Transfiguration: Into the Furnace, Part 2

Amabilis stood at the foot of the dais, surveying the arrangement of women as if counting reagents in a beaker. Her eyes moved bench by bench, starting with the twins: Summer and Autumn, now rendered impossible by the work, were still struggling with their clothes, each attempt to fix a strap or tug at a hem producing only further chaos. The body was flawless, but every fiber of cloth rebelled against it. Next came Magda, now in the white armor of her lab coat, who sat with her knees locked and hands pressed between them, as if she might strangle any new indignity before it was born. She seemed to be counting the seconds until the next trial.

Third was Chiara, whose every gesture now betrayed a fractal of intent: her fingers flicking a non-existent speck from her skirt (I am above this), her posture so calibrated it was a dare (try to catch me off guard again), the infinitesimal cant of her head (I see you watching, and I want you to). The mask had not cracked; it had simply gone translucent.

Finally, Amabilis’s gaze landed on Drosia. The soldier stood out even seated: her posture loose, her hands slack, but her gaze crackling. She radiated the feral alertness of a wolf in a sheep pen, every muscle primed for the next escalation.

Amabilis called, “Drosia Kallistratos. Please approach.”

Drosia uncrossed her arms with a sharpness that made the air pop. She rose, made a show of rolling her shoulders, then strode up the aisle—her boots making a louder sound than seemed strictly necessary.

“So?” she said. “Is the neck fixed, or am I still made to rattle?”

Amabilis did not answer immediately. She let the silence build, a retort of its own. Then: “For most of the interval, the audience inclined toward a permanent restoration. Your body would be whole, subject to your own control.”

Drosia grinned. “Good. Sensible. Order restored—”

Amabilis interrupted: “But the margin did not hold. There was a reversal. The current state persists. Your head remains… provisional.”

The soldier’s expression, upon learning the verdict, was not disappointment, not even shock—just a flash of something brittle, the barest rift in a slab of iron. Then Drosia let out a curse, a string of Byzantine Greek so loud it turned every head in the amphitheater, and with that the seam at her neck split like a rotten branch. Her head popped loose and tumbled, a shock of red hair fanning in a parabola; only the preternatural reflexes of her own body caught it before it hit the floor. One arm shot out, fingers gripping the crown of her head as if seizing a helmet in battle, and her own torso cradled the head to its breast.

She was still shouting. The voice, now unmoored from the diaphragm, came out shrill and raw, but perfectly audible. “Are you cracked in the skull, you sons of uncertain mothers? You let me walk around like a freak when you could have just glued it on?” Her body, unaware of the head’s feelings but feeling its agitation, petted the head gently, almost as if the head were a frightened animal.

Drosia’s body, with its new burden, shuffled in a slow circle before the dais, as if daring the audience to laugh. It tucked its own head in the crook of the elbow, pinning it against its torso, while Drosia’s head sneered at the rest of the women with an expression that was part challenge, part invitation.

The effect was immediate. Summer’s face went white, her mouth open in a perfect oval. Autumn flinched, then leaned forward, eyes narrowed, as if to log every second of the anomaly. Magda, in her lab coat, watched with the cold fascination of a scientist presented with a failed specimen: detached, but with a glint that said she was already thinking about the implications. Chiara smiled, the mask now doubled—her outer self placid, her inner (Amusing, soldier, though I imagine it must be mortifying) laughing with delight.

Selene’s hands flew to her own throat. Nebet-Hedj, by contrast, pursed her lips and nodded in approval. “A fine trick,” she said, almost fondly. “You should show it off in the baths.”

Oudemia did not move at all, but her eyes tracked the head, never once blinking.

Amabilis waited for the wave of panic and noise to crest, then raised her voice. “You are not unique in this, Drosia. Others have survived greater disjunction. What you do with it is the matter at hand.”

Drosia spat, a gesture so practiced it was near-muscle-memory. “Easy for you, goddess. You have never had to tie a scarf around your own stump so it doesn’t scare the horses.”

This landed with a thump, and even Amabilis smiled.

Magda, who had by now recalibrated to the new baseline of the evening, said, “This is an excellent object lesson, I think. Every time the system gives you what you want, it takes something else.” Her eyes flicked to Adrien, then to Amabilis. “What’s the next trick, then? Or do we have to see if she can eat and talk at the same time?”

Amabilis did not rise to the bait. “There is more. For Drosia, the outcome was nearly a three-way tie. Each transformation, for long periods, received the highest count. For some time, her choice resulted in a three-way deadlock.”

Drosia grunted. “Of course. Even the crowd can’t make up their mind.”

Amabilis said, “In the final accounting, two options trailed by the narrowest margin. You will receive ‘Summary Execution’ as your transformation, which won in the end with 38.71% of the votes. ‘Shield Sister’ will return for the next interval, having earned 32.26% of the votes.”

Drosia’s face, clamped under her own arm, managed to look both incredulous and impressed. “Summary Execution? You people have a sense of humor after all.”

Amabilis approached, extending a hand to touch the base of Drosia’s throat—a motion that, given the absence of a head, was both practical and symbolic. Drosia’s body tensed, every muscle coiling for impact. Then Amabilis’s touch lingered, and for a second, nothing happened.

• Summary Execution: Drosia's execution was so sudden, perhaps the effects can be mitigated slighly. Now, whenever her head detaches, as long as it is less than 10 feet from the body, she can control the body as if the head were still attached. However, she experiences an immediate, powerful orgasm whenever her head is reattached to her neck. (Lawbreaker)

Drosia scoffed, “Is that it? Did you expect me to—”

The rest of the sentence was lost in a convulsion. The head, clamped to the chest, flexed as if gripped by an invisible vise; the torso locked, then shuddered, and the arm holding the head snapped out straight. It was as if a current passed through, reknitting every nerve end. Then Drosia’s head stopped, and for the first time the eyes went wide with real, unmitigated panic.

“My body—” she said, and the words came out not as a moan, but as a simple, almost childlike plea. “I can feel it. I can move it.”

The head, cradled tight in the crook of its own arm, snapped to attention. As if testing a theory, the torso rotated, left then right, the motion smooth as a drill sergeant on parade. The left hand released the **** grip on her hair and flexed, then made a rude gesture at Amabilis. The legs took a step forward, then two, almost losing balance in the transition. Drosia's head, lips peeling into a feral grin, barked, "Well, that's new."

Amabilis said, "You may now operate your vessel independently of the head, as long as it remains within the interval."

