The coin pulsed with warmth.
Evelyne stared at it under the candlelight of her study. The moment she had returned from the trial, the manor had felt different—still hers, but... stretched. As if reality itself had moved slightly to make space for her survival.
She traced the runes on the coin's surface. One trial down. Two more to go.
Yet something tugged at her instincts. The ballroom illusion, the mirror—those hadn't been arbitrary. The Curators were watching. Testing not just her strength or cleverness, but her core.
"What happens when they decide I've changed too much?" she muttered.
"I ask the same thing," Alaira said from the doorway.
Evelyne looked up, startled. "You've been listening?"
"Since you walked out of that black gate and wouldn't stop shaking." Alaira entered, dressed down for once, her usual armor replaced by a sleeveless tunic and gloves half-removed. "You keep replaying it in your head."
"Of course I am." Evelyne gestured to the coin. "They're rewriting my story while I try to do the same. This isn't just a matter of survival anymore. I'm trespassing into a world that wants me dead—or rewritten."
Alaira sat across from her. "Then let's trespass louder."
Evelyne blinked. "That's reckless."
"That's honest," Alaira said, softer this time. "You were never meant to survive past Chapter 10, and yet here we are at what—twenty-nine? Every breath you take now is a miracle. But it's also dangerous. The more you bend the world, the more it might snap."
Evelyne leaned forward. "Are you warning me? Or preparing me?"
Alaira didn't answer at first. Then: "I'm reminding you that not everyone who smiles at you is real. And not everyone who watches you is on your side."
As if summoned by her words, a knock came at the study doors.
A servant entered with a sealed letter. "This arrived through magical courier, Lady Evelyne. It bears no return seal."
Evelyne took it, noting the strange shimmer of the wax—like moonlight trapped in glass.
When she broke it open, three words leapt off the page:
"She remembers everything."
That was all.
Evelyne's pulse spiked.
"Alaira," she whispered. "Look."
Alaira read the note, then folded it. "Who?"
"There's only one person it could be."
"Mirena."
The heroine.
—
They rode at dawn.
The capital had shifted in their absence. Whispers followed Evelyne as she passed through the gates—some fearful, some reverent. Word of the Inquisition's involvement had spread, and so had rumors of a failed execution, a resurrection, or worse—a noble playing with forbidden magic.
None of them were entirely wrong.
Mirena's estate was quiet, too quiet. No guards at the gate. No servants in the courtyard. Only the creak of a single open door.
"Trap," Alaira muttered.
"Definitely," Evelyne replied.
They stepped inside anyway.
Mirena was waiting in the drawing room, sitting on a velvet chaise, her golden hair pulled back and her dress a shade too pale for mourning.
"You came," she said softly.
"You summoned," Evelyne replied, refusing to sit.
Mirena smiled. "They tried to reset me. After Chapter 10. When you lived."
Alaira stepped forward. "Reset?"
"Memories, rewritten events, entire conversations changed. I woke up in my room with no recollection of the last week—but only almost." Her eyes flickered to Evelyne. "I remember your hand pulling me from the poison. I remember your voice in the ballroom. I remember feeling sorry for you."
Evelyne sat slowly. "Then you're like me. Caught in the gaps."
"No," Mirena whispered. "I'm worse. I'm an anchor."
The word hit something in Evelyne's mind—a flicker from the black gate, a voice muttering about "threads anchored too deep to move."
Alaira tensed. "If she's an anchor—"
"Then her memories are a threat," Evelyne finished.
Mirena stood. "I don't want to fight you, Evelyne. I want to understand you. They made you the villain, but I've seen enough to know that's not the full story. The moment you survived your death, my world unraveled."
Evelyne approached her slowly. "And what do you want now?"
Mirena met her gaze. "To see where this story goes—if you're allowed to write it."
—
That night, back in the manor, Evelyne stared at the moon through her window.
"We've gained a possible ally," she said aloud, knowing Alaira was behind her.
"Or a blade waiting for our backs," Alaira replied. "You trust her?"
"I trust what she remembers."
Alaira stepped closer. "Then you better hope the Curators never find out she does. Anchors aren't supposed to change."
"I'm not supposed to exist," Evelyne whispered.
She turned, and for the first time, Alaira looked uncertain.
"If this goes further," Alaira said, "If the threads break—what happens to us?"
Evelyne's throat tightened. "I don't know."
Alaira reached up, her fingers brushing Evelyne's cheek. "Then let's find out together."
And Evelyne—reincarnated villainess, cursed noble, walking paradox—closed her eyes and let herself believe, for just a second, that happy endings might not be fiction after all.