CHAPTER 174: [174] THE GIRL WHO IS STILL FALLING

Torval’s hand dropped to his side, clenching into a fist. "Why would you ask such a thing?"

"Because I am." Calypso let her voice become small, vulnerable. "Sometimes I wake up feeling like I’m falling through endless darkness, and I can’t remember how I got there. I can’t remember anything before coming to live with you."

"That’s... that’s normal for children who experience trauma—"

"What trauma?" Calypso stepped closer, and this time Torval couldn’t retreat without appearing rude. "What happened to me, Uncle? What happened to the little girl in my dreams?"

For a moment, she thought he might break. His eyes—so like the ones she’d borrowed from his daughter—filled with tears he refused to shed. His breath came in short, shallow gasps.

Then his training reasserted itself. The High Burner straightened, his face becoming a mask of noble composure. "You’re overwrought. The wedding preparations, the responsibility... it’s natural to feel uncertain."

"Is it natural to feel like I’m wearing someone else’s skin?"

The words hung in the air like an accusation. Torval’s face went completely white, and for a heartbeat Calypso thought he might confess everything. Instead, he stepped back, putting the length of the room between them as if her words were a physical threat.

"You should rest," he said stiffly, fingers trembling slightly at his sides. "Tomorrow will be a long day."

He turned to leave, but Calypso’s voice stopped him at the door, soft and haunting.

"Uncle? In my dreams, the little girl is still falling. Still calling for someone to catch her." She let vulnerability seep into her tone. "Do you think... do you think anyone hears her?"

Torval’s shoulders shook once, violently, as if her words had struck him physically. His hand gripped the doorframe so tightly his knuckles turned white. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, cracking with emotion he couldn’t fully suppress.

"I pray to the Eternal Flame every night that someone does."

He left without looking back, the door closing with a soft click that seemed to echo in the silence. Calypso sank into her chair with a mixture of satisfaction and genuine sorrow. She’d planted the seeds of doubt, made him question his choices. But she’d also seen the truth in his eyes, the weight of guilt that had been crushing him for five years. The pain there was real—a father who had made a terrible choice and lived with the consequences every day.

The door opened again, and she expected Agna or perhaps another seamstress. Instead, Duke Haverford entered, his expression unreadable. He moved like a predator—controlled, purposeful, dangerous.

"Lady Selene." He offered a perfect courtly bow. "I heard you were feeling unwell."

"Much better now, thank you." Calypso rose to meet him, noting how his eyes catalogued every detail of her appearance. "Though I’m afraid there was an accident with the gloves you selected."

"So I heard." His smile was sharp as winter steel. "Fortunately, I had anticipated such... mishaps. The alternatives should arrive within the hour."

Of course he had. Haverford struck her as the type who planned for every contingency, every possible resistance. Which meant her small acts of sabotage were likely expected, even encouraged. He wanted her to feel like she was fighting back, to exhaust herself against his preparations.

"You’re very thorough," she said.

"I have to be." He stepped closer, and Calypso caught the scent of expensive cologne mixed with something else—something that made her divine senses recoil. "Tomorrow night is important. For both our families. For the future of Hearthome itself."

"I’m sure it will be... memorable."

Haverford’s eyes glittered with something that might have been amusement. "Oh, my dear Lady Selene. You have no idea."

He reached toward her face, much as Torval had, but where her uncle’s gesture had been hesitant and guilty, Haverford’s was confident, possessive. His fingers brushed her cheek, and Calypso felt the suppression enchantments in her dress respond, tightening their grip on her power.

"You have your mother’s eyes," he murmured, echoing Torval’s earlier words. But where her uncle’s voice had been thick with grief, Haverford’s held only calculation. "Such beautiful, expressive eyes. I look forward to seeing what they reflect tomorrow night."

His touch lingered a moment longer than propriety allowed, then he stepped back with another perfect bow.

"Rest well, my dear. Tomorrow, we make history."

After he left, Calypso remained standing by the window, her reflection ghostlike in the crystal glass. The girl in the mirror looked like Lady Selene Flameheart—wine-red hair, purple eyes, aristocratic features. But Calypso could see deeper, to the divine essence trapped beneath layers of mortal flesh and magical suppression.

She lingered on Torval’s shattered expression, the way his whispered prayer had trembled for the falling child. Xavier’s raw emotions still bled through their bond like an open wound, desperate and unguarded. Haverford’s glacial confidence haunted her, along with whatever arcane ceremony he’d meticulously arranged for tomorrow night.

But most of all, she couldn’t escape thoughts of the little girl whose body she now inhabited—Selene Flameheart, just thirteen when her father made that impossible choice, sacrificing his daughter to save her. Now Selene existed in that terrible liminal space between worlds, perpetually falling, eternally waiting for someone, anyone, to finally catch her.

He doesn’t want to hurt me, Calypso realized, her breath fogging the glass. He wants to save her. And that is so much worse.

Because love could justify any atrocity. Love could make monsters of the most noble hearts. Love could build prisons more secure than any dungeon, chains more binding than any metal.

Tomorrow night, she would dance to Haverford’s music in a dress woven from golden chains, wearing gloves that would complete whatever ritual he had planned. But tonight, she was still herself—still a goddess, however diminished. Still dangerous, however contained.

The reflection in the window smiled back at her, and for just a moment, Calypso’s true nature blazed behind Selene’s borrowed eyes.

Let them think they had caged a goddess. Tomorrow, they would learn the difference between dormant and defeated.