"What happens if I—" Drosia's head, ever tactical, pointed with her chin at the body. The body reached out, set the head on the stone bench, then marched a brisk circuit of the dais before returning to lift it up again. Every movement telegraphed both glee and a pointed refusal to accept the system's intended humiliation.

Amabilis said, "The link persists to a radius of ten feet. Beyond that, the body will fall inert until the interval is closed again."

Summer, voice pitched high and incredulous, said, "It's like a remote control!”

Drosia's body placed her head back atop the neck stump, but did not let go. "If I reattach it now," she said, "does it stay on?"

Amabilis’s mouth twitched, just at the corner. "If you are in a state of emotional equilibrium. Otherwise, the bond will remain provisional."

Drosia's face glowered at the implication. She stomped over to the benches, set the head down beside Magda, then returned to the dais and executed a perfectly precise squat-thrust. This continued for several iterations, the head narrating the experiment: "Still works. Still works. Still works."

Oudemia watched, eyes unblinking, never once betraying amusement or disgust. Nebet-Hedj looked faintly disappointed, as if she'd expected a transformation more spectacular than simple decapitation. Chiara, who had studied the performance with the eye of a theater director, now regarded Adrien with a smirk.

Drosia’s head sat upright on the bench beside Magda’s thigh, the rest of her body pacing brisk circuits in front of the dais. Magda observed the process with a pale, cold focus, refusing to look away, refusing to acknowledge the impossibility of the severed head nearby. She could not will away the horror. Even in her own time, the guillotine was a symbol, not a practical condition. Yet here it was, domesticated and made ordinary in under five minutes.

Summer and Autumn had retreated a full bench backward. Summer watched Drosia’s body scuttle across the floor, then the head’s mouth moving independently, and blurted, “It’s like a scene from Evil Dead.” The words earned her a blank look from every pre-1980s contestant.

Adrien, who had seen and survived far worse, managed a wry smile. “It has precedent, I suppose. Saint Denis was said to have carried his own head for miles.”

Summer piped up, “Did he do pushups with it, though?”

Chiara, who sat across the aisle, eyed the performance with a mixture of amusement and calculation. Her pose was classic: legs elegantly crossed, back straight, head cocked just enough to indicate interest without risk of involvement. But to Adrien, the body language was more explicit than any line of dialogue: (I am watching to see what new order emerges. I shall pivot, if necessary.)

Nebet-Hedj, whose history had predated even the logic of heads and bodies, called out to Drosia: “If you need linen strips, I can wrap the neck for you.” She said it with a craftsman’s pride, the way a builder might offer to shore up a collapsing arch.

Drosia’s head, from its place on the bench, let out a raw bark of laughter. “I’d rather you used a chain. Easier to carry.” Her body stooped, scooped up the head, and pressed it to its chest, where it resumed glowering at the dais.

The whole time, Oudemia sat still as a sculpture, knees up, arms tight around her shins, hair shadowing most of her face. She did not blink; she did not comment. But her eyes, obsidian and cold, never left Drosia’s moving parts.

Amabilis let the commotion burn itself out. Then, in a voice calibrated to cut through the chaos, said, “Thank you, Drosia, for so effectively illustrating the new equilibrium.”

Drosia’s head scowled, but the body bowed at the waist, as if mocking the process with its own perfect compliance.

Amabilis regarded the benches, then addressed Drosia directly. “You may reattach the head whenever you wish, so long as you are not in a state of dissonance.”

Drosia snorted, her body walked back to the bench and picked the head up with remarkable gentleness, tucking it between its legs.

A beat, then Drosia muttered, “At least it won’t make me easier to kill next time.”

Magda replied, tensely, “I suppose it will make you memorable.”

Amabilis, seeing the shift, prepared to call the next name. But first, she looked to Drosia and said, “Do you wish to complete the demonstration?”

For the first time, Drosia hesitated. The head watched its own hands, then the bench, then the other women. It was only when the body sat, both feet flat on the stone, that Drosia gritted her teeth and planted the head firmly back on its neck. There was a moment—a pulse of tension—then a spasm. Drosia jerked upright, her whole body shivering, and then, in a voice hoarse with something other than anger, said, “By the—”

The word was choked off by a moan, as involuntary as the snap of a bowstring. The entire amphitheater went still. Drosia’s face went beet red, her hands clamped onto the edge of the bench, and her body shook as if gripped by some giant, invisible hand. The sound she made was not a scream, not a gasp, but a low, grinding growl, the sound of iron being bent past its yield.

For a full five seconds, she did not move. Then, with immense effort, she opened her eyes, glared at Amabilis, and croaked, “Satisfied?”

Amabilis, impassive, nodded once. “The effect is working as intended.”

Summer, who had never witnessed a public orgasm in her life, was frozen in a pose of total shock. Autumn’s hand locked onto Summer’s forearm, either to steady her or keep her from saying something they’d both regret.

Magda, lips white, managed, “The discharge is—unusual, but logical. There must be a cost to reconstitution.”

Nebet-Hedj, who had seen every variety of paroxysm among the dying, nodded with interest. “It is a good effect,” she said, to no one in particular.

Drosia sat, trembling, then finally regained control. “If any of you breathe one more word,” she said, “I will make you eat your tongue.” The threat was less menacing than tired.

Oudemia, unmoved, said, “I never experienced that. Would it kill me?” There was no sarcasm, just a flat acknowledgment of the condition as she looked at Adrien. He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he shook his head. She seemed content with that.

Summer turned to Autumn, voice a whisper: “This is the weirdest day of our life.”

Autumn said, “I don’t think it’s over.”

Amabilis, seeing the system return to equilibrium, called, “Selene. Please join me.”

Selene’s approach to the dais was not so much a walk as a minor ritual. She paused, offered a bow of the head to Amabilis, then to Adrien, then back to the Host again. She took her place before the dais and stood, hands at her sides, gaze slightly down.

Amabilis regarded her with an expression that, on another face, might have been pity. “Selene. You have the distinction of being the most favored in the vessel. The Audience wished, above all, to see your fate first.”

Selene nodded once, her eyes flicking up to Adrien for guidance. He gave her a tiny, almost imperceptible smile, and she seemed to draw breath from it.

Amabilis continued. “Your poll was in continuous motion. At times, two transformations competed; each had majority support, but neither could break away. In the end, only a single vote separated them. In such rare cases, the Host is permitted one intervention per round: the veto.”

