*bJiselle/bb* /b

“You’re sure you want to read this?” Eva asked.

20 vouchers

I didn’t answer right away. My fingers hovered over the edge of the Hollow–borne parchment like it might bite. It didn’t glow. Didn’t pulse. Didn’t resist. It simply waited.

Eva stood across from me, her brows drawn low over her eyes. The baby was curled in the crook of her arm, sleeping peacefully, as if she weren’t the reason the floor still crackled with leftover me and the curtains hadn’t melted halfway down the wall.

We hadn’t found her in her crib this morning.

We found the crib scorched. Ash still warm. Her woven swaddle shredded like smoke had teeth. No footprints. No scent trail. Just silence–until Eva’s hands brushed the floor near the bass, and she gasped like something had reached through the earth and spoken her name.

Now the scroll sat between us. Hollow–born parchment–thin as skin,ced with a pulse that wasn’t life but memory. Eva said it had been part of a vision, but I didn’t think it was just that. She hadn’t been the same since. Her hands trembled more. Her eyes kept straying to the baby, as if afraid of what she might say–or do

-next.

“I have to know,” I said finally. “Read it.”

She nodded slowly and unrolled it with care. Thenguage written across the page was not of our kind, not even of wolves. It was curved and fractured like ss that had bled before it broke. And still, as Eva’s voice carried the words aloud, I understood them.

“The second me will rewrite the first. The vessel must choose.”

The words weren’t long. Weren’t even clear. But they tore through me anyway.

“Second me,” I echoed softly. “You think they meant her?”

Eva’s lips parted, then closed. She adjusted the baby slightly, holding her tighter.

“I think they meant both of you,” she said atst. “You’re the first. She’s the second.”

The fire in the hearth cracked. The wind outside sighed through broken windows. For a long moment, neither of us moved. I looked down at the child, swaddled again, her breath soft and even. But her eyelids twitched. Her fingers moved,

“She mirrors me,” I whispered. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

Eva didn’t nod. But she didn’t deny it either.

“Every time I think something’s mine–my power, my me, even my decisions–she echoes it. Stronger. Purer. As if I’m just the sketch and she’s the ink.”

b12:23 /bbSun/bb, /bbSep /bb21 /b

:

“She’s still a child,” Eva murmured. “Still forming. Still learning.”

“Learning from me.”

b20 /bvouchers

That realization settled over my shoulders like a second weight I hadn’t asked to carry. The scroll fluttered against my arm. I grabbed it and rolled it tight before I could rip it apart just to feel something tear.

Footsteps approached behind us. I turned sharply–but not sharply enough.

Ethan stood in the doorway. And for the first time in days, he looked alert. Present. Sweating, breathless–but

him.

“I saw it,” he said.

Eva’s head lifted. “Saw what?”

“The Gate.” His voice was gravel. His eyes shined too bright. “It opened. Not all the way, but enough. I saw it behind my eyes.”

He stumbled forward. I moved to steady him, but he waved me off. He copsed into the chair near the fire, his whole frame curling inward like he was still bracing for something to grab him.

“She was there,” he muttered. “The baby. Standing in it. As if it belonged to her.”

bI /bstiffened.

“She’s barely breathing, Ethan. She’s days old-”

“I know what I saw,” he said, louder now. “She wasn’t crying. Wasn’t afraid. She was waiting.”

Eva looked to me, but I had nothing left to say. Because part of me believed him. Worse–part of me had seen something like it itoo/i. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

“She disappeared today,” I said finally. “For a full hour. We found her bass scorched. No sign of entry or

exit.”

Ethan’s mouth opened. Then shut.

“You think… she took herself?b” /bhe asked.

“She’s more me than flesh,” I said. “More memory than breath. What if she’s not just learning from me? What if she is me? In another form?b” /b

“No,” Eva said firmly. “She’s not you. She’s your echo, maybe. Your legacy. But not you. And that difference

matters.”

My heart thudded against my ribs, harder now, each beat vibrating like it was trying to climb out of my chest. It was too loud. Too fast. My thoughts couldn’t catch up to it, couldn’t slow it down, not when everything in me had already started unraveling,

“What if I make the wrong choiceb?/bb” /bI asked quietly.

b12:24 /bbSun/bb, /bbSep /bb21 /b

(62)

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The question wasn’t rhetorical. It wasn’t soft or spective. It was real. Heavy. The kind of question that didn’te with beasy /banswersb, /bonly consequences.

Eva looked up from where she sat near the hearth. Her eyes caught the firelight, gleaming with something that wasn’t quitefort. But it wasn’t fear either. It was something in between. Something closer to recognition–like she’d asked herself the same thing more than once and never liked the answer she got.

“Then she’ll make it too,” she said.

The words hit me like a second heartbeat–not mine, not hers, but the one I carried. The one listening to everything even when she was asleep. Even when she wasn’t in the room.

