Shifting Strategies

Laura climbed the last step to the Sky Archive and paused with both hands on the rail, chest tight from the climb. The light was different today: more gold than blue, angling through the glass walls like it had been cut with a knife and polished to a shine. She stood at the threshold and let the hush of the place settle over her, a cathedral hush, full of the scent of old paper and the faint chemical tang of fresh pencil shavings. She carried her backpack on one body’s shoulders, the straps awkward and stiff, and her notebook was already open in the other body’s hands, to a page with a half-sketched timeline, though the pencil lines were thin and wandering.

She let her eyes roam the Archive for a moment. Chloe was at the east window, reading with both hands gripping the covers of a library book so thick it looked like she could use it as a shield. Myra was somewhere behind the stacks, her fox tails flicking over the tops of the carrels like question marks, her hands moving along the edges of each desk as she walked. Dawn and Emi shared a table, and in the odd gaps between their conversation, Laura could hear the fizz of a seltzer can and the staccato pop of a highlighter. Norah, across the way, had colonized three desks for her printouts, with a battery of pink post-its stuck to every visible surface. Even in this, there was a kind of order: every woman here was running a script, each one optimized for some flavor of crisis, but together they made a pattern that Laura recognized from all the places she’d ever felt like she was home.

She found Liesa in the reference aisle closest to the balcony, a stack of books balanced on her left knee and a legal pad spread out over the edge of the shelf. Liesa was sitting, though not quite; more like perching, a folded napkin beneath her skirt to keep the fabric from catching on the stone. Her strawberry blonde hair fell loose upon her shoulders.

Laura watched her for a minute, then eased into the opposite end of the aisle and started her own stack. She felt her bodies move with a lightness she didn’t remember earning, a subtle recalibration that came from not being alone in the research. After a minute, Liesa looked up and caught her eye, gave a two-fingered salute, then a tiny, conspiratorial smile. The energy was different than it was with the others—softer, maybe, or just more patient.

For the first half hour they worked in near silence, the only interruptions coming when Liesa would shift a reference volume or hand one of Laura’s bodies a book across the gap, always with a finger tapping the title as if to say pay attention, this one is worth it. The topics today were heavy: mortal debts, the limits of Law, the history of transactions that never really ended. Every page had a flavor of doom, and each new annotation felt like adding another bead to a rosary for the dead.

It was Liesa who broke the silence first. She set her pencil down, flexed her hand, then said, “Did you ever notice, in the really old versions, the Law is always a woman?” She kept her voice pitched low, as if afraid to spook the words out of the air.

Laura considered this, then nodded in stereo. She pointed to a passage in her own notebook—highlighted twice—and made a note in the margin. “Makes sense,” she said, and surprised herself with the steadiness of it. “Only a woman would keep track of a grudge for ten generations.”

Liesa snorted.

Laura grinned at that, and for a moment the heaviness inside her lightened. She closed her notebook, laid her pencil across the top, and watched the window, the clouds moving in fast streaks over the glass. “You want to hear something terrible?” she said, and even as she said it, she felt the dread behind the question.

“Always,” Liesa said, without looking up.

“I’ve read fifteen thousand words on the subject of my own erasure in the last two days,” Laura said, “and not a single one of them makes it sound like it hurts less to be the person it’s actually coming for.” She kept her voice as neutral as possible, as if speaking about a flaw in the paint or the weather. “Every story ends the same way: the executor shows up, the debtor is gone, and the rest of the world just... adapts.”

She didn’t expect Liesa to answer. It was enough that someone else heard it, that someone else had to carry it for a few seconds. But Liesa set her own pad aside, leaned in, and let the moment hang.

Laura pressed on, “It’s not like I’m mad at them for giving up. You know, the survivors in those stories, those the debtor leaves behind. I’d probably do the same. But reading it all, knowing it’s me—knowing that every Law story is a Laura story now—sometimes it feels like I’m reading my own obituary.”

Liesa was silent for a long minute. She traced a line down the seam of her pad, then said, “When you grow up in a Catholic country, you learn early that the only way through guilt is to go straight into it.” She looked up, her green eyes steady. “My aunt said the Church exists to manufacture shame, but also to give you somewhere to put it when you’re done. I think maybe the stories are the same. They exist so the rest of us can feel what it’s like, without having to stand there for real.”

She folded her hands in her lap, then said, quieter, “I think the trick is to do the gladness on purpose. Not to let it come to you—just to decide you’re going to have it, even if you have to dig it up out of the mud with your bare hands. That’s what gets you through.”

Laura sat with that. She watched the light move up the wall, slow as a clock, and tried to picture a version of herself who was glad on purpose. She couldn’t quite do it, but the idea was sticky, and it stayed with her.