Magda, who had recovered from her earlier ordeal, could not help herself: “Is that to prevent deadlocks, or for your own entertainment?”

Amabilis’s answer was immediate: “Both. When the Veto is used, it is to create a state of maximum possibility—never to suppress.”

Adrien, who knew more about vetoes than any other person in the Athanor, Host excluded, watched the exchange with a neutrality that took real effort. He’d read of transformations that failed—failed the person, failed the story, failed the need for escalation. Here, the logic was clear. If you could not resolve a contradiction, you fused the terms and allowed the world to survive the explosion.

Summer and Autumn whispered in stereo: “That seems… dangerous?” “It’s like mixing two different stories and hoping the ending works.”

Drosia’s head, back on its body but still reeling, said, “Or you get a monster.”

Nebet-Hedj simply said, “That is how new gods are made.”

Selene remained silent, but her body language was pure anticipation. Her left hand hovered at her hip, fingers curling and uncurling in a nervous, continuous spiral.

Amabilis announced, “The transformations were Empusa and Lunar Complexion. The counts were separated by a single vote, neither ever dropping below the other for long. Therefore, I am compelled to combine them. The new state is called Hecate’s Handmaiden.”

• Hecate's Handmaiden: As a lover of the Moon and a devout of Hecate, Selene is chosen as one of Hecate's handmaidens. Her legs transform into a serpentine tail, which she instinctively knows how to use. Her chest expands, and her skin takes on a flawless, pearlescent sheen that makes her stunning to everyone. She no longer suffers from any form of hygiene issues or physical aging. At night, or whenever she's about to engage in something sexual, she can switch back and forth between the tail and her original legs at will. (Empusa)

At this, a ripple went through the benches. Selene did not move. But Adrien saw the micro-movements: the tightening of the hands, the slight backward shift of her weight, the dilation of her pupils. She waited for the rest, and Amabilis obliged.

Drosia, not one to let a monster in the house go unremarked, said, "You’ll be a lamia. A snake woman."

Selene’s mouth parted, uncertain. Her hands flitted to her face, to her chest, then back to her sides, the habit of years warring with the anticipation of becoming something not quite human.

Chiara’s gaze slid from Selene to Adrien, then back to Selene. (She will be beautiful, and she will be impossible to ignore. This Host does not do half-measures.)

Magda, who had at first been skeptical, now gave a nod of respect, as if the logic of the transformation had finally resolved itself into something inevitable. "It is horrifying," she said, "for the first of us to win the poll. The system rewards loyalty with monstrosity."

Selene did not hear a word of this. She looked only to Adrien, searching for permission, or reassurance, or a sign.

He smiled, just a little, and nodded. She dropped her gaze and waited for the touch.

Amabilis reached out and placed her hand on the top of Selene’s head. The contact was not cold, nor did it spark or burn, but it was a circuit completed. There was a shimmer—nothing visible, but the hair on every arm in the amphitheater stood up at once.

At first, nothing happened. Selene exhaled, slow, relieved—and then her legs buckled. She staggered, catching herself on the dais, but did not fall. Instead, her calves collapsed together, the bone and muscle reknitting, the feet stretching and melting into each other. A wave ran up her thighs, which elongated and narrowed; the flesh hardened and then softened again, like wax passed through fire. Her robe rode up, unable to contain what was happening beneath.

The change reached her pelvis, and there was a moment of stasis—a drawn breath, a tension so sharp it felt like the next second could snap the world in half. Then it passed, and the transformation continued upward. Her torso lengthened, her waist cinched, her hips flared, and the robe split at the seams, falling away to reveal a long, glossy tail coiled in a perfect spiral where two legs had once been. The scales were not scales, exactly—more a ripple of iridescence, subtle and mutable, shimmering under the obsidian light.

Selene's skin took on a faint, luminous glow, as if dusted with silver and moonlight. Her breasts, already larger than most, swelled further, the change so gradual that it looked like the expansion of a tide rather than a sudden inflation. When it was done, she was naked to the waist, but the newness of her skin and the impossible beauty of it made the fact almost irrelevant.

The first thing Selene did, after the change was done, was coil.

It was not deliberate. The new muscles knew their work before her mind could supply names for them. The tail’s first movement was slow and searching, the coils tight at her center, then unfurling, then tightening again in a spiral so graceful it seemed almost rehearsed. The scales—no, not scales, not truly, but a shimmer of light and shadow—caught on the obsidian floor, reflecting the amphitheater’s glow back in fractured arcs.

Selene looked down, looked at herself, and let the moment pass over her without so much as a tremor. Her hand passed over the new waist, fingers hesitating at the transition from skin to what felt like liquid glass, then further down, finding nothing monstrous or strange, only an extension of self that felt as natural as waking. She flexed, and the tail rose beneath her, lifting her body a full arm’s length from the floor. The core was strong. She could, if she wished, arch backward and touch her hands to the stone without falling.

The benches stilled. Even Drosia—who was still coming to terms with her own duality—gawked, her face a mask of both horror and, after a second, **** steel.

Summer and Autumn, at the far end, looked at each other, at Selene, then at each other again, as if the only hope of processing this was in stereo.

“Jesus Christ,” Summer whispered. “It’s like… she’s the boss battle.”

Autumn said, “Don’t say that where she can hear.”

Selene heard, but did not react. Instead, she looked to Adrien, her eyes searching for… something. Approval, maybe. Or just a reflection of herself, unbroken by the shock.

He smiled. Not broadly, but with the quiet pride of a craftsman watching an impossible tool perform its first, perfect function.

Selene’s mouth—still as small and unassuming as before—parted in a slow, surprised smile. Drosia was the first to break the silence.

“Does it hurt?” she asked. Her voice was a dry cough, nothing left of the soldier’s bravado.

Selene shook her head. She touched her hand to her chest—now swelled to a size that would have seemed ridiculous, if not for the inhuman grace of the rest of her. The pearlescent skin stretched perfectly over the new curves, without blemish. Her hand lingered there, then dropped.

As Selene’s tail coiled, Drosia’s body shuddered—just once, a full-body wince that ran up from her core to the base of her skull. The head threatened to come loose again, but she clamped her jaw, and this time it held. She looked at Selene, as if the two of them might now belong to the same, unwelcome club.

Magda’s response was more complicated.

She stared, first at the tail, then at the sheen of the skin, then at the eyes—eyes that seemed to have gone a shade lighter, as if the transformation had burned away some of the pigment. Magda was of the Enlightenment, and in her world, myth was a disease best cured by skepticism and fresh air. She had seen tricks before, she had even seen one resurrection, and she still felt uncomfortable around Drosia, but somehow, this was worse.

