They walked.
For hours.
Or days.
Time had stopped pretending to matter.
The field of white flowers stretched forever in every direction, but the flowers never repeated.
Each one was different.
Each one remembered a different life the Five had saved by refusing to fix the Mirror.
A flower for every child who got to grow up.
A flower for every mother who never had to bury her son.
A flower for every mirror that stayed blank.
Laura stopped first.
She knelt and touched one.
It opened under her fingers.
Inside was a tiny silver thread.
The same thread that used to bind her to Liora.
It wasn't broken.
It was resting.
She started crying again.
Not from pain.
From the sudden, terrifying lightness of being untied.
Liora sat beside her.
They didn't speak.
They just held the thread between them.
It dissolved into light.
And became part of the sky.
Zero found a flower that looked like a cigarette made of starlight.
He lit it with his finger-flame that didn't burn.
Took a drag.
Exhaled smoke that turned into butterflies.
They flew away laughing.
Nysera's wolf rolled in the flowers until it was covered in pollen.
Then it shrank.
Not died.
Shrank.
Until it was the size of a puppy.
It ran to Nysera and jumped into her arms.
She held it.
And for the first time since she was twelve,
she didn't feel claws under her skin.
Law kept walking.
Because that was what anchors did.
Even when there was nothing left to anchor.
He found a flower that was black.
The only black flower in the entire field.
It was shaped like a crown.
He picked it.
It didn't burn.
It didn't bleed.
It just waited.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then crushed it in his fist.
Black petals fell.
And became words.
Written in the dirt.
Five words.
YOU W E L O V E Y O U
Law read them.
Then looked at the Four.
They were waiting.
Not behind him.
Beside him.
Always beside him.
He smiled.
It was small.
It was real.
It was enough.
He took Laura's hand.
She took Liora's.
Liora took Nysera's.
Nysera took Zero's.
Zero took Law's other hand.
Five heartbeats.
One circle.
They looked at the horizon.
There was nothing there.
And everything.
Law spoke.
His voice was quiet.
But the flowers heard.
"We're not going home," he said.
"Because we already are."
The black petals in the dirt rearranged themselves.
One last time.
T H A N K Y O U
Then they blew away.
The field went silent.
Not empty.
Full.
Full of everything that had ever been saved.
Full of everything that would ever be free.
The Five started walking again.
Not toward anything.
Just forward.
Because that was the only direction left.
Behind them, the flowers began to sing.
A lullaby with no words.
A lullaby that had no ending.
And the sky,
for the first time in ten thousand years,
forgot how to watch.
But it learned how to hope instead.