After a few minutes, Liesa stood, stretched, then sat back down. She said, “So, what are you going to do about it? About the stories.”

Laura shrugged, but it felt different than before, less like a surrender and more like an answer. “I don’t know. I can’t make myself not be the main character in this one.” She watched the clouds for a while, then said, her voices perfectly synced, “There’s a wedding in five days. I keep thinking, maybe if I just make it to the wedding, everything else will—” She stopped, not wanting to make a promise out of it.

Liesa nodded. “That’s good. Have the wedding. Have a cake. Dance with your man.” She smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Pretend the rest of us are there for the show, and no executor will show up.”

Laura felt her throats catch, just a little. “I don’t know if I can hold both things at once,” she said. “The hope and the fear. I feel like every time I try, I end up just holding nothing.”

Liesa considered that, then said, “When I was little, we had a saying. ‘Geen hoop zonder vrees.’ No hope without fear. The two are always together.” She shrugged, as if it were an established fact of the world. “If you have to hold both, maybe it means you are doing it right.”

Laura smiled at that, and for a moment she let herself believe it.

They worked a while longer, the pace more relaxed, the pressure of the clock blunted by the conversation. At some point, Liesa dug a granola bar from her bag, snapped it in half, and tossed one half to one of Laura’s bodies, who caught it one-handed without looking up. The gesture was so ordinary, so matter-of-fact, that for a second the archive could have been a dorm library or a corner of a student union, the only difference the light through the glass and the steady, watchful silence of the books.

After a long stretch, Laura said, “Marissa transferred me enough points for a Dream Date.” She waited, let the sentence land. “She said I could use it whenever I wanted, that she wanted me to have one more day with Andy, before the wedding. I bought it, but I didn’t trigger it yet.”

Liesa cocked her head. “Why not?” she asked.

“I can’t decide if using it now is hope or surrender,” Laura said. “If I spend it, I get one more good day. If I save it, maybe it’ll be like a good luck charm, and I’ll actually be there to spend it.”

Liesa was quiet for a moment. She turned her pencil over in her fingers, end to end, the way someone does when they are working something out. “Marissa didn’t give it to you for the wedding,” she said finally. It wasn’t an accusation. She said it the way you’d say the sky is gray—just a thing that was true and needed to be said out loud. “She gave it to you in case there isn’t one.”

Laura didn’t answer. She could see Liesa doing the math—not the points, but the days, the give remaining ones, the arithmetic of what Marissa had actually been saying. “Use it,” Liesa said finally. “Don’t save it for a charm. Use it,” Liesa said. “Use it today, if you can.” She set the pencil down. “An extra day is never the wrong thing to want. I’d buy a thousand if I could.”

She looked at Laura for a long moment, and then, without warning, reached across the narrow aisle and pulled one of her into a one-armed hug. It was awkward and close and exactly right. For a minute, Laura let herself lean into it, resting her forehead against the top of Liesa’s head, letting the warmth of another person’s body confirm her own. They stayed that way, neither in any hurry to go back to the books.

When they did part, it was smooth, without apology or flourish. They went back to their stacks, their notes, their hundred little death warrants and miracle stories, and the Sky Archive moved on around them. The light outside had shifted from gold to silver, and it was almost easy to believe that time was running in both directions at once—toward a wedding, toward an ending, but mostly toward a place where people who loved each other made room for every possible fear, and still did the gladness on purpose.

---

The next time Sam saw Norah, it was in the corridor outside the gym, the one where the ceiling dipped just enough to make you notice. Norah was emerging from a side corridor with three legal casebooks and the tight, efficient stride of someone who had made peace with her own conclusions and was now just collecting supporting citations. She wore a black pantsuit with teal pinstripes and had her hair up in a twist so severe it looked like it might actually cause pain. The effect was intimidating, and for a second Sam almost reconsidered what she was about to do. Almost.

Sam intercepted her at the bend, planting a hand on the rail and a foot in Norah’s path. “Walk with me.” she said. She didn’t put a question mark on it.

Norah clocked her in a single, practiced sweep. “Sure,” she said, her voice smooth and neutral, but she didn’t speed up or slow down. She just matched pace as Sam fell in beside her, their footfalls perfectly synchronized.

They took the stairs down to the next landing and made a show of examining the tropical plant displays by the window—an unspoken code that this was not a conversation for the main room. Sam waited until they were far enough away to be sure of privacy, then leaned in.

“I need to ask you something,” she said, “and I need you to not bullshit me.”

Norah’s mouth twitched. “When do I ever bullshit you, Sam?”

“Every single time I beat you at Mario Kart,” Sam said. “But I’ll pretend this is different.”