She could not process it. Not at first.

“Is she—” Magda’s voice caught. She **** it out, voice low, teeth clenched. “Is she truly a servant of Hecate now?”

Amabilis, still at the dais, gave a nod. “The goddess herself is not invoked. Only the pattern. Whether Hecate herself will bless her, remains to be seen.”

Magda felt the urge to retch, but suppressed it. She looked at Selene, at the way the body now moved, not in steps or stumbles, but in a continuous, wave-like flow. The rational part of her wanted to take notes, but the rest recoiled at the horror of a myth made flesh.

“Can you… can you stand?” Magda asked, not quite able to mask the revulsion.

Selene understood. She flexed her new tail, then, with a subtle shift of weight, she drew herself upright, the torso rising straight, the tail beneath folding in perfect, muscular support. She was now a full head taller than before, eye to eye with Amabilis, her tail coiled beneath her, the new form as stable and as beautiful as a statue from a world that had never existed.

Chiara watched the entire process with an intensity that bordered on panic. For a long moment, she said nothing. Her hands, which had always been so perfectly placed, now fidgeted in her lap, twisting the fabric of her dress. Her eyes tracked every movement—every flex, every spiral, every micro-movement of the new tail. She wanted to look away, but could not. (That is not a woman. That is not a thing that should exist. But it is beautiful.)

The contradiction was unbearable. She pressed her lips together, and said, “Is this what it means, then? To be chosen? To become something that cannot be ignored?”

Amabilis turned to her, as if only now remembering she existed. “In the alchemical work, the most stable compounds are the most… notable.”

Chiara’s hand drifted to her own hair, fingers curling tight at the scalp. (If Andrea ever touches her, I will leave this place. But he will. Of course he will.)

Selene’s gaze met Chiara’s, and for the first time, Chiara looked away.

Nebet-Hedj, by contrast, leaned forward, elbows on her knees, chin in her hands.

She said, “In my home, the Wadjet was the serpent-protector of the Pharaohs. It was an honor to wear her on the crown.” She said this without irony, as if a snake-woman was a perfectly reasonable outcome for the poll. “You have been honored,” she told Selene, and the words were not mockery.

Selene nodded, accepting the benediction.

Oudemia, who had until now seemed completely inert, stirred. She watched Selene’s every move, and for the first time since entering the amphitheater, her face betrayed interest—her brows pinched, her lips thinned. There was no revulsion in her look, no awe, but a careful, appraising attention.

The Roman **** looked at Adrien, not for reassurance this time, but for the confirmation that she was still herself. His face was unreadable, but there was a warmth in his eyes she had not seen before.

She moved to leave the dais, but paused.

She looked at her tail, then at the floor, and then at Amabilis. The Host nodded, and as if responding to an unspoken question, said, “Then learn.”

Selene did. She pressed her hands to the floor, lifted her body, and with a combination of instinct and new sinew, rippled herself forward. The movement was not quite a crawl, not quite a slither, but something between—a fluidity that would have shamed any dancer. She made it three steps before the new tail buckled, and she fell, catching herself on her elbows.

Summer gasped, “Are you okay?” but Selene was already up, shaking her head.

Autumn, voice flat, said, “You’ll figure it out. It’s better than having no legs at all.”

Selene tried again, this time holding her torso upright, the tail coiling and uncoiling in a pattern that, after three repetitions, became almost graceful. She reached the bench, paused, then coiled her tail into a spiral beneath her and lowered herself onto the stone.

Drosia, whose arms were wrapped around her torso protectively, realized what she was doing and quickly released their grip, then said, “Well. That’s not the strangest thing I’ve seen this week.” The words came out a little hollow, as if the gap between her own condition and Selene’s was too wide to ever be closed.

Magda watched Selene’s breathing, the new tail muscles flexing and relaxing in unfamiliar patterns. The scholar in her wanted to poke, to prod, to dissect, but the rest of her only wanted to run.

Chiara tried to resume her old pose, legs crossed, arms folded, but every movement of Selene’s tail drew her eye back. (She is beautiful. I hate her for it. The Audience saw fit to give her beauty, and give me a curse. I will not forget this.)

Nebet-Hedj, serene, said, “It is always better to be reborn than left in the old form. My people knew this. The world eats itself, and if you do not change, you are the one eaten.”

Oudemia’s eyes, now glued to Selene, flicked to Adrien, then back to the new ancilla of Hecate. She did not speak, but the look in her eyes was clear: now, at last, the system had made something worthy of her attention.

Selene curled herself tighter, then looked at Adrien. There was a vulnerability in her face—still hers, still the girl he had saved, two thousand years ago. She raised her hand to her throat, then to her lips, then held it out, palm up.

It was not a question. It was not even a plea. It was a statement: I am still myself.

Adrien nodded. She smiled, and coiled her tail tighter, the movement now as natural as breath.

Amabilis did not need to call for Nebet-Hedj; the embalmer had already risen, linen wraps rustling in a dry susurrus as she floated to the dais. She simply stood, as if awaiting instructions from a god or a supervisor. Her face was impassive, but her eyes, catching first Adrien’s and then Amabilis’s, kindled and quenched as rapidly as flash powder in a sealed jar.

There was a weird absence to Nebet-Hedj, an emotional vacuum that registered only in the ways her expression responded to direct attention. Look at her, and you might catch a flicker—a glint of humor, a passing curiosity, the muscle memory of kindness—but the second her focus drifted, her mask set back to zero, all affect erased.

Adrien saw the effect and felt it in his teeth. He’d witnessed trauma before, the kind that calcified a person’s affect, but this was different. This was metaphysical absence: with the lack of her ba, Nebet-Hedj had been unplugged from whatever powered ordinary humanity. Adrien would not even attempt to reconcile the contradictions between Drosia’s and Nebet-Hedj’s deaths. Were the Egyptians right about the soul? Were the Greeks? The Christians? Did everyone’s soul function differently, based on what they believed. He looked at Nebet-Hedj and he wondered whether she felt it, or if it only mattered to the living.

Amabilis observed this, then addressed her in measured tones. “Nebet-Hedj. Please stand ready.”

Nebet-Hedj did not nod, but a subdermal shift in her jaw signaled full attention. “I am ready,” she said, voice flat as a mortuary slab.

