The Loomspire did not sleep.
Its corridors shimmered faintly with reflections that should not exist — not with all the mirrors burned and every surface dulled to ash. Yet still, the faintest glimmers appeared in the edges of vision, like light caught in invisible glass. And within those glimmers, eyes watched.
Mary walked through the hall in silence, her footsteps echoing softly. The walls were alive now, laced with the remains of the Children of Glass. Each shard embedded in stone pulsed faintly with a heartbeat that wasn't hers. Some whispered; others only stared.
She had stopped listening hours ago.
The Codex hung at her side, heavy as grief. Its glow had dimmed to a low, ember-red hum, the kind of light that breathes beneath coals long after the fire has burned away.
At first, she thought the Queen's voice had faded with the dawn. But as she turned a corner, the whisper returned — faint, like a lullaby half-remembered.
"You cannot erase what you are."
Mary froze. "I know what I am."
The voice laughed softly, echoing through the cracks in the wall. "Do you? You've written so many versions of yourself, I doubt you could name which one breathes."
Mary pressed her hand against the wall. It was warm. Something beneath it shifted, like a pulse responding to her touch.
She whispered, "Show me."
The wall rippled. The stone liquefied, spreading outward like ink on paper. Within moments, a surface appeared — smooth, reflective, alive.
Her reflection stared back. But it wasn't the one she expected.
This version of her wore a dark cloak threaded with gold. The Codex in her hands was bound in chains, and behind her loomed a vast throne carved of bloodstone and bone. Her eyes glowed violet instead of red.
Mary whispered, "When… when was this?"
The reflection smiled faintly. "When you ruled. When you forgot what love was."
"I've never ruled anything."
"Not yet."
The image wavered, then dissolved. In its place appeared another — a memory of Mary standing beside the Queen herself, both of them laughing as stars fell across a silver sea. But the Queen's face was blurred, and when Mary leaned closer, the sea began to boil.
The Queen's voice murmured: "The past is just another door. You of all beings should know how to open it."
Mary stepped back, heart hammering. "You're rewriting my memories."
"No," the voice replied. "I'm revealing the ones you buried."
Later that night, Mary found Els and Loosie in the lower archives. The place smelled of dust and ozone — the scent of ancient wards barely holding back collapse. They had begun burning the old maps, the ones that traced the Queen's dominions, afraid the images themselves might summon her back.
Els looked up from the parchment she was marking. "You look like you haven't slept in a week."
"I haven't," Mary said. "There's something wrong with the walls. They're showing me things that… can't be true."
Loosie grunted. "Define 'can't.' Because lately that word doesn't mean much."
Mary ignored her. "I saw myself — ruling beside her. Not as her enemy, but her equal."
Els set down her quill. "That's impossible. You weren't even born when she reigned."
Mary hesitated. "Unless my birth wasn't what I thought it was."
Loosie frowned. "You think she made you?"
Mary's silence was answer enough.
Els rose from the table, face pale. "You're saying the Queen created you?"
"No," Mary said softly. "I think she wrote me."
The words hung heavy in the air.
Els' jaw tightened. "If that's true, then you were never outside her design."
Mary looked down at the Codex, which pulsed faintly at her side — not in warning, but in acknowledgment.
"She might have started me," Mary said, "but I'm not hers anymore."
Loosie crossed her arms. "You sure about that?"
Mary looked up sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Loosie's gaze hardened. "You walk the halls talking to yourself. You glow when you sleep. Half the Weavers think you're her in another skin."
Mary's voice dropped. "And what do you think?"
Loosie didn't answer right away. Then, quietly: "I think if she's rewriting the past, you'd better figure out what page you were born on."
That night, Mary descended into the forbidden vault.
It lay beneath the Loomspire — a place older than the Codex itself, sealed in salt and spellfire. The staircase spiraled down endlessly, the air growing colder with each step. The walls here weren't stone but petrified ink — black glass that seemed to absorb light instead of reflect it.
She carried only a single candle.
At the bottom stood a great door of obsidian carved with veins of crimson metal. It thrummed faintly, resonating with the rhythm of her own heart.
"Open," Mary whispered.
The Codex vibrated in her hands, and the door responded. The metal veins glowed, then split apart, sliding open with a hiss of cold air.
Inside lay a circular chamber lined with hundreds of suspended threads — thin strands of glass light, each humming faintly. They were memory threads — captured lives, sealed fragments of past worlds. The Queen had collected them long ago, weaving them into her dominion.
Mary approached one.
It pulsed red at her touch.
The image within flickered to life — a memory not her own. A child, pale and curious, sitting beside a tall woman cloaked in shadow. The woman's hands guided the child's through pages of a book too vast for her to hold. The Codex.
Mary whispered, "That's me…"
The woman's voice echoed faintly: "Every story must begin somewhere. Even yours."
Mary's breath caught. "You're saying you made me."
The Queen smiled — not cruelly, not yet. "Made? No. I found you. Lost between mirrors, unformed. You were a fragment that refused to fade."
The image shifted. Now the Queen knelt before a mirror filled with blood. Within it, Mary's reflection formed — small, fragile, trembling. The Queen pressed her hand to the glass.
"My little remainder," she whispered. "The part of me that longed to be free."
Mary stumbled back. "No… no, that's not possible."
The Queen's voice echoed faintly through the chamber. "You and I are the same thread, woven in opposite directions. When you destroyed my reflection, you broke yourself."
The candle flickered violently.
All around her, the other memory threads began to quiver — hundreds of them awakening at once, their lights flaring with ghostly radiance. The air filled with whispering voices — echoes of the Queen, fragments of her thoughts scattered across time.
Mary screamed, "Stop it!"
The Codex flew open in her hands, its pages turning violently on their own. Symbols she'd never seen before flared into existence, burning with scarlet light. The words pulsed like a heartbeat.
Reclaim what was severed.
"No!" Mary cried. "I'm not you!"
Reclaim what was severed.
She tore the Codex shut, gasping. The chamber fell silent again — except for the faint sound of glass cracking.
Mary turned toward the door, but her reflection lingered behind her in the black glass walls — and this time, it did not move when she did.
The reflection smiled, a perfect imitation of her own lips.
"You can't outrun memory."
And then, as Mary watched in horror, the reflection reached through the surface — the glass rippling like water — and plucked a single glowing thread from the air.
The thread snapped.
Mary screamed as pain tore through her chest, the sound echoing like the shattering of a thousand mirrors. The light faded from her candle, plunging the vault into darkness.
When she looked again, the reflection was gone — and in its place, the walls began to hum.
Every thread glowed.
Every memory whispered her name.
Mary.
Mary.
Mary.
Each one was a different voice. Some pleading. Some mocking. Some hers.
And through it all, the Queen's voice rose like a song:
"The more you fight me, the more you become me."
Mary clutched the Codex to her chest, trembling.
"No," she whispered. "I'll rewrite the thread."
"You can't rewrite what you are."
Mary took a breath, tears streaming down her face. "Watch me."
She pressed her hand to the Codex, and the pages ignited in crimson flame.
The vault screamed.
The memory threads burst one by one, filling the chamber with shards of light — each shard showing a different Mary. A thousand versions of her, across countless realities, all burning, all crying, all alive.
And from the ashes of those broken memories, something began to stir.
A figure, tall and graceful, stepped from the wreckage — her body woven of shattered light and ink, her eyes radiant and endless.
The Queen reborn.
She smiled.
"Welcome home, my reflection."