Norah grinned, just a little, but the humor didn’t reach her eyes. “What’s the ask?”

Sam checked the sightlines, then lowered her voice. “Suppose we get to the last day and there’s no loophole, no rescue, no patch. Suppose it’s just the Law, and Laura, and the rest of us. Is there any way to change the outcome if we can’t break the rules?”

Norah let that sit. She glanced at the leaves of the nearest plant, then turned the question over like a stone in her hand. “If the Law is what the sources say it is,” Norah said, “then it only cares about a willing transaction. Laura owes, Law collects, period. The only way out is for someone else with standing—blood or marriage—to offer themselves in her place. Even then, the Law has to accept it.”

Sam nodded. “Right. So if nobody volunteers, Laura’s toast. If someone does, then they take her place.”

Norah’s expression stayed flat. “Correct.”

Sam shifted her weight, made sure her back was to the nearest security camera. “But what if more than one eligible person volunteers? What if, at the exact moment the Law calls Laura up, there’s a crowd of us, all technically qualified, all saying ‘take me instead’ at once? What does the Law do?”

Norah arched an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

Sam gestured. “Yeah. Would it pick at random? Is there a priority? Or does it get stuck? Because if it can’t resolve, maybe we stall it. Maybe we buy time.”

Norah thought for a long moment, eyes narrowed. “My first guess,” she said, “is that Laura would still be preferred. She’s the named debtor. If she volunteers, the Law’s probably coded to accept the original target over all others, even if every person in the room jumps forward to take her place.”

Sam pressed. “But you don’t know that for sure.”

“No,” Norah said. “I don’t. The Law is described as a system, not a person. It could be more deterministic, or it could be more opportunistic. The rules in the oldest stories are ambiguous.” She tapped her chin. “But if the Law can’t cleanly prioritize, then maybe, yeah, it hangs.”

Sam let that settle. “So if, say, a bunch of people—all with standing, all genuinely willing—step up at the exact moment, Ereshkigal would be forced to arbitrate. She might not be able to.”

“She might,” Norah said. “Or she might escalate, or default to a first-come rule. Or, if the law is written for a single transaction, it could throw an error.”

Sam smiled, a little wolfish. “You’re thinking like a mathematician, now. If it throws an error—if it jams the system—what happens to the transaction?”

Norah’s gaze sharpened. “If the Law is truly mechanical, and the conditions are met by more than one party simultaneously, it might deadlock. It could stall, freeze, or require external input. That could buy time, until the situation changes. But that’s not guaranteed. It might also just take everyone.”

“Is there a way to force the deadlock?” Sam asked.

“Depends on the interface,” Norah said, and now the two of them were talking like they were building a bomb, not discussing the fate of a friend. “You’d need all volunteers to be absolutely unambiguous. No bluffing. Ereshkigal can probably sense intent. If even one of the group hesitates, it would default to the weakest link. But if all are equally and sincerely willing, it might possible to trigger a stall. But this assumes Ereshkigal has no standing to interpret the law, and that Laura isn't preferred over all others as payment.”

Sam nodded. “But it would mean all the volunteers would have to be prepared to die. Not just say it, but mean it, all the way down.”

Norah nodded. “And if it doesn’t work, all you get is a slightly messier, mass funeral.”

Sam grinned, but the humor was gone. “That’s what I thought.” She glanced at the nearest clock, then at the window. “There’s one more angle I haven’t asked about.”

Norah waited.

“If the Law is a system,” Sam said, “then Ereshkigal is the administrator. What happens to the debt if the administrator goes offline?”

Norah was quiet for a moment. “You mean permanently offline.”

“Hypothetically.”

Norah turned to look at her fully for the first time in the conversation. “If the debt is bound to her authority, and that authority is removed—not transferred, removed—then there’s a reasonable argument the debt dies with it. No creditor, no claim.” She paused. “Sam.”

“Mm.”

“Are you describing a plan to kill a goddess?”

Sam looked out at the tropical plants. “I’m describing a question.”

“That’s a very careful answer.”

“I’m a very careful person.”

Norah watched her for a moment, something shifting behind her eyes. “You’re completely serious.”

Sam didn’t confirm it. She didn’t deny it either.

Norah exhaled once, sharp and quiet. “If it comes to that,” she said, “you don’t go without me.”

Sam looked at her. “You sure about that?”

“I just spent forty minutes helping you blueprint a deadlock strategy for the underworld,” Norah said. “I’m clearly not making good decisions today. I might as well be consistent.” She straightened. “We don’t mention this to the others.”

“Not yet,” Sam said.

“Not yet,” Norah agreed.

They didn’t shake on it, didn’t hug or even touch, just stood side by side in the filtered light.