The Host’s hands folded at the waist. “Your poll was never in question. 78,57% of the Audience voted for a restoration of your ba.”

Nebet-Hedj glanced at Amabilis, and in her eyes, for a fraction of a heartbeat, was the echo of gratitude. “Kindness is often a trap,” she said, matter-of-fact. “You restore a soul, and sometimes it grows back wrong.”

That drew a snort from Drosia, whose head was now firmly reattached and seated three benches away. “And so the Egyptian pagan would be given a soul out of charity,” she muttered, “while the Christian is left in pieces.”

Magda, scientific as always, said, “I suspect the system prefers novelty. A piecemeal soul is less entertaining than a whole one.”

Drosia rolled her eyes. “It is even less entertaining from inside a piecemeal body.”

Amabilis let the air settle, then approached Nebet-Hedj, hands outstretched. “The process is simple, but the result is… unpredictable. Are you ready?”

Nebet-Hedj said, “Yes.” Her eyes flicked to Adrien. “If it fails, you may try again.”

Amabilis’s hand pressed lightly to the center of Nebet-Hedj’s chest. The effect was instantaneous: every muscle in her body contracted, then released, and for a split second, a wash of color and heat ran up her face, as if she were blushing for the first time in centuries. Her breath hitched, and she looked up—caught Adrien’s gaze—then all at once, the brightness drained away. The light behind her eyes dulled, her jaw slackened. She took a step backward, as if re-calibrating to gravity.

Magda, seeing the effect, said, “Did it work?”

Nebet-Hedj shook her head, lips parted in surprise. “No. I feel nothing.”

Amabilis’s mouth curled at one edge. “I restored the ba, as requested. But during the day, the ba travels to D’uat. Your completion will occur only at sunset. At sunrise, the ba departs again.”

It was a cruel twist, rendered in neutral terms.

Nebet-Hedj blinked, recalibrating. “I see.”

Adrien, feeling the line of logic, said, “So every night, you are whole again?”

Amabilis nodded. “If you succeed in fusing your ba and ka into an akh before the opening of the Athanor, you will be complete. Otherwise, the ba will depart for good, and you will be left as you are now.”

Nebet-Hedj considered this. “It is as the gods will it,” she said. She looked at Adrien, and there was a real, private warmth in her gaze, before she looked away and the affect went flat once more.

Drosia, seeing the effect, said, “So you get to be a person only after dark. That’s not a blessing, that’s a curse.”

Nebet-Hedj replied, “There are many who only come alive at night. I will make it work.”

Summer, always eager to bridge a gap, said, “If you ever want to talk about it… we don’t sleep much either.”

Nebet-Hedj nodded at her, the gesture a perfect simulation of gratitude.

Amabilis, not waiting for the sympathy to catch, announced, “There is more. The vote for your transformation resulted in a perfect tie, both transformations at 38.89%. Therefore, the system will apply both. I congratulate you, Nebet-Hedj: you are the first to achieve this state unaided, this cycle.”

Nebet-Hedj did not react, but instead watched Amabilis with the calm of a woman about to be operated on.

Amabilis raised her hands, as if displaying a rare specimen. “The first is Canopic Transfer. ”

• Canopic Transfer: Nebet-Hedj's canopic jars are no longer necessary, so we'll put them to good use. Nebet-Hedj can "store" one transformation from herself or from another contestant into one of these jars, rendering it inert for 24 hours or until the jar is open. Each contestant can only be affected once per round, and each time Nebet-Hedj uses this ability, one of the jars becomes useless for the rest of the round (thus, she can use this ability up to four times per round). Only Nebet-Hedj can open a jar containing a transformation. (Mummy)

“The second,” Amabilis said, “is Touch of Madness.”

• Touch of Madness: As quicksilver drives users mad, Nebet-Hedj's touch becomes insidious. Skin to skin contact with her causes an increase in arousal, based on the duration of the contact and on the surface area that is involved. Too much contact too quickly can drive the recipient into heat. The ability doesn't work on Nebet-Hedj herself, and it only has a minor effect on the Master. (Quicksilver/Mercury)

Summer’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, she can just, like, turn people on? By accident?”

“Not by accident,” said Amabilis. “But the effect is not voluntary. It is constant. Only she is fully immune.”

Nebet-Hedj held up her hands and turned them over, as if expecting to see mercury bead on her skin. “It will not affect me?” she asked.

Amabilis shook her head. Drosia barked a laugh. “Now that’s a curse. Try not to touch me, corpse.”

Nebet-Hedj glanced at Drosia, and for a second, the corner of her mouth twitched upward. “Do not worry, soldier. I have no interest in your flesh.”

Drosia, weirdly pleased, said, “Good. It is not so fine as yours.”

Magda, whose interest was now fully technical, said, “Are the jars metaphysical, or will they appear somewhere?”

Amabilis answered, “She will find them in her quarters. If you wish, Nebet-Hedj of Sebennytos, you may test them now.”

Nebet-Hedj considered, then shook her head. “I prefer to wait.”

Summer, half-joking, said, “If you ever want to practice, maybe try it on the headless one first. She’s hard to embarrass.”

Drosia glared at her. “Try me. See who cracks first.”

Nebet-Hedj ignored the dare and instead looked to Adrien. She stepped forward, close enough to touch, then hesitated. “Did you bring me here just to see if I could be fixed?”

He met her gaze. “No. I hoped you wouldn’t be broken at all.”

She weighed that, and in her eyes there was a flare of skepticism, then an uncertain gratitude.

Amabilis, watching the microdrama, said, “If you wish to test the Touch of Madness, Master, you may do so now.”

He nodded, held out his hand. Nebet-Hedj extended her fingers, and she took his hand, her skin cool to the touch. The effect was instant, if subtle: a thread of heat ran up his arm and settled in his chest, a gentle, persistent tingle, the kind that called to mind long summer afternoons and the soft buzz of bees in the grass. He held her gaze.

He drew back. “It works,” he said, a little breathless. Nebet-Hedj seemed pleased, or at least satisfied. She looked down at her hand, flexed the fingers, and then dropped them to her side.

Selene, who had watched the demonstration with rapt attention, slithered forward a little, as if wanting to see for herself. But she stopped, hesitant.

Nebet-Hedj caught the hesitation. “It does not harm. It is only a sensation.”

Selene nodded, but coiled her tail tighter, keeping herself to her own bench.

Chiara’s lips pressed together in a line. (I will not let her touch me. Not unless I need the advantage.)

