Chapter 595: Leave Those Here

The room above her had the wrong light, the white spreading across the landing without making the stone feel warmer beneath her feet.

She knew where the table would be.

The door had not opened far enough to show it, yet her body had already found the place where her wrists used to hurt.

Ash held her hand with both of his.

His thumbs were warm.

"Don’t look inside," he whispered.

She looked at his fingers instead, counting them until she stopped trying to pull her own hand away from a table that was not touching her.

Her other palm stayed against the Sanctuary wall.

The light there knew where her hand ended.

Nothing pushed her fingers flat.

"You can leave that room behind," the voice said.

She had wanted that before she knew how to explain wanting it, curling small in places where sleep brought the table back even when nobody opened a door.

The white light waited above her.

"I can keep the happy parts."

Below the landing, somebody moved a plate across stone with a careful scraping sound, the ordinary noise making her look toward the stairs.

Hajin stood on the first step with empty hands.

Gold Rings turned around his right arm while he watched her face, his mouth moving as though a word had reached it too soon.

"You want me to say yes."

He stopped moving.

For a moment she wished she had kept the words inside, where people could not look hurt because of them.

Then he came up two steps and stayed there.

"I wanted you to hurt less."

"It wants to take things."

"Yes."

She waited for the smaller word that usually followed a yes like that, the part that explained why she should let someone do it anyway.

Hajin looked toward the white doorway, then back at her hand against the wall.

"You haven’t asked us to let it."

She shook her head.

Ash loosened his grip when her fingers moved, looking worried until she held him again herself.

The door showed a corner of the table.

She remembered a loose thread beside its leg, how long she had looked at it while somebody told her to stay still.

She did not want the table.

She did not want the voice deciding that the small girl who had stared at the thread could be thrown away with it.

"You don’t get to divide me into parts worth keeping and parts to throw away."

The words left her louder than she intended, making the nearest guard turn before he put his shield back toward the door.

She pressed her hand harder against the wall.

Nobody asked her to say it better.

The room below went quiet enough that she could hear Sava’s pen, its little scratch following the words without adding a nicer ending.

"Keep them," she said to Hajin.

He nodded.

"They stay yours."

The answer came without a promise that keeping them would stop them hurting, leaving her grateful and frightened in the same place beneath her ribs.

[ Child Memory Choice: Retained ]

[ Archive Erasure Offer: Refused ]

She looked away from the lines after the second one, finding Ash still watching her hand as if she might need help holding something he could not see.

"That was yours," he whispered.

She did not know whether he meant the answer or the hand.

She held his fingers a little tighter.

Hajin reached the landing only after she looked toward him, stopping beside the wall while his gaze followed its steady light around her palm.

"Is it pushing?"

"No."

"You can keep it there."

She watched him check the little reading beside his wrist, seeing the pressure line settle while the light against her fingers stayed warm without becoming a grip.

Loccy brought her coat from beside the pallet, folding it beneath the girl’s heels when she noticed how tightly her toes pressed against the cold floor.

The girl let her do it.

The Watcher’s hand remained braced behind Ash, making a wall of familiar skin beside the strange one above them.

Vella called from the lower steps.

"What you’re keeping stays with you, I’m taking back the records it has down here."

The girl looked toward the turning faces without trying to recognize all of them, seeing the white plate waiting beside the healer’s knee.

"Will you throw any away?"

"No."

That answer let her turn back toward Ash.

Hajin went down the steps while Juna stayed beneath the laboratory doorway, her bright claws lowered clear of the child’s sight.

"I’m here," Juna said when the white light shifted.

The girl nodded without looking into it.

"Can you make it less white?"

Juna glanced toward the glare on the child’s face, taking a dark cloth from the guard beside her before hanging it across the landing rail.

The laboratory stayed visible from where the sentries stood.

From the coat beneath her feet, the girl could see only its pale edge above the cloth.

She let her shoulders move away from her ears.

"There?" Juna asked.

"There."

Ash shifted with her when she leaned more comfortably against the wall, keeping hold without pulling her closer to the part of the landing he preferred.

The cloth had an old tear near its corner.

She watched it move in the ordinary air.

Below them, Rumi walked between three marked places, touching the receiving stone beyond the northern stair before coming back along the ordinary floor.

She stopped at the other two places long enough to press her palm against each, checking the narrow strip of cloth tied beside its mark.

The girl could hear Ferra telling someone to move a stand back from a black line.

Sava carried the empty plates into the space that left.

"All three prepared," Rumi called, "the northern one takes the first load when you ask."

"Nobody through yet," Nari answered.

The sisters stood on opposite sides of the dark threads, their four Wings keeping distinct shapes in the cold light as Rumi held the retreat marks beyond the smaller square her sister watched.

The girl could see ordinary floor between Nari’s square and the steps.

Hajin walked across it to reach Vella.

He did not go through one of the shining roads.

Didi pressed her cold fingers against the black wrapper turning around the faces, its outer layer going white while the records inside continued moving.

The girl’s own fingers ached in sympathy before she made them ease against Ash’s hand.

"Cold?" he asked.

"Remembering."

He stayed close without trying to warm the memory out of her.

Vella lifted a clear edge from beneath Didi’s frost, showing Hajin where it no longer touched the dark threads.

"The last mortal margin is separated," she said, "everything can go to the plates now."

Hajin looked at Nari.

She waited until Rumi checked the northern mark again, then set both feet within the small square beside the exposed black seams.

"Sixty seconds from here," she said.

Ferra turned the hourglass.

The dark openings caught together inside Nari’s boundary, their edges stopping while the larger retreat marks beyond it remained clear.

The girl watched the sand begin falling.

The voice above her stopped offering the better room.

Below, every black thread struck toward the same side of Nari’s square, their sudden movement making the girl pull Ash’s hand against her chest.

Nari bent her knees without shifting her feet, keeping the exposed seams pinned as the threads recoiled from the exits they had tried to use.

Rumi stayed beside the northern mark.

Her other two roads waited empty.

Hajin drew the white blade in his right hand, then the dark one in his left, keeping their points away from the first plate Vella reached toward.

The girl watched him wait.

He had the weapons now, the gold around his arm, all the things the room above her had made her think could decide without her.

Her hand stayed against the wall while he waited for the memories to leave the thing holding them.

Ash rubbed her knuckles with one thumb, looking down toward the plate beginning to brighten beneath Vella’s hands.

"Still here," he said.

She felt the coat under her heels, the warm fingers around hers, the wall taking only as much of her hand as she chose to leave against it.

"I know."