When they turned to go back to the Archive, Sam hung a step behind, just long enough for Norah to get a head start. She watched Norah’s stride: the way she cut through the world, the way she never slowed for anything. Sam remembered Norah from the first round and wondered if Norah was as cold as everyone thought, or if she’d just found the one thing worth burning for.

She filed the question away, because it was not the day for answers.

---

There was a certain angle of light in the Inner Gardens, right after lunch, where the world got soft at the edges. Emi walked the long path from the hotel lobby out past the first circle of hibiscus, letting her hands skim the waxy green, not because it helped her navigate but because she liked the way the leaves caught and released her fingertips. She knew Arabella was here—she always knew, even before the little twang of presence that came with the Host’s attention. Today the sensation was different: not the usual gravitational pull, but a static, pulsed thing, like standing too close to an old TV and feeling it hum in your teeth.

She found Arabella at the heart of the grove, before the little mound upon which grew the bush from whence Laura’s blue rose had come. Arabella sat on a stone bench with a glass of pink wine sweating in her palm. Her dress was the color of sky after rain, and she was, as always, perfect. But there was a stillness to her that Emi recognized—the stillness of someone getting ready to be remembered, or not remembered, by the world.

Emi took the opposite end of the bench, one leg tucked under, and mirrored Arabella’s posture with careful exaggeration. “If I copy you, will I become a Host too?” she said, voice half-murmur, half-dare.

Arabella’s lips quirked, but her eyes didn’t leave the top edge of the glass. “You could do worse,” she said. “But I think you already have your own job.”

“Being a harem artist?”

Arabella looked at her then, really looked, and Emi felt the line of her attention as a clean, cold thread from one mind to another. “No,” Arabella said. “Remembering what’s worth saving.”

They sat for a minute. The only sound was the drip of water from a fountain, the wings of something feathered flitting overhead. Emi traced the seam of her own jeans with a thumbnail and waited for Arabella to say what she was really thinking.

She didn’t, so Emi made a game of it. “You know how, in stories, when the queen of the underworld comes to collect, she always leaves something behind by accident?” Emi’s smile was sly, almost secret. “A shadow, or a ribbon, or a key. Even when she wins, she always loses a piece of herself.”

Arabella exhaled, the sound so soft it could have been missed. “Are you warning me, or comforting yourself?”

“Neither,” Emi said. “Just thought you’d like the symmetry.” She reached over, pinched the stem of Arabella’s glass, and guided it back to the table. “You’re not a statue. You don’t have to freeze in place and wait for the story to finish.”

Arabella watched her hand, then flexed her own fingers—just once, almost as if to make sure she could still move. “It’s not the end I mind,” she said, “it’s the after. Not knowing if there will be one. Some people say time is a river, but I think it’s a library with all the books mixed up. You spend your whole life sorting the shelves, and then you’re replaced by someone with different taste, who rearranges everything and throws your favorites in the bin.”

Emi was quiet a second. “You’re afraid of being replaced,” she said, softly. “Or forgotten.”

Arabella didn’t flinch. “A little.”

Emi nodded, the motion liquid and slow. “If you’re worried about memory, you picked the right audience. I can remember anything. I remember colors I haven’t seen since I was a child. I remember the way my mother’s handwriting got shaky when she was angry, or tired, or just pretending to be both. I remember the way the light in this exact garden was greenish, not blue, on the first day I came here. When we were little, Andy and I used to challenge each other on who remembered things better, and we never came to a final agreement. If you want, I’ll remember you. And I know Andy will, too.”

Arabella smiled then, the first true one of the afternoon. “That’s a lovely offer, Emi.”

Emi shook her head. “Not an offer. A promise. Even if you don’t want it. we’ll remember you, and we’ll tell the others to remember you, too.” She leaned in, closer. “We can make it so you can’t be erased. Not entirely.”

Arabella turned to face her, and this time, she let the mask drop. The fatigue showed up in the corners of her eyes, the fine web of blue veins just visible at her temple. “I’m not afraid of what happens to me,” she said. “When a Host ends, the memory of her is not up to her. There’s someone—call it the Verant, or whatever name you like—who made me. And there’s a place where every word, every thought, every person each of the twelve of us first-generation Hosts has ever touched is stored. When I’m gone, it’s up to the Verant to decide if any of it was worth keeping. If the answer is no, then it’s not just me who’s lost, but every one of my siblings as well. It’s a full sweep, top to bottom. I'm the only one who remembers them, and if that place is swept, no one will ever remember them again. Nothing but a clean shelf.”

Emi blinked, letting the words find their own gravity. “Is that a real place? Could I see it, if I tried hard enough?”

