Bridges in Flour and Water, Part 2

Riley started her morning in the plant nursery because it was the only place she could justify pacing. The Inner Gardens had a section set up with flats of young perennials, rows of raised beds, and a climate that switched between misty spring and muggy July every day. It was Mildred’s nursery, apparently, although no one would have ever expected the creature Dawn affectionately called “Goth Mom” to actually care. She and Chloe had self-assigned to water and repot the basil and cut back the creeping thyme, and Mildred had agreed. Ten minutes later, no less than five instances of Mildred watched them from various spots in the Gardens. And now Chloe did most of the work while Riley wore a rut through the gravel, hands deep in her jacket, head down.

The morning sun was pale and blue, and it spilled through the panes in long, diagonal streaks. It caught the new leaves and set the dew drops alight. Riley let herself slow, just for a second, thoughts straying to the Room, and watched as Chloe leaned over a tray of seedlings, thumb pressing the soil with a gentle, knowing touch. It was almost enough to calm her.

Almost.

Chloe looked up, the hair falling in her eyes. She wore overalls and a tank top, and her skin glowed even under the flat light. “You know, these will never take if you keep walking circles around them,” Chloe said, voice soft. She brushed a curl behind her ear and smiled, the motion so natural it felt like she’d done it a thousand times before.

Riley snorted. “If they’re that weak, they don’t deserve to survive.” But she stopped moving, making herself plant her boots by the row of strawberry starts.

Chloe pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh. “You sound like my old biology teacher,” she said, and her smile went crooked at the edges. “He used to say if you want a healthy plant, you have to give it enough sunlight, but not so much that it gets scorched.”

“Yeah? My dad used to just throw seeds at the dirt and curse when nothing came up.” Riley’s hand gripped the edge of a shelf. “Worked sometimes.”

They stood in a not-quite silence, the air filled with the buzz of bees and the damp echo of water dripping onto stone.

“You’re nervous,” Chloe said, finally. She didn’t make it a question. She just dusted her palms on her thighs and came to stand beside Riley, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

Riley tried for a joke, but it caught in her throat. “What gave it away?”

Chloe glanced at her. “You don’t have to do this… whatever it is… alone.”

Riley shook her head. “I do. It’s—” She trailed off. “If I bring you, it’ll just be harder.”

Chloe nodded, as if she’d expected that. “I’ll stay here, then.” She hesitated. “Unless you want me to wait outside. For moral support.”

For a second, Riley almost said yes. But then she thought of the reason she was doing this, the reason her nerves were raw and her skin felt too tight, and she knew she had to go in alone. She forced herself to look at Chloe, and realized the truth: she wanted to be strong for her, just this once.

She tried for a smile. “You’re good with plants,” she said. “You’ll make a great farm wife someday.”

Chloe blushed so hard her cheeks went strawberry red. “I—what? That’s not—”

Riley laughed, a sharp sound, but not unkind. “I’m messing with you.” She tried to soften it. “You’re just… easy to talk to. Even when I don’t want to.”

Chloe looked up, almost shy. “You can talk to me about anything, Riley. I mean it.”

Riley stared at the floor. “I know.” She chewed the inside of her cheek, the words a little harder this time. “I used to be angry at you. Not for any good reason. Just—because you were there. Because you made her laugh.”

Chloe’s voice was small. “Laura?”

A nod. “Yeah. But it wasn’t your fault. It was nobody’s fault. I just—” She shrugged, helpless. “I needed someone to blame. That was you and Andy. And then you showed up here, and I realized how much I’d missed… having someone who gets it.” She risked a glance at Chloe, who was staring at the seedlings as if they might tell her what to say.

“Thank you for not hating me,” Riley finished. “That’s all.”

The words hung between them, shimmering in the heat.

Chloe finally spoke, barely above a whisper. “I never hated you, Riley.”

Riley’s throat burned. She tried to swallow it down. “You should. I can be a real bitch.”

Chloe shook her head. “You’re not.” She hesitated, then added, “You’re hurting. That’s not the same.”

Riley felt her face flush, but she held the other woman’s gaze. “You know what hurts most?” she said, her voice raw. “That I was so busy being mad, I never told Laura how much she meant to me. Not until it was too late.”