The fire didn’t crack just then.

It roared.

mes surged upward, throwing a st of heat across the stone floor. All three of us startled, heads whipping toward the sudden re. But it wasn’t the firepit that stole my breath.

It was the cradle.

Empty.

“Eva?” My voice fractured. “Where is she?”

Eva’s hands flew to the wrap against her chest. She stumbled back two steps, then frantically looked down and tore it open–nothing. No warmth. No weight. Just fabric and panic.

My stomach dropped like stone.

“Ethan,” I rasped. “The bass. Check it. Now.”

He didn’t speak. He didn’t hesitate. He bolted through the archway toward the nursery.

Eva and I ran after him, footsteps thundering down the corridor, my body already trembling with the ache of something I couldn’t name yet. Not grief. Not fear. Something deeper. Something primal.

We pushed through the door.

And stopped.

It wasn’t the crib that did it.

It was the smell.

Ash.

Fresh. Heavy. Coating the air like soot woven through fog. It was the scent of something sacred being broken. Of warmth turned to warning.

Burnt wood. Burnt fabric. Burnt presence.

“Gods,” Eva whispered behind me, the word barely audible.

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The bass stood half in shadow near the window, but we could see it clear as day. ckened at the edges. Splintered down one leg. Steam still rose from the ts. The woven ash nkety inside–singed, curling at the cornersb. /bStill smoking.

Empty.

I stepped closer, slower now, my legs numb.

No baby.

No sound.

No exnation.

No shattered window. No open door. No scent of anyone else. Just silence. Just that godforsaken smell.

“She’s gone,” I said, and my voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded far away. Like it had to travel through fire to reach my ears.

Ethan stood frozen in the doorway. His fists were clenched so tight the bones in his forearms showed through his skin. His body trembled, but his mouth didn’t move.

I crossed to the cradle.

Every inch felt like a mile.

I reached out, fingers brushing the edge of the wood.

Painnced through my palm, and I recoiled instantly. It didn’t burn like normal me. It burned like something alive. Like the wood remembered her touch and rejected mine. Like the power still echoing off it knew I’de toote.

“She didn’t scream,” Eva said behind me. Her voice was thin, almost breathless. “She didn’t cry.”

“She didn’t have ito/i,” I said. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and swallowed the nausea building behind my ribs. “Because she wanted to go.”

Ethan’s head jerked up. “To what?” His voice cracked–sharp and furious. “To the Gate? To Aedric? We don’t even know what he is anymore!”

I didn’t answer.

Not right away.

Instead, I dropped to my knees beside the cradle and stared into the faint, flickering shadow left behind where her body should have been. It wasn’t just heat in the wood. It was intent. Like the space itself remembered her shape and wanted her back.

My breath came in shallow bursts. “I think she’s showing us somethingb./b”

bEthan /bbknelt /bbeside meb. /b“Showing us what?b” /b

b“/bbWhat /bbwe /blook like… when we’re afraid.”

He bwent /bstill.

Eva didn’t move either.

Because the truth hung between us like a verdict waiting to be spoken.

We were afraid of her.

b20 /bbvouchers /b

Not because she was cruel. Not because she had done anything wrong. But because we didn’t understand her. Not fully. Not enough.

And deep down, we were starting to believe she might not need us at all.

Not as parents.

Not as protectors.

Not even as guides.

She moved through me like it was air. She disappeared without permission, without warning. And she did it with the kind of silence that spoke louder than any scream.

She didn’t belong to the world.

The world belonged to her.

I rested my forehead against the side of the cradle, eyes squeezed shut.

“Parent. Protector. Prisoner,” bI /bwhispered. “Or prophecy.”

bI /bwasn’t sure which one bI /bwas anymore.

Eva stood near the wall, one hand pressed over her chest. Ethan hadn’t moved. But the pulse in his jaw told me everything I needed to know.

We were all unraveling.

And she–our child, our me–was pulling the threads.

I closed my eyes tighter.

“She’lle back,” I whispered.

bNo /bone responded.

bNot /bbbecause /bthey didn’t believe me.

b12:24 /bSun, Sep b21 /b

:

But because they didn’t know how.

Ethan’s hands twitched once before going still.

:

b62 /b

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Eva crossed the room slowly and ced her palm on the cradle’s rim. It hissed faintly under her touch.

“She’s in the Gate, isn’t she?” she said, softly. “Or something like it.”

I couldn’t answer. I didn’t want to say it out loud. Because if she was in the Gate… and she had gone there willingly…

Then what waited for her?

And worse-

What would she bring back?

I forced my eyes open and stood. The room blurred for a moment before my vision cleared. My legs ached. My hands trembled. But I stood anyway.

Because she woulde back.

And I needed to be ready when she did.