Arabella’s gaze softened. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s partly a place, partly a rule. Maybe it’s just the last Host who remembers everything.”

Emi considered that, then grinned. “If it’s a library, I hope they let the books have colored tabs. Makes it easier to find what you want.”

Arabella laughed, a real one, and Emi felt the world let out a long breath it hadn’t known it was holding. “I hope so too,” Arabella said.

They sat together, not talking, for a few more minutes. Emi picked up a stick and traced patterns in the moss at her feet. Arabella watched her hands, the careful way she balanced every motion.

Finally, Emi reached over and gave Arabella’s wrist a squeeze. “You won’t be lost. Promise.” Her fingers lingered, cool and certain.

Arabella nodded. She covered Emi’s hand with her own, just for a moment, then let go.

They watched the light move through the leaves above, the shape of it changing but never disappearing, even as the sun shifted toward the west.

---

Sam wasn’t sure which circle of hell she’d landed in, but it definitely featured a planning committee with six hands and zero filter. The two of them—Sam and Emi—sat at a table in the rec room, a room now fully repurposed for party strategy. Sam had her stack of scrawled napkins, two legal pads, and a lineup of Sharpies, while Emi had a bento box, a sketchbook, and her six arms all going at different speeds: two eating, two taking notes, and the last pair folded under her chin, fingers steepled like a supervillain’s.

“So, the spine of the night is the whiskey tasting,” Sam said, tapping at the screen with a red nail. “Three flights of four, escalating in rarity, nothing that’ll kill us. But before that, we’ll have an island gauntlet to break the ice and get Andy engaged before he realizes he’s being celebrated. A roast, of course. A scavenger hunt.” Sam finished, flicking her red Sharpie at the pile like a whip. “Don’t get me started on the scavenger hunt. Chloe nearly fainted when I told her there was going to be one.”

Emi, across the table, had her sketchbook propped on two hands, a third and fourth wielding pen and chopsticks, and the last pair methodically arranging grape tomatoes from a bento box into a perfect hexagon. “The scavenger hunt is mandatory,” she said, not looking up from her pages. “It’s classic. Andy will hate it, but in the fun way.” She smiled, the mischievous kind that made her eyes almost disappear. “You forgot about the ceremonial Pink Flamingo Armada.”

Sam nearly choked on her coffee. “Come again?”

Emi nodded, proud and solemn, as if unveiling a masterwork. “Fifteen flamingoes. One for each of us, and an extra for Andy. Inflatable, full size. Mildred procured them. They’re in the service shed, under a tarp labeled CAUTION: MANGOES.”

Sam put a fist to her mouth to stifle a laugh, then rolled her eyes so hard she nearly saw her own brain. “How do you do that?” she asked, not quite rhetorical.

“I have six hands and no impulse control,” Emi said with a sweet smile. “You asked for help, you get all of me.”

It was hard to argue with the results. The bachelor party was less than four days away, and Sam was still missing four hours of programming—if Arabella’s calendar was to be believed, Andy’s Best Woman (i.e. herself) was responsible for filling the rest of the schedule, which needed to be “full of memorable, once-in-a-lifetime events suitable for the participants and viewers alike.” Sam had gone to Emi, the only woman in the harem who could probably build a trebuchet, bake a soufflé, and draw a 4-panel cartoon of all the possible party catastrophes in the time it took Sam to find a working pen.

“Let’s get serious for a second,” Sam said, flattening a napkin with the palm of her hand. “We have the whiskey, the roast, the ambush breakfast, the challenge, and the scavenger hunt. Still need a couple of activities. If it falls apart, Andy’s going to try to escape to the Sky Archive, and then all of this is for nothing.”

Emi’s six hands stopped in perfect sync, like a server bank hitting a power surge. She looked up, face suddenly grave. “You want it to be good. Not just loud.”

Sam hesitated, then shrugged. “He’s the only person who’s ever noticed when I’m about to lose it,” she said. “I just—I want him to have a night where he doesn’t have to be the glue. Not for us, not for anyone.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Even if it’s the last one with all of us. Especially if it’s the last one.”

Emi was silent for a second, two arms folding, then nodded. “We’ll make it work.”

Sam leaned forward. “So, spitball: what about a speed-painting contest?”

Emi’s eyes lit up. “Like competitive Bob Ross?”

Sam grinned. “We do it in the round, like a paint-off. Winner gets first crack at the piñata.”

Emi’s six hands stilled for a moment, which Sam had learned meant she was actually thinking. “Challenge course,” she said. “Around the island. We could do it in stations.”

Sam sat up straighter. “Puzzles,” she said immediately. “Not just the rope-climb stuff—actual puzzles at each station. Logic problems. The kind Andy slows down for even when he’s supposed to be racing.”