Summer, ever the optimist, said, “Well, at least now you have something special.”

Nebet-Hedj gave her the tiniest of smiles. “We all have something, Summer. Some have more, some have less. It is what we do with it that matters.”

Nebet-Hedj bowed—not deeply, but enough to indicate the matter was settled—and walked back to her bench, the affection in her face already fading as she looked away from Adrien and Amabilis. She sat, hands folded, as if the events of the past few minutes had been a simple administrative matter.

Summer, always the one to process out loud, whispered to Autumn, “She’s like a sleep mode person. It’s kind of sad.”

Magda, voice dry, said, “I am still curious if she will explode at sunset.”

Adrien watched Nebet-Hedj as she reclined, hands resting on her lap, expression blank as a tomb wall. He did not have long to consider her. Amabilis was already moving on, her voice echoing through the chamber, ready to call the final name to the dais.

"Oudemia," Amabilis said. The name—no, the vacancy—pulled every eye in the room. The last of the women didn’t sit on a bench, but on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest. She uncurled with the slow, almost mechanical **** of a person summoned for sentencing rather than reward.

She stood.

Oudemia unfolded herself from the floor, moved to the center aisle, and walked up the shallow steps toward Amabilis with an eerie grace. Her posture was neither proud nor defeated: she existed in the interval between, a body designed for movement but stripped of its context, its purpose. Her hair was an impossible, matted mane that reached past her ankles.

She was stark naked—her body unhidden and unashamed, after over two thousand years in a stone throat. She was also filthy, the grime of the ancient world ground into the lines of her skin, and her hair a living labyrinth that looked more suited to snaring birds than to being combed. But it was the way she moved—unconcerned, uncalibrated, not even performatively indifferent—that made every other woman in the amphitheater forget their own transformations for a moment.

Summer and Autumn gawked openly. Summer’s face turned the color of a fire truck; Autumn’s eyes locked forward, the way you do if you’re trying very hard not to stare at a car accident. Summer whispered, “Oh, god, does she not know?” and Autumn, voice flat, said, “She does not care.” The shared body, so recently a miracle of form, shrank under the effort of accommodating even this much difference.

Magda, in her crisp white lab coat, regarded Oudemia as one might a specimen left out of its jar. Her gaze traveled up and down with the clinical dismay of someone whose entire childhood had been haunted by “freaks of nature” in carnival shows and university galleries. Her brain only screamed “scandalous.” She opened her mouth, then shut it, and instead clung to the edge of her bench with a white-knuckled grip.

Chiara’s first impulse was not even to react: in her world, nakedness was either weapon or vulnerability, and this girl wielded neither. For a fleeting moment, Chiara’s body language was so neutral that it registered as deliberate opacity: (If she intends to seduce, I will not give her the satisfaction. If she intends to humiliate, she must work harder.) And yet, in her core, a knot of unease gathered—a hothouse flower **** to share a pot with a weed from beyond history.

Drosia, who had until now assumed that only soldiers and peasants were capable of so thoroughly disregarding shame, made a face. “Is this a provocation?” she said, turning to Amabilis. “Or is she simply insane?” She did not wait for an answer.

Selene, still learning to control the coils of her new tail, drew herself inward, the tail’s tip curling tight as if to conserve heat or space. She watched Oudemia with a gaze that was all at once devotional, wary, and curious—a ****, but also a thing with teeth.

Nebet-Hedj alone seemed to find the girl’s presence perfectly ordinary. She tracked Oudemia’s walk to the dais the way a stonecutter might watch a stray dog, mildly interested only in how its shadow fell across the floor. If it was odd to her that someone would walk naked before an audience of strangers, it did not show.

Amabilis’s face betrayed the faintest trace of consternation before settling into the default of professional neutrality. “Oudemia,” she said, crisp and clear. The sound of the recently assigned name was a stone dropped into a cistern, sending out ripples of expectation.

The girl stood in front of the dais, hands at her sides, hair like a shroud but never obscuring her face. She looked at Amabilis, then at Adrien, then back at Amabilis. Her posture was not defiant, nor was it submissive. If anything, it was a total refusal to acknowledge the grammar of the situation.

Amabilis began: “The Audience observed that you neither advocated for yourself nor expressed preference.”

Oudemia blinked, then said, “Does it matter?”

Amabilis smiled, small and cold. “Only in that you are a locus of possibility. Any state is preferable to stasis.” She extended her hands, black and white sleeve tips hovering just above Oudemia’s shoulders, but did not yet touch.

Adrien had expected to be nothing more than a fixture for this part—he was, after all, the catalyst but never the axis—but watching Oudemia approach the dais, he felt a current of emotion so alien it took him several seconds to identify it: it was not pity. It was not shame. It was the pure, clean rage of seeing a thing broken for no reason but that someone could. The girl’s utter neutrality made it worse; there was no logic in the world that could explain why a person would be put in a bottle for two thousand years just for fear of what she might do. His fingers dug into the arms of the throne, the urge to crush something so complete that he nearly splintered the wood.

He looked down, startled at himself, and only then realized three pairs of eyes had watched the micro-moment: Selene’s, wide with anxiety; Summer’s, wary and bright; Autumn’s, suspicious and sharp, as if trying to see what would come next. The three of them had seen, in their own ways, the fracture line run through his composure.

He made himself exhale. He unclenched his hand, willed the skin to flush pink again, then looked back up. Summer looked away at once, pretending to help Autumn with a loose strap. Autumn stared a beat longer, then let the attention drop. Selene’s gaze lingered, worried. He gave her a tiny, apologetic smile, and she dropped her head, uncertain.

The Host, seeing the moment of emotional turbulence pass, said, “Two outcomes were selected by the Audience, in perfect balance, with 38.71% of the vote. Therefore, both No Need for Modesty, and Smoke and Mirrors, will be applied.”

• Smoke and Mirrors: Her captors called her a daimon of the desert. Let's prove them right. Now, her lower body can dissolve into a cloud of fine, sparkling mist at will, allowing her to float and even fly slowly. However, her arousal grows slowly but steadily while using this transformation. While she cannot herself have sex while so transformed, her whirling cloud of mist can exert pressure appropriately if used for this purpose. (Spirit of the Desert)
• No Need for Modesty: The nameless girl's clothes and social mores disintegrated over the millennia she was locked in the cistern. However, the utter lack of modesty is something Harem Hotel sees as an advantage. Hence, she will never suffer any ill effects from being naked, but will never develop the desire to wear clothing again. Furthermore, her presence loosens the mores of others around her, so that they'll be more accepting of her public nudity, or other acts that would normally be limited to private settings. This doesn't apply if her nakedness or activities are brought up to their active attention. (Lead/Saturn)

She let her hands settle on Oudemia’s shoulders, black on the left, white on the right.