Chloe blinked hard, and for a second Riley was terrified she’d made her cry. But Chloe just wiped at her cheek and smiled, shaky but real.

“She must know,” Chloe said.

Riley wanted to believe it. Maybe, after today, she could.

They stood in silence again, but this time it wasn’t awkward. It was gentle, expectant, like the minute before a storm breaks and everything is suspended in possibility.

Chloe’s voice dropped, as if a thought had occurred to her. “If you had the chance, would you? I mean—with Andy?”

Riley blinked, caught by surprise, but Chloe's eyes were so earnest that, without even realizing it, she thought about it. She pictured Andy, pictured the way he’d looked at her in the hallway the other night, the way he always made space for her, even when she didn’t ask for it. How he had been kind, during their last night together. But she also pictured the way she felt when she watched Chloe water the basil, the way her chest ached and loosened at the same time.

“I don’t know what I want,” Riley said, slow and careful. “But I know I don’t want to give up on you, or on him, or on any of it. Not yet.”

Chloe’s smile was brilliant and shy at the same time. “That’s a good answer.”

Riley watched her, memorizing the moment. “You’re pretty brave, you know.”

Chloe ducked her head, embarrassed. “I’m not. Not like you.”

“You are,” Riley insisted. “You made it through all that stuff at home, and you still care about people. You still give a damn.” She hesitated, then said, “I think I could learn from you.”

Chloe looked up, and Riley saw her resolve, clear as crystal. “I’d like that,” Chloe said.

The air shifted, electric and light, and for a second, Riley almost kissed her. She wanted to. But she checked herself, remembering the conversation she still had to have, the apology she needed to make before she could be anything to anyone else.

Instead, she smiled, as wide and honest as she could manage. “I’m going to go do the hard thing now,” she said.

Chloe squeezed her arm. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

Riley nodded, the words a lifeline she didn’t know she needed.

She started to leave, then paused. “Hey,” she said. “If this all goes to hell, will you still teach me how not to kill succulents?”

Chloe grinned, eyes wet but bright. “Deal.”

Riley left the nursery with her pulse racing and her hands steady. She checked the time—almost noon—and headed for the meeting she’d been dreading for days. But as she walked, she realized she wasn’t afraid anymore. Not really. She’d already survived the worst. Everything else was just growing pains.

---

Claire led the way up the glass spiral, her feet making no sound on the steps. At the top, she hesitated—reflex, not uncertainty. She’d made this journey a few times, yet each ascent to the Sky Archive brought a flutter she refused to call pride.

She paused, then flicked her wrist in a beckoning gesture. Emi and Erin, trailing by several steps, followed with matching uncertainty. Beyond the trapdoor, the Archive unspooled in all its impossible geometry.

Erin’s reaction came first, a bark of laughter she instantly tried to stifle. “You didn’t mention it was… I mean, it’s—” She swept her hand at the vault of glass and brass, the shelves bowing outward in a spiral that defied both physics and the logic of shelving units. “It’s like someone built a library on a spaceship, then crashed it into Versailles.”

Claire allowed herself a small, inward smile. She motioned for them to follow, then ducked down the main aisle, tail flicking with every step.

Emi trailed her fingers along the nearest shelf, eyes round as the moon. “Are all these—are they real?”

Claire opened her notebook, scrawling as she walked: Every book here is either a first edition or a copy that can’t be found anywhere else. Some don’t exist in our world at all. She paused, then added: I think sometimes the Archive makes new ones on its own, if you need them.

Emi read this and pressed a hand to her mouth, startled. “It’s beautiful,” she said softly. “I’ve never—” She let her voice trail off, but her hands fluttered in delight.

Erin, not to be outdone, stepped up to a floating shelf and snatched a book from midair. She turned it over, examining the spine, then cracked it open with the reverence of someone unaccustomed to sacred spaces. “These aren’t the weird porn versions, are they?”

Claire rolled her eyes, but wrote: No. Those are in the Hotel Library. This is for… truer things. She hesitated. I needed more books to read.