“He’d completely abandon the competitive element,” Emi agreed, delighted.

“That’s the point.” Sam added it to the list. She looked at it, then frowned. “We still need a closer. Something that ends the night right.”

Emi tilted her head. “Right like fireworks, or right like crying?”

“Right like both.” Sam drummed her fingers. “I’m going to call Herman.”

Three of Emi’s hands stopped moving. She looked up slowly. “Sam.”

“I know.”

“I’m just saying—Herman.”

“I know what I said.”

Emi studied her for a second, then one of her free hands reached over and patted Sam’s arm twice, the way you’d comfort someone who’d just made an irreversible decision. “Okay,” she said. “I support you. I’ll be far away, but I support you.”

“We’re almost done,” Sam said, looking at the list. “You have anything left?”

Emi put down her pen and sat back, three pairs of hands folded in her lap. “Just one.” She paused, like she was weighing the words. “I think we should build a time capsule.”

Sam blinked. “Like a literal time capsule?”

Emi nodded. “Andy and Laura used to bury them all the time. Every time they thought something was going to end, they’d make one and leave it somewhere. I think it would mean something, if we made one for the night.” Her voice got even quieter. “I think it would be nice if there was a way to remember, if things don’t work out.”

Sam felt something prick behind her eyes, but she didn’t let it out. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s perfect. Let’s do it.”

They wrote it all down, Sam’s handwriting blocky and large, Emi’s a tight spiral of codes and doodles. For the first time all afternoon, Sam felt like the ground under her was something solid, not the melting ice she’d been skating on all week. She let herself relax, just a little, and Emi did too, her hands loosening and spreading out, fidgeting with the edge of her iPad.

They were just packing up the last of the notes when the door slid open and Liesa stumbled in, a spiral notebook clutched to her chest, her expression wild-eyed and urgent.

“Sam,” she said, without any warm-up. “We have a problem. A wedding party problem.”

Sam arched an eyebrow. “We’re not even at the party yet.”

Liesa flopped into the nearest chair, eyes darting between Sam and Emi. “Arabella just posted the formal wedding schedule, and she’s gone very specific with the wedding party. It’s not just Best Woman and Maid of Honor, it’s also three groomspeople and three bridesmaids. Eight total.”

Sam was unimpressed. “You realize this is how normal weddings work, right?”

Liesa ignored that. “You are the obvious Best Woman. Andy has to pick three more. But who will be the Maid of Honor for the brides, and how do we decide the other three bridesmaids from seven people? If we do this wrong, someone is going to lose it.”

Emi, who had gathered several handful of grapes, put a hand up. “Why not just ask everyone if they want to do it, then go from there?”

Liesa looked pained. “Because no one will say no, but some of them will actually want it and pretend they don’t, and then we will have a bloodbath.”

Sam grinned. “I thought that’s what you Belgians liked best.”

Liesa made a face. “We like our weddings calm and our funerals dramatic, not the other way around.”

Sam drummed her fingers on the table. “You know you’re already the Maid of Honor, right? You planned the bachelorette.”

“I—” Liesa blinked. “That is not a real rule.”

“It’s a little bit a real rule,” Emi said, without looking up from her grape pyramid.

Liesa turned to her. “Emi. Back me up.”

Emi considered this for a moment, then set down a grape. “You’re the only one who would actually do it well and not spend the whole ceremony panicking,” she said. “Honestly? We’d all be glad it was you.”

Liesa opened her mouth, closed it. Sam was already writing. “Get guests for the other three spots, since otherwise you’re leaving one of the girls out. Next problem.”

Liesa was momentarily stunned, like a magician had just vanished her trauma. “But—” she tried to start.

“No but,” Sam said. “You can do it, and if anyone has a problem, they’ll take it out on me, not you. I’m going to need you up there to help the brides survive the actual vows. You know that.”

Liesa sat back, arms crossed, jaw working. She looked at Emi for help, but Emi just gave her a quiet thumbs-up, said “As one of the brides, I approve this message,” and went back to stacking grapes into a pyramid.

Finally, Liesa exhaled, a long, slow sound. “Okay,” she said, almost a whisper. “But if you make me do a speech, I’m putting every one of your secrets in it.”

Sam’s grin went full evil. “That’s the whole point.”

Emi made a cross-my-heart gesture. “Promise.”

They looked at each other, the three of them, and Sam saw exactly what the harem could be, if you cut out all the gods and the debt and the broken parts: a weird, stupid, beautiful family, making the world up as they went.

“Okay,” Sam said, gathering the last of the notes. “We’ll run it by the others at dinner. If anyone else wants to fight about it, we’ll put them on the flamingos for the next joust.”