The effect was not immediately visible. Instead, there was an infinitesimal ripple—first in Oudemia’s posture, then in the way her hair fell, then in the entire atmosphere of the room. Summer, who only moments ago would have blushed to see so much as an exposed ankle, now regarded Oudemia’s body with a mild, anthropological interest, like a child watching a stray cat eat. Autumn, too, found herself unable to care about the nudity; what mattered was the way Oudemia didn’t bother to move aside for anyone, the way she measured the room in negative space.

Magda, whose entire personality was built around the idea of boundaries, now found the absence of Oudemia’s boundaries to be a technical puzzle, not a scandal. Chiara’s mind was, for once, unguarded: (She would be beautiful, without the dirt. I must watch her.)

Selene, coiled on her bench, watched Oudemia with wide, dark eyes. At first, Adrien thought it was fear, but then he realized: it was hunger. Not sexual, but the hunger of the truly devout, recognizing in another the mark of a survivor.

For Adrien, none of this felt normal. He could still see the nakedness; he could still see the dirt in the lines of her skin, the scars on her knees and elbows, the oddities of a body that had never once been permitted to exist for itself. He could feel the texture of the room shift around Oudemia, every molecule of air bending toward a new logic.

He gripped the armrests of the throne, his hands white at the knuckles. Amabilis stepped back and, without inflection, said, “The first transformation is No Need for Modesty. You will never suffer social or emotional discomfort from exposure. You will not develop the desire to cover yourself, nor will others find it remarkable.” She paused, looking at the benches. “The effect extends to public acts, as well.”

The words hung, but no one flinched.

Amabilis said, “The second is Smoke and Mirrors. At will, you may dissolve your lower body into a cloud of mist, allowing limited flight and insubstantial movement. You may reintegrate at any time. However, the longer you remain in the form, the greater your… distraction.”

Oudemia blinked. “Why?”

Amabilis smiled, small and clinical. “Because the system rewards those who make the most of their gifts. The effect is cumulative.”

Drosia, now clearly invested, said, “Show us.”

Oudemia looked at Amabilis, then at Adrien, then back at Amabilis. She shrugged, the motion so empty it almost made Adrien laugh. Instead, he felt a prick of something else—sadness, or maybe nostalgia for a woman for whom such gestures still meant something.

Amabilis said, "You may activate the transformation at will. Simply focus on the desire."

Oudemia looked at her own feet, then at the dais, then at the benches. She closed her eyes for a second. Her legs shimmered, then dissolved into fine, glittering, swirling mist that hovered just above the floor, supporting her torso in midair. She drifted upward three inches, rotated once, then solidified again, feet touching the ground with a soft tap.

"I did," she said, voice flat.

Amabilis's lips pressed thin, her shoulders tensing just enough for Adrien to see the spike of frustration before it vanished behind her mask of composure. The silence that followed was so absolute it bent the conversation off axis.

“You may return to your place,” said Amabilis, tone now wholly neutral.

Oudemia rose, walked back to the benches, and sat on the floor, her back to the stone, arms around her knees. As she settled, she cast a single, brief glance at Adrien—not hostile, not beseeching, just a pulse of data, as if to confirm he still existed in her world. Then she turned away.

This, somehow, felt more final than all the transformations that had preceded it.

The room exhaled in silence. The new logic rippled outward: Summer, once bashful, now found the nakedness of Oudemia less shocking than the affectlessness. Autumn tracked every movement with forensic interest, but it was the absence of embarrassment that held her attention. Magda logged the effect, testing her own reaction and finding that, yes, the scandal had evaporated. Drosia shrugged, as if satisfied to be ignored. Chiara, not to be upstaged, made a deliberate show of crossing her legs, a silent dare to any eyes that might wander. None did.

Only Adrien felt the sharp edge of the transformation. To him, the absence of modesty in Oudemia was not merely an absence; it was a wound with the nerves left open, the entire circuit of her life exposed to the world, uninsulated and unprotected.

He did not know how to process it, so he simply sat, hands braced on the arms of the throne, and waited for Amabilis to announce the next phase.

Amabilis’s hands came together in a single, conclusive gesture, as if drawing a line beneath the night. “The ceremony is concluded,” she said. “You are now in possession of your new states. The Athanor will be open to you for the rest of the round, except when the bell calls you here, to the House of Weighing.”

No one moved, but a pulse passed through the benches—a subtle realignment of posture, a shifting of attention from the center back to the periphery. Summer and Autumn, hands laced, both exhaled in relief; Drosia, whose head was once again anchored, rolled her neck as if checking for loose bolts. Selene’s new tail coiled tighter, as if bracing against a wind. Chiara straightened, hands folding in her lap, the picture of composure. Magda let her hands drop to her sides, and Nebet-Hedj drew her arms in, face already slipping back into its default mask. Oudemia did not move, but Adrien saw her hair quiver, ever so slightly, as if the air around her was the only part of the world worth noticing.

“Each of you, but Selene, shares a room,” Amabilis continued, “assigned according to the principles of the Work. They are as follows. Selene, you have the Coagulation Room, alone.”

Selene made a movement—hard to say if it was pride or fear, but she inclined her head, accepting.

“The Fixation Room is assigned to Nebet-Hedj and Chiara. Dissolution is for Drosia and Oudemia. The Circulation Room will be shared by Magdalena, Summer, and Autumn. Each is keyed to your touch, and to the touch of the Catalyst, should he require entry.”

Summer blinked, as if expecting a further condition. “So we have to share with…” She trailed off, waiting for Autumn to finish.

“—with Magda,” said Autumn, who seemed to be considering the logistics already.

Drosia, sitting two benches away from Oudemia, let out a low groan. “If she sleepwalks, do I have to chain her to the bed?”

Amabilis said, “If you wish. But it is not required.”

Magda’s eyes flicked to the twins, then to the room assignment, then back to the twins. She made a face. “If you snore, you are sleeping on the floor,” she said, more to herself than anyone.

Chiara, who would have preferred a solo assignment, absorbed the news in silence, but her right knee bounced in a pattern Adrien had learned to interpret as low-grade anxiety. (I will have to play house with a barbarian. So be it. I will learn her patterns.)