Erin grunted, still suspicious, and tucked the book under her arm. She prowled the stacks, a little awkward in the daylight—mint skin luminous under the glass, breasts bobbing with each step. For a moment she looked self-conscious, but then the sunlight hit her hair and turned it to fire, and she forgot herself in the shelves.

Emi drifted down a side aisle, her arms folded in front of her. “Claire,” she said, voice hesitant, “is it supposed to do that?”

Claire followed Emi’s gaze. At the far end of the aisle, a corridor of shadow cut between the books, the gloom so sudden it felt like a missed step in a dream. The arch above it was labeled—hand-painted in gold leaf—Unlived Lives.

Emi reached for Claire’s hand, not for protection but so she could be sure the other girl was real. “Do you ever go down there?”

Claire shrugged: It changes every visit. She hesitated, then added: That part isn’t my design.

Erin, catching the tail end of this, appeared at their side. “What’s in there? Banned books?”

Emi shook her head. “It’s… different.” She squinted at the entrance, then let go of Claire and ventured inside.

Claire started to follow, but Erin caught her arm. “You don’t have to protect her, you know.”

Claire glanced at her. Erin’s gaze was clear and sharp, but underneath it was the familiar ache of worry. I don’t want her to feel alone in it, Claire wrote.

“She’s tougher than she looks.” Erin’s smile was lopsided, more fondness than mockery. She nudged Claire with her shoulder. “You are too.”

They waited together at the threshold. Inside, Emi moved slowly, reading titles aloud, the language always shifting. Some spines glimmered in English, others in scripts Emi recognized but could not parse. The passage twisted, then opened into a round chamber lined floor-to-ceiling with more books, each shelved with an uncanny sense of order.

Emi emerged after a few minutes, clutching a slim volume. “I thought I’d find something I recognized,” she said, a tremor in her voice, “but it’s all… I don’t know. Nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

She handed the book to Claire, who turned it over. The title was in Provençal, a dialect Claire had only seen in her research on medieval love poetry.

Erin squinted at the cover. “Can you read it?”

Claire shook her head. She flipped to a random page, then wrote: It’s a diary. A memoir, maybe. About someone called Jaufre.

Emi took the book back, hugging it to her chest. “It felt like the whole place was looking at me,” she said.

Erin took the bait, cocking an eyebrow. “Haunted?”

“Not haunted. Just—like it knew more about me than I did.”

Claire tapped her tail against her shin, then wrote: I think the Unlived Lives section is for what never happened. Alternate realities. Sometimes it’s tiny things—missed trains, lost friendships. Sometimes the whole world is different. That diary… it’s probably about some ancestor of yours.

Erin rolled her eyes, but her voice was softer. “Is there a version where we all get out of here?”

Claire considered this, then nodded. She turned to Emi, writing: When you go in, it changes. It shows you the paths your life didn’t take.

Emi shivered, but not unpleasantly, placing the book on the nearest shelf. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t think I want to see those paths today.”

They returned to the main hall, the atmosphere somehow lighter. Erin slid her book back onto the shelf, letting it hover there.

Claire led them to the balcony. The view was dizzying: clouds rolling below, the island a sweep of green and gold, the sea beyond it like spilled ink. They sat together, shoulder to shoulder. Emi, finally at ease, rested her head on Claire’s shoulder. Erin sprawled on the floor, hands behind her head, eyes closed as if soaking up the sun.

For a while, none of them spoke. The air was bright, weightless.

Emi broke the silence, voice muffled. “Do you think there’s a version of us out there, somewhere, who never ended up here?”

Erin opened one eye. “Maybe. Maybe there’s even a version where we never meet. Or where Claire’s not a genius and I’m not a—” She made a face, gesturing at her mint-green self. “Whatever I am.”

Emi squeezed Claire’s hand. “I’d rather have this one,” she said.

Erin grunted, but there was no fight in it. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

Claire didn’t write anything. She just closed her eyes, the sun warm against her face, and let herself be part of the strange, impossible archive that was her life.

---

For Myra, the world existed as a perimeter of feeling, not as shape or shadow. Most mornings since the accident, she would wake to the memory of color. Those recollections were always disappointments, reminders of the sight she’d lost and would not regain.