“Deal,” Emi said, delighted.

“Flamingoes?” Liesa asked, puzzled and slightly alarmed.

Sam tucked the plan into her pocket and felt the world tilt one degree closer to right.

---

Dawn walked into the ring of Verdant Arches, feet silent on the moss, and knew without asking that Erin was already there. The light through the vines caught on the mint of Erin’s skin, turning her body into a negative of the world around her: the only shape in the ring that didn’t belong to moss or sky or ancient rock. She was on hands and knees near the north arch, hair tied up in a bundle, rooting out a patch of weeds with careful, methodical violence.

Dawn didn’t bother with a greeting. She squatted beside Erin, sundress belling around her thighs, her own breasts compressed by the fabric into two tightly-contained hemispheres. “You’re not even going to pretend to take a break, huh?” she said, voice low so as not to disrupt whatever ritual was in progress.

Erin barely glanced up. “I already took one. With Andy.” She paused, wiped her hands on the moss, then added: “And without him, I don’t feel like sitting still.”

Dawn made a face. “Is that a burn?”

“Just a fact,” said Erin. She yanked a root from the earth, held it up for inspection, and then flicked it away. “You here to read me the riot act, or you just like the ambiance?”

Dawn dropped to her knees and started helping, pulling a patch of tiny green invaders out from between two stones. She let the silence stand for a while. Only the birds, and Erin’s steady breathing, and the slick, wet sound of roots parting from soil.

“It’s not about the ambiance,” Dawn said finally. “I just needed… space. To say something out loud.”

“Go for it.”

Dawn kept her eyes on the ground. “Claire told Andy something. I heard it. The part about what happens if he crosses all the way. That the bond means we all go with him.” She said it like she was testing the words, making sure they didn’t disintegrate in the sunlight.

Erin kept working, but slower now. “Yeah. He told me too. Figured if I heard it from anyone else, I’d snap his neck.”

Dawn snorted. “Would you have?”

“Probably.”

Dawn nodded. “Me too.”

They worked in tandem for a while, clearing a radius around the base of the nearest arch. The air smelled sharp with green and wet with possibility. After a bit, Dawn said, “I don’t know what happens to a family if you just… leave. My dad’s never going to re-marry. He’s barely holding on as it is. My brothers, they’re okay now, but I was always the one who showed up.” She looked at Erin, eyes bright but not wet. “If this thing happens, I’ll never see them again. Not in any way that matters. They’ll think I abandoned them.” Dawn shook her head. “If we do this, it’s not just his life that gets wiped. It’s all of ours.” She let out a shaky breath. “I’m not afraid to go. I just wish it didn’t mean leaving them behind.”

Erin shrugged. “We don't know that that's the case. Anna seems to be perfectly fine showing up and partying. Maybe you can both ascend and still be there for your family, somehow.”

They went back to work, the pace a little more frenetic. After a while, Dawn said, “What about you? What would you be leaving?”

Erin snorted. “Nothing. My job? I was barely hanging on. My apartment’s nice, but it’s not like I’d take it with me. I assume I can bring Fluffernutter with me. I don’t talk to my mother much, and my brother doesn’t need me so much. If I leave, nobody’s going to light a candle.” She shrugged. “Maybe my dad. Ah, well.It’s not a sob story. It’s just the way it is.”

Dawn started to say something—maybe that it still mattered, maybe that the world would miss her anyway—but she caught herself. Instead, she kept her head down, fingers working the loamy soil. “So why does it bother you?” she asked.

Erin was quiet for a moment. She pressed her palm flat to the earth, then lifted it and looked at the impression it left. “It doesn’t, really,” she said. “I keep waiting for it to. But every time I’ve been remade, I came out the other side still me. Just—more.” She smoothed the impression away with her thumb. “And this time I won’t be doing it alone.”

Dawn looked at her. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Erin shrugged, something loose and honest in it. “If he’s there, and you’re all there—” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t seem to need to.

They worked in silence, the sun warming the top of their heads, the old stone ring absorbing every word not said. At some point, Dawn stopped pretending to weed and just dug her fingers into the moss, letting the cold and the wet and the living of it fill her hands. She pressed her thumbs together, made a little bowl, and scooped up a handful of earth. “Do you think it’s worth it?” she said. “If it saves Laura?”

Erin looked at her. “I think if I was her, I’d want someone to do it for me. I think that’s enough.”

Dawn let the dirt run out between her fingers, watched it darken the green below. “If Andy asked, I’d say yes,” she said. “Even if I was scared. Even if I hated it.”

Erin nodded. “Same.”

Dawn laughed, the sound raw but honest. “You know, sometimes I think we’re the only two sane ones here.”

