Chapter 407: Four Open Doors, One Right Choice
Gradually, one by one, people started peeling off toward bed. Juan first, because Juan was technically still asleep. Marco carried Malachi’s bonsai tree up the stairs for him, because Marco was like that. Jai delivered individual motivational speeches to each person as they left, which slowed the process significantly.
By midnight, the common room had thinned to background noise and leftover pizza.
I said good night to the last few stragglers.
Climbed the stairs.
Started down the hallway toward my room.
And stopped.
Four doors were open.
Not all the way. Just enough to let light spill across the floor in thin strips.
My door. Natalia’s door, which was next to mine. Skylar’s door, across the hall. And at the end of the corridor, Cel’s door, where I could see the pale blue glow of her reading lamp.
I stood in the middle of the hallway.
The building creaked around . Braxton’s office had its light on, because he never slept before two. Sowhere below, Carn’s music was still going.
I stood very still.
My internal monologue, which was usually a sharp and useful tool, had apparently chosen this mont to go completely offline. Replaced by sothing that sounded like screaming in four different pitches.
Natalia.
She appeared in her doorway like she’d been waiting, which she absolutely had. Silk shorts. My old shirt. The Cryo-Lich Ring catching the light. Her purple hair was down and she was looking at
with an expression that communicated several things simultaneously, none of them suitable for polite company.
"You told Sterling you’d live for soone tonight," she said.
"It was a figure of speech."
Her eyes were doing the white-streak thing.
"Natalia."
"I’m not upset."
"You’re literally glowing."
"That’s just my natural radiance."
"Your natural radiance is currently forty degrees below ambient temperature."
She crossed her arms. The door behind her was open all the way now. An invitation that wasn’t subtle by any standard of asurent.
"I watched the interview," she said.
"Everyone watched the interview."
"She smiled at you."
"Cel smiles at lots of things."
"Not like that."
I didn’t have a response to that because she wasn’t wrong and we both knew it.
From across the hall, Skylar’s door opened a little wider. She didn’t co out. Just leaned against the fra in a black oversized shirt, barefoot, headphones around her neck. Her violet eyes went from
to Natalia and back.
"This is already a disaster," she observed pleasantly.
"No one asked you," Natalia said.
"No one has to ask . I’m standing in my own doorway."
"Conveniently."
"Extrely."
At the end of the hall, Cel’s reading lamp clicked off. A mont later, she appeared in her doorway in soft gray sleepwear, silver hair loose. She took in the scene with periwinkle eyes that catalogued it with the sa speed she used to analyze Gate environnts.
She said nothing.
Which was sohow louder than anything she could have said.
I looked at Natalia.
At Skylar.
At Cel.
And then, because the universe genuinely hated , Emi’s door opened.
She stood there in an oversized yellow hoodie, her sapphire hair half out of its braid, rubbing one eye. She blinked at the tableau of four won in the hallway, blinked at , and then her antennas drooped with the weight of understanding.
"Oh," she said quietly. "Oh no."
"Go back to bed, Emi," Skylar said, not unkindly.
"I wasn’t, I an, I just heard voices and, I an." She was turning spectacularly pink. "I can go back to bed."
"You don’t have to," Natalia said, which surprised everyone including Natalia.
Emi looked like she was considering fainting.
I was considering fainting.
"Okay," I said. "Everyone, please."
"Please what?" Natalia asked.
"Please be normal for five consecutive seconds."
"Normal is relative," Skylar said.
"Statistically improbable," Cel added.
Emi just made a sound.
I pressed my thumb and forefinger against the bridge of my nose. The burns on my arms were healed enough that the gesture didn’t hurt, which was the one thing going right in this hallway.
Four won.
Four open doors.
One increasingly tired person with broken ribs and a god’s debt and a conspiracy trying to kill them.
The thing about my life was that it had never been simple. Back when I was Kaelen, simple wasn’t an option. Complicated was just Tuesday. Surviving ant reading every room and making the right call before anyone else saw you make it.
This was not a Tuesday.
This was sothing considerably more complicated than that.
"Here’s what’s going to happen," I said.
Everyone looked at .
"Emi, you’re going back to bed because you have early training."
She opened her mouth.
"And I will co by in the morning," I added, "and walk you to breakfast."
She closed her mouth. The antennae perked. She retreated, but slowly, like she wanted to make sure the offer was real.
"Skylar."
She raised one eyebrow.
"I know what you’re doing."
"I’m standing in a hallway."
"You’re doing it on purpose."
"Everything I do is on purpose."
"Go to bed."
Her mouth curved. Not the sharp smile she used as a weapon, but the real one, small and honest. "Fine," she said. "But you owe ."
"I know."
Her door clicked shut. Not a slam. Just closed.
That left Natalia and Cel.
Natalia, who was my queen and my partner and my first, who had put herself between
and death more than once and whose soul was literally tied to mine by sothing the universe had decided to make permanent.
Cel, who had held my hand in a dying dinsion and tended my burns with strips of her own clothing and kissed
in the ruins of a garden while both of us were bleeding.
The hallway was very quiet.
"Cel," I said.
She tilted her head, waiting.
"You did well tonight. The interview, all of it. I an it."
Sothing in her expression shifted, gentle. "Thank you."
"Get so sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be loud."
She looked at
for a mont longer. Looked at Natalia. Back at . Whatever calculation ran behind her periwinkle eyes resolved into sothing dignified.
"Good night, Satori," she said.
Her door closed softly.
Natalia and I stood in the empty hall.
She was still doing the temperature thing, but it had dropped from catastrophic to rely chilly. Progress.
"You’re exhausted," she said.
"Extensively."
"Your ribs still hurt."
"Constantly."
She pushed off the doorfra and walked to , slow, deliberate. Put one hand flat against my chest, over where the worst of the damage had been. The ring on her finger pulsed cold.
"Co to bed," she said. "My bed."
"Nat."
"I’m not asking for anything. I’m telling you to stop standing in the hallway looking like you’re calculating odds and co to bed."
She wasn’t wrong that I was calculating odds.
She also wasn’t wrong that I was tired.
"Okay," I said.
Her expression did sothing complicated. Not the possessive fire I expected. Sothing softer, which was more dangerous.
She took my hand and led
through her door.
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