between them and let the embarrassment roll through her without obeying it.

“No,” she said, because honesty had already carried her this far.

Then she smiled.

“But I still did it.”