Now, in the Hotel, things were different. If she tried, she could piece together the shape of a room from the patterns of worry, hope, and anticipation that seeped from every living soul. But nothing in this place was ever just what it seemed, and Andy’s upgrade would expire soon; already, its effect was muted, or so it felt.

Today, she was determined to change that. Or, at least, to fix the one thing that had been driving her mad for weeks: her inability to use the Commissary.

She waited in the Main Lobby for her two best shots at assistance: Sam, the accidental den mother of the harem, and Emily, who was always up for an adventure and, more importantly, had a gift for making the awkward feel normal.

Sam arrived first, sneakers squeaking on the marble. “Hey, Myra. What’s up?” Her voice was a stable anchor, always warm but never patronizing.

“I need your help,” Myra said, a little too blunt. “With the terminal. For the upgrade.”

Sam’s hand closed gently around her elbow. “You got it. Emily said she’d meet us here, right?”

As if on cue, a soft giggle echoed across the lobby. Emily was unmistakable, even without Myra’s new emotional sight: she radiated warmth, a sort of giggly pink, even as she padded over the tile floor with her sneakers and, as ever, absolutely nothing on but a cloud of perfectly arranged hair. Myra had to smile, in spite of herself.

“Is it time?” Emily asked, a conspiratorial hush in her voice.

“Time for what?” Sam asked, but Emily just shook her head and linked arms with Myra, who, for a moment, didn’t feel like a burden at all.

The trio made their way to the Commissary. The terminal stood in the middle of the wall, a steel-and-glass obelisk that hummed with an energy Myra could feel in her teeth. She couldn’t see the writing on the screen, but she could sense the swirl of impatience and urgency from the other women who had used it before.

“Okay,” Sam said. “We’re at the screen. Myra, would you…?”

“I’m on it,” Myra touched the screen with her fingers and sighed, “So far, so good.”

A moment passed, during which Myra felt the odd shudder of anticipation that usually meant the screen was doing something. Sam narrated: “It says ‘Welcome, Myra Calder.’ There’s the usual menu: buy something, or upgrade. Are you looking for the upgrade to your emotional sight?”

“Yes,” Myra said, pulse quickening. “It’s listed under ‘Emotion’s Map,’ I think.”

Sam nodded, then hesitated. “Okay, but… is this safe? You’ll be able to see, but it says the effect is permanent, and that it’ll—”

“I know,” Myra cut her off. “I already know the warning. I just want to be able to… function. Like everyone else.”

There was a silent understanding, then. Sam took Myra’s hand and placed her finger over the screen. “Press here when you’re ready.”

Myra inhaled. Her other senses sharpened. She felt the expectation radiate from Emily (excitement), from Sam (cautious hope), from herself (fear laced with hunger). She pressed the screen. There was a jolt. Not pain, exactly—more like someone running an electric current through her soul. Suddenly, her world exploded in color.

At first, it was blinding. The lobby was a bonfire of brightness, every person, every memory of touch or voice, outlined in a halo of feeling. She gasped, flinched, and staggered backwards. Sam caught her, steadying her shoulders.

“What is it?” Sam asked, voice taut.

“I… I can see again,” Myra whispered, then corrected herself: “Not like before. Not like eyes. But Andy's upgrade... it's like this is even stronger. Everything—everyone—has a shape. An outline. It’s all…” She fumbled for words, then finally said, “It’s beautiful. Like faerie fire. Like every person is a tiny living sun, and the emotions they radiate... burn, like fire, on everything around them.”

Emily squealed, delighted. “What color am I?”

“Right now?” Myra tilted her head. “Pink. And a little gold. You’re… happy. Hopeful. Also nervous.”

Emily looked at Sam, eyes wide. “She’s good!”

Sam grinned. “What about me?”

“You’re blue,” Myra said, “but it’s not a sad blue. It’s more like—protective. Like you’re shielding me from something.”

Sam’s grip tightened, just for a second. “That tracks.”

Emily, unable to restrain herself, launched into a series of rapid questions: “What about the room? The walls? Is it all just color? Can you read?”