Nebet-Hedj, unmoved by the arrangement, nodded. “There are worse companions.” She looked at Chiara, and, in a rare moment, offered, “If you prefer silence, I can provide.”

Drosia, who had never slept in the presence of anything but fellow soldiers or strangers, cracked her knuckles and said, “If the girl gets up in the night, I want to know.” She looked to Oudemia, who did not acknowledge her.

Amabilis waited for the room to absorb the pairings, then added: “The lights in the Athanor will change, from warm to cool light and back, to indicate whether it is day or night outside. When the bell tolls twice, you are required to be in your rooms, and you are not to leave until sunrise, when the lights are once more warm. The penalty for breaking curfew is variable, but I do not recommend testing it.”

She let the warning linger.

“Tomorrow at sunset,” she continued, “the first of the dates will be started. Each night, one of you will spend the night in the Axis Mundi, in the presence of the Catalyst. No act is required other than to sleep beside him. The order has been set by the outcome of the poll.”

Here she paused, allowing each woman to feel the weight of the arrangement.

“Selene, you are first.”

Selene’s face did not show happiness or dread, but her hands balled in her lap, the fingers fusing into a single, trembling coil.

“Nebet-Hedj, second. Drosia, third. The twins, fourth, together. Magda, fifth. Chiara, sixth. Oudemia, seventh. This cycle will change upon the next poll.”

Adrien, who had known this was coming, watched each woman’s reaction in turn.

Selene, as always, searched for his eyes, but this time did not find them; he kept his gaze on Amabilis.

Nebet-Hedj accepted her place, but her affect flickered, and for a split second there was real hunger in her expression, as if she saw in the schedule a path to something vital. "At night, the ba returns," she murmured.

Drosia made a derisive sound. “Great. More quality time with the healer. Will I be allowed to bring my own head?”

Amabilis did not smile, but her voice carried the faintest hint of amusement. “You may bring any part of yourself that you wish.”

The twins did their best to look nonchalant, but Summer immediately whispered, “What if they try to make us sleep in a king-sized bed?” Autumn said, “We’ll adjust,” but even she seemed uneasy.

Magda calculated the rotations, then raised her hand. “Is it possible to forfeit a night, or to change the order?”

Amabilis shook her head. “No.”

Chiara, who had not expected to be so low in the rotation, processed the data with speed. (He will be tired, or different, by the time he reaches me. I must make the first meeting count.)

Oudemia, when her name was called, simply nodded. If it registered at all, it did not show.

Amabilis let the information ossify, then closed the file with a click of her tongue. “For tonight only, there is no curfew. You are free to visit the Axis Mundi, should you have questions for the Catalyst, though he may choose to admit you or not.” She looked at Adrien. “You are to remain in the Axis until tomorrow. You may accept visitors as you wish.”

Adrien could not help but smile, a tight-lipped thing that owed more to exhaustion than to humor.

Summer, unable to restrain herself, said, “So, what do we do until then?”

Amabilis said, “Whatever you wish. There are baths, a refectory, places where time can be productively spent, and open walks. Explore. Acclimate. Prepare for what comes next.”

Autumn asked, “Can we visit the Athenaeum again?”

Amabilis nodded. “It is always open, so long as there is no summons to the House of Weighing.”

Drosia, pragmatic, asked, “Where do we get food?”

Amabilis gestured. “Golems prepare all meals in the Refectory. Eat as much as you need; you will not go hungry.”

Chiara’s question was different. “How do we reach you, if needed?”

Amabilis smiled, not with warmth, but with the satisfaction of a shopkeeper confirming a well-made scale. “I will know if you require my presence. Otherwise, the Golems may relay a message.”

The air in the House of Weighing shifted; the logic of the game now dictated the rhythm of the group.

Amabilis looked at the benches, then at Adrien. “You have all been transformed. I congratulate you.”

She bowed, as if to close the matter, and then added: “You are released.”

The group did not scatter at once. There was a brief, awkward silence, the social machinery grinding up for the next interval. Then Drosia stood, patted her own neck for insurance, and headed for the doors. Summer and Autumn huddled, then trailed after, with Magda following close behind, already prepping for the next round of observation. Chiara, too, stood, her body language a blend of readiness and strategic withdrawal. She did not hurry. Nebet-Hedj, her hands folded, waited a moment before moving, as if unwilling to be caught in a rush. Selene rose last, coiling her tail beneath her and lowering herself gently to the ground. Oudemia simply remained where she was, still as a boundary stone.

Amabilis watched as the room emptied, then turned to Adrien. “You are to accompany me, now.”

He rose, following the Host out of the amphitheater, down a corridor lined with obsidian and white marble, the air cool and dry as a museum’s.

Amabilis walked with the certainty of someone who had mapped every inch of the Athanor centuries before it existed. They passed a window that looked out onto the caldera, the magma below a slow, breathing light. The shapes of the buildings inside the volcano loomed and receded as they walked, a strange city of mirrors and antique houses stitched together by some mad architect.

“Do you think this will work?” Adrien said. He kept his voice low.

Amabilis stopped, turning to face him. “If I did not, I would not be here.”

He wanted to ask if she ever doubted. But the look on her face suggested the answer: even if she did, she would never admit it—not to herself, and not to him.

They reached the Axis Mundi. Amabilis opened the massive stone door for him, gestured for him to enter, and then, as he stepped inside, she spoke one final time.

“Tomorrow will come, and the pattern will begin. You must be ready.”

He nodded, stepped through, and let the door close behind him.

Inside the Axis Mundi, the air was different: still, heavy, with a faint scent of ink and ash. The rooms were beautiful, in their own severe way, but it was the view out over the caldera that captured all the attention—a vast, silent fire that never once threatened to go out.

He sat on the edge of the bed, not knowing if he should lie down or pace. He thought of the women, their new forms and their old wounds, their strategies and resentments and silent hopes. He wondered who would come first. He wondered what they would ask. Not that he had answers to give. He made himself a drink, but ignored the kitchen. He wasn't hungry. Rather, he started thinking how to deflect the question that would surely arrive.

He sat there, hands folded, for a long time.

When the knock came, it was not a surprise, but it was not what he expected.

He stood, walked to the door, and opened it.

Recurring Author's Note: The (older) sister season, The HH, can be found here: https://chyoa.com/chapter/Andy-Cooper%2C-a-29-year-old-app-developer-and-entrepreneur.1741953

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