The profound warmth of that realization settled in her heart, quieting the anxiety that had been a constant companion for years. As the frantic energy of the last memory faded, so too did the dragon’s volatile colors. The restless, shimmering silver and rose gold of his scales bled away, replaced by a gentle, steady glow of pure gold and warm white. His posture lost its agitation, becoming calm.
“A desire to stay,” Draconus said, his voice now lighter, like a familiar friend. He nodded, a slow, thoughtful gesture. “He was the first spark in a long winter.” He paused, his gaze meeting hers. “But a spark is not a hearth.”
He gestured with his head, and the dock around them began to dissolve. “Let us examine the home you built for yourself, piece by piece.”
The scent of the lake gave way to the pleasant, late-afternoon sun of the Maplewood bazaar.
“Poppy? Do you have a second?”
The voice was instantly recognizable. Evilynn. A fond smile spread across Poppy’s face. It was strange to look back on this moment, a time when one of her closest friends was still just a face in the crowd, someone she vaguely knew as a fan of Steamy Ink. At the time, that wasn’t what her past self had been focused on at all.
Her dress was fabulous.
“It’s the first thing I really remember about her,” Poppy murmured to the dragon, the smile evident in her voice. “How does she always manage to look so polished? Even when it’s raining, she never looks like a drowned rat.”
“It’s the tailoring,” Draconus said with the air of an expert, his gold and white scales shimmering as he padded closer for a better look. “And is that silk brocade? The weave is exquisite.”
In the memory, Evilynn was lowering her voice. “Makhno told me you might be able to help. I need a distraction. You’ll be completely safe; Makhno and Cordon will be there.”
“What kind of distraction?” her past self asked.
“We’re looking for an Inquisitor who is going to be at the sermon by the lake—”
Present-day Poppy snorted. “She had no idea she was asking a mafia princess for help.”
“You weren’t concerned about an Inquisitor?” Draconus asked, tilting his head.
Poppy just gave the dragon a deadpan look. “You watched my sister threaten a man with his own eyeball. Do you really think an Inquisitor in a crowd scares me?”
“Point taken,” Draconus conceded.
The memory fast-forwarded. Her past self was sitting on a bench at the lakeside amphitheater, a perfect, colorful distraction. She scanned the crowd, her eyes landing on a stern-faced individual trying far too hard to look inconspicuous. She smirked and walked over, sitting down next to them.
The memory blurred for a moment, the sound rising as her past self began to cause a scene. She feigned outrage over a line in the sermon about faekin, her voice rising in performative indignation. She drew the eyes of everyone nearby—including, most importantly, the flustered and now highly conspicuous Inquisitor. The distraction was a masterpiece of obnoxious, targeted chaos.
Her work done, her past self’s eyes scanned the crowd and found Evilynn standing near the front with Mathys and Opal. For a brief second, their gazes locked across the amphitheater.
Poppy had expected to see relief in her eyes, the look a client gives a contractor who has just completed a job. But what she saw was different. But what she saw was different. It was a look of personal gratitude, mixed with a dawning, sharp-eyed respect that caught her off guard. In that moment, Evilynn wasn’t just looking at a colorful distraction; she was looking at an ally. She saw the capable, dangerous professional beneath the chaotic performance.
“That was the moment,” present-day Poppy murmured to the dragon, a soft smile on her face. “The moment our friendship truly began.”
“Because she recognized the professional beneath the performance,” Draconus observed, his gold and white scales shimmering.
“No,” Poppy corrected gently, watching the memory of Evilynn give her a small, grateful nod before turning away. “Because she said thank you. And I wasn’t used to that.”
⊰
The memory of Evilynn’s recognition faded, replaced by the smell of hot metal, sawdust, and cheap Vleanoan whiskey. Poppy found herself in Cordon’s workshop, a familiar and chaotic symphony of half-finished projects and discarded tools.
In the memory, her past self was perched on a workbench, gleefully reading from a copy of her own newspaper. Makhno, the elf’s sharp features flushed with alcohol, was sitting across from her on a barrel, looking immensely proud of himself. Cordon, who looked every one of his two-hundred-and-seventeen years, was meticulously sanding the head of what would become her new staff, pointedly not looking at them.
“—and my favorite part,” her past self was saying, trying and failing to suppress a giggle, “is this quote from the fan club president: ‘I think Arc could have fixed Pitohui!’ As if he was just one of those crazy women you think you can fix and not a complete psychopath.”
Makhno let out a sharp, barking laugh. “Pitohui was a blight. The Soldier demands that weeds be pulled. It had to be done.”
“I know! And it only took me seven months of targeted media assassination to convince everyone else of it,” Poppy said, taking a long swig of whiskey with immense satisfaction. “My little Arcturus romance narrative gave the whole affair a tragic flair. The sales have been fantastic.”