Myra shook her head. “I can’t read, not really. The screen is just a flat space. Letters don’t have enough emotional weight, I guess. But I can tell where things are—objects, furniture, doors. It’s like… every outline glows with the mood of whoever last touched it, or with the emotions everyone around me projects.” She smiled, her eyes wet. "I never thought I'd get to see colors again."

Sam considered. “That’s wild.”

“It is,” Myra said. “It’s beautiful.”

Emily reached out, taking both of Myra’s hands. “Do you want to go outside? See what the world looks like out there?”

Sam checked her watch. “It’s a good day for it. We could walk the breakwater, if you’re up for it.”

Myra hesitated. The idea of venturing beyond the building had always felt risky—she hated looking weak, hated the possibility of tripping or getting lost—but with Sam and Emily flanking her, she felt the urge to try.

“Okay,” she said, surprising herself. “Let’s do it.”

---

The path down from the Hotel was sun-warm stone, each step carved to offer easy footing, but Myra was still wary. She kept her hand on Sam’s elbow, her cane sweeping ahead in cautious arcs. Emily flitted ahead, then doubled back every few paces, narrating the world with a cheerful running commentary.

“There are so many birds!” Emily shouted. “And there’s a lizard sunning itself—oh my god, it just did push-ups. That’s adorable.”

Myra laughed, genuinely, for the first time in months. Every sound was a ripple of color; every time Emily spoke, a pulse of pink and gold sparked in the air, and the stone of the walkway flashed with old traces of anxiety from the last time someone hurried down it.

They reached the breakwater, a low wall of boulders jutting into the surf. The ocean beyond was a roar, but not a threatening one; the air was thick with salt and the cries of gulls.

Sam guided her onto the wall, one careful step at a time. “You’re doing great,” she said, and Myra felt the honest pride in her words—a shimmering, reassuring blue, bathing the area around them in its radiance.

Emily scrambled up next, crouching at the crest. “This is where I’d come if I ever needed to cry,” she said, matter-of-fact. “No one could ever hear you over the waves.”

They sat together, the three of them, perched on the wall with their legs dangling. Myra let herself relax, trying to catalog the sensations: the rhythm of the surf, the warmth of sun on her face, the cool sting of salt in the air.

Emily, unable to sit still, poked at a tidepool between the rocks. “Do you want to know a secret?” she asked, her voice suddenly softer.

“Sure,” Sam said.

“I used to come down here, back home. I’d go to Coney Island and I’d pretend that the ocean could carry away anything that hurt. Like, you could just write it on a rock and throw it in, and it wouldn’t belong to you anymore.”

Sam nudged Myra, gentle. “You got anything you want to throw in?”

Myra considered. She thought of all the things she’d carried—the lie she told Laura in middle school, the way she’d never owned up to it, the years she’d spent trying to be perfect to make up for a mistake that could never be undone. She reached down, fingers closing around a smooth stone.

“I do,” she said. “But it’s heavy.”

Sam nodded. “That’s the point. You throw it, you leave it.”

Myra drew her arm back and let the stone fly. It made a satisfying splash, and she imagined for a moment that it might actually work.

Emily clapped. “Good throw!”

Sam leaned back on her elbows, face toward the sun. “I used to think the world was so small, you know?” she said. “Like, everything that happened to you mattered because it was all you’d ever get. But now… I think there’s enough world for all of us. Even if we mess up sometimes.”

Myra felt a lump in her throat. “I hope so.”

Emily hesitated, then said, “I was scared to come here, when Arabella took me from my previous season. Even though I understood she did it to save me. Not just because I thought I’d never see home again, but because I was afraid I’d turn into someone I didn’t like. But… I think I like this version of me better. Even if she’s a little weird.”

Sam grinned. “You’re not weird. Or, you are, but it’s a good weird.”

Myra felt the truth of it, the way their emotions braided together in the air, a warmth that was new to her and strangely addictive. “I like this version of all of us,” she said. “Even if we’re all broken in different ways.”

They sat for a long time, just listening to the surf and feeling the sun on their faces.

For the first time since she’d lost her sight, Myra felt that the world wasn’t closing in—it was opening, in ways she’d never imagined.

---

Bonus Art! Marissa's Pathfinder character, the kobold alchemist, Cutter McCutterdaughter!

Tomorrow: Justina McCormick!