Erin smiled, teeth white against the green of her face. “If that’s true, we are so fucked.”

They laughed together, the sound echoing off the arches and up into the sunlight. When it died down, they just sat for a while, letting the air move around them, letting the future come and go as it pleased.

Dawn looked up, traced the pattern of vines overhead with her eyes. “You ever wonder if it’ll hurt?” she asked.

Erin shrugged. “Everything else has. Why should this be different?”

Dawn nodded. “Just checking.”

They stayed like that, hands in the earth, for a long time. It wasn’t comfort, not really, but it was something close enough to get by. They didn’t solve anything, didn’t change the shape of what was coming, but for a few minutes, the fear got held in the open, and that was enough.

When they finally got up, the ring was clean and the moss was even and the weeds had been banished. Dawn dusted her hands off on her dress, then looked at Erin. “Whatever comes,” she said, “we’ll go into it knowing what it is. Which is more than most people get.”

Erin nodded, the gesture solid and sure. “Yeah. We will.”

They left the ring together, side by side, footprints already fading behind them.

---

Myra found Riley in the small atrium off the Banquet Hall, a place with too many shadows and not enough reason for anyone to be there. The only light was the blue-white cast from the ocean through the glass, and it turned Riley’s red-black hair into something almost violent against the marble. Riley was sitting on the floor, her knees hugged to her chest, chin resting on the heel of her hand. She didn’t look up when Myra came in, but that didn’t matter—Myra’s tails had a way of announcing her presence before her feet ever crossed the threshold.

Myra let the silence ride for a while. She stood in the archway, and then sat down, careful and deliberate, a full three feet away. Her tails flopped behind her, one coming to rest across her own lap, the other twitching with all the agitation she’d trained her voice to hide.

They didn’t say anything for a while. Riley broke it first. “You ever get the feeling you’re the last person left in the building, and nobody bothered to tell you?”

Myra’s lips pulled up, not quite a smile. “Frequently. I think it’s the house brand of this place.” She let her hands rest on her knees, the gesture as formal as a chess player waiting for an opponent’s move.

Riley snorted. “I don’t know about you, but I never thought I’d get sisters by accident. Especially not in the last week of my existence.”

Myra smiled, really smiled this time. “The odds are astronomical.”

“Yeah, well, so are the odds of all three of us surviving,” Riley said. She picked at the cuff of her black jeans. “It’s weird, isn’t it? That it’s Laura on the block, but I keep thinking about what it means if it’s not her, if it’s you or me. Like there’s no way out except through.”

Myra nodded again, the gesture tight. “I know the feeling. When it comes down to it, I know what she wants, but I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself. Even if I wanted to.”

Riley turned her head, met Myra’s gaze dead-on. “You wouldn’t have to. I’d be right behind you.” She said it with a shrug, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

Myra tilted her head, feeling for the emotion in the room. There was fear, and pain, but underneath it all was a hard, bright thing she hadn’t recognized until now. “You’d really do it?”

“Are you kidding?” Riley said, her voice low. “It’s Laura. I failed her sixteen years ago, and besides… it’s cruel to take her away from Andy again. I’d rather be erased than sit on my ass and watch them take her.”

For a while, neither said anything. The blue light got sharper, and Myra could feel her own pulse slow. She realized, with a start, that this was the first time in her life she’d ever sat next to a sister without thinking about how to compete, or how to win. She just wanted to be in the same room.

“Do you think she knows?” Myra asked. “Laura?”

Riley nodded. “She knows. But she wouldn’t ask. She’s never been able to.”

Myra snorted. “Ironic, since we’re all here because she couldn’t ask.”

Riley let that sit. Then she said, “We make a really fucked up set of sisters.”

Myra gave a soft, real laugh. “Maybe that’s the point.” She looked at her hands, then at Riley. “What do you think happens if the Law comes for her, and we all jump at once?”

Riley grinned, sharp and sweet at the same time. “I think we make a mess big enough that someone has to notice.”

They sat like that, side by side, the air a little easier between them now. Myra’s tails had stopped moving entirely. After a while, Riley said, “You know, I’d always pictured my last week on Earth being a lot more interesting than this.”

Myra grinned. “Not sure what could be more interesting than this. But at least you get good company.”

Riley knocked her shoulder, gentle. “Yeah. I do.”

The silence after that was comfortable. They didn’t need to say it again. It was settled: when the time came, neither of them would sit out. Family was family, even if it was by accident.

“You want to get out of here?” Myra asked.

“Yeah,” Riley said, standing and offering a hand. “Let’s go find something worth blowing up.”

They walked out together, not holding hands but close enough, the kind of distance only sisters could manage.