The second-floor stairwell was gone.
Not broken.
Gone.
In its place: a spiraling arch of mirror shards, floating in midair like someone had sculpted a bridge out of reflected thoughts. Ivy stared at it for almost a full minute before daring to touch the air where the railing used to be.
It shimmered.
Then whispered:
"You are not in your right world."
Behind her, Arlo's voice broke the silence.
"They're going to seal you."
Ivy turned.
"What?"
"The Council." Arlo didn't look angry. He looked... tired. "They've decided you've crossed the threshold."
"I didn't cross anything."
"You spoke the third word."
"Eli would have disappeared—"
"And now you're starting to remember all of you."
Ivy stepped back. Her third mark burned faintly under her sweater.
"They can't seal me. I haven't done anything wrong."
"They don't care about wrong. They care about risk."
She stared at him.
Then whispered, "You're here to bring me in."
Arlo didn't move.
"I came to warn you."
Ivy's voice shook. "And if I run?"
"Then I help you."
---
They fled into the old drama building—Morley's west wing, half-condemned, where no students were supposed to be after 4 p.m.
The doors no longer opened into classrooms.
One opened into Ivy's first memory.
One opened into a ripple-glitched orchard, stuck in sunset.
One opened into a hallway made entirely of glass—every step they took showed a different reflection of themselves.
Arlo looked at her with something close to reverence and regret.
"You're not just remembering, Ivy. You're reconsolidating."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you're becoming all your versions at once."
---
They reached the costume room.
The mirror there was still.
No whispers. No flickers.
Just Ivy, Arlo, and a single glow: the shape of her mark visible through her sleeve.
That's when she felt it.
Someone was watching.
Not from behind.
From the mirror.
The glass fogged.
And then cleared.
And someone stepped through.
Calla.
Not the one Ivy had left.
This version wore a rippled crown—not glass, not gold, but living glyphs, rotating around her head like a ring of orbiting thoughts.
And beside her stood a boy Ivy had never seen.
Except—
She had.
Somewhere deep. Somewhere buried. Somewhere far beyond Eli or Arlo or the orchard.
This boy had eyes the color of obsidian.
Hair like silver flame.
And a scar just under his bottom lip where she remembered placing her thumb once.
He looked at her.
And said:
"I found you again, Little Fire."
Ivy's knees buckled.
Calla's voice rang in the stillness:
"I told you I'd make a deal.
I brought him from the version they erased."
"This is the one you chose to die for."
---
🖤 End of Chapter Twenty