“Listen to you two,” Cordon muttered, his voice a low, grandfatherly rumble of disapproval. “One of you celebrates a public killing, and the other celebrates turning a town’s gossip into a weapon. I’m too old for these theatrics.”
“I made it a spectator sport!” Poppy shot back cheerfully. “It’s more fun that way!”
“It was a sloppy, public spectacle,” Cordon corrected, finally looking up at them, his eyes weary. He ran a hand over the smooth, polished wood of the staff. “Speaking of which, this is done. Try not to start your next public outcry with it. My work deserves more subtlety.”
He handed it to her. It wasn’t like her old staff—a gilded, ornate thing heavy with the symbols of her family and the weight of her past. This one was different. It was dark, polished wood, the shaft carved in a simple, repeating weave that felt solid and sure in her grip. The metallic bands were a quiet, aged green, etched with simple leaves and vines, not family crests. It was elegant but practical, feeling more like a part of the forest than a Civenite tool of war. It felt like her.
Her past self’s drunken glee softened into a moment of genuine, quiet appreciation. She ran a hand over the details, her touch reverent. “It’s perfect, Cordon. Thank you.”
“A very nice stick,” Makhno agreed, raising his bottle. “To good work, good friends, and doing what must be done!”
“To doing what must be done,” Poppy echoed, clinking her bottle against his.
“A memory of celebrating a necessary, if messy, solution,” Draconus noted, his gold and white scales shimmering. “What did this moment give you?”
“Nothing,” Poppy said, a fond smile on her face. “And everything. It wasn’t a clue or a lesson. It was just… easy.” She watched the memory fade. “Makhno saw an agent of chaos and cheered. Cordon saw the same and complained, but he still listened. He still built me the one thing I asked for, exactly how I wanted it, and didn’t try to change my mind or tell me how it should be.”
Her smile widened as she thought of the staff. “My old staff was a symbol of who I was supposed to be. This one… this was a choice.” She looked at Draconus, the truth of the memory settling in her heart. “It was the first time I realized I didn’t have to hide or change the sharpest parts of myself to have a home here. My messy, Civenite self… was enough.”
⊰
The smell of cheap whiskey and wood shavings faded, replaced with the earthy smell of a grove outside of Maplewood. Her past self was sitting on the ground, watching as Lorelei knelt in the grass at the edge of the woods. A small fawn with a crudely bandaged foreleg stood near her, skittish and ready to bolt. Lorelei wasn’t touching it. She was just speaking to it in soft, melodic Elvish, the same patient tone she used when teaching the village children their letters.
“I remember this,” present-day Poppy murmured. “That fawn’s mother had been killed by kazvaks a week prior. It wouldn’t let anyone near it. Lorelei had begged Shelaz to find it, and after days of tracking, he finally had. But it wouldn’t let anyone near it.”
Shelaz, a silent shadow, was perched on a low-hanging branch of a nearby tree, observing the scene with his usual unnerving stillness.
“She grows,” Draconus observed, his gold and white scales catching the afternoon sun. “And he does not.”
Poppy snorted. “Nope. Still the same grumpy, silent faekin he was the day I met him. I tried to get him to read one of my romance novels once. He just stared at it until the cover started to frost over.”
“Permanence has its own value,” Draconus murmured. “Something that never changes is reliable and predictable.”
Poppy’s smile softened. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She watched as Lorelei waited with endless patience. “She’s changed so much since I first met her,” Poppy acknowledged, watching as Lorelei waited with endless patience. “But she still has this infuriating need to try and fix every broken thing she finds. Still believes the best in everyone, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.”
In the memory, Lorelei began to hum an Elvish lullaby. The fawn’s ears twitched. It took a hesitant step closer, then another. Finally, it lowered its head and nudged her outstretched hand. A faint, green light pulsed from Lorelei’s palm. Where Poppy’s magic was a chaotic floral fire, Lorelei’s was a gentle, life-giving warmth. The fawn didn’t flinch. Lorelei let out a small, delighted gasp, a rare, genuine smile lighting up her face as the light mended the wound.
“A curious relationship,” her past self said to Shelaz in the memory, tilting her head. “The healer and the killer.”
Shelaz’s gaze shifted from Lorelei to her. “Life and death are not opposites, Poppy,” he said, his voice a dry rustle of leaves, “They are merely two points on the same circle. She reminds the young that they must learn to live. I remind the old that they must eventually die.” He looked back at Lorelei, who was now feeding the fawn a piece of apple. A flicker of affection crossed his features. “She ensures the circle continues. I ensure it is never overcrowded.”
“That was the most I’d ever heard him say in one go,” present-day Poppy remarked with a laugh. “I think he was trying to be profound.”
“He was,” Draconus said simply. “He was showing you the shape of this place. A home isn’t just about the people who are like you. It’s about finding your place in the circle, even with the parts that don’t change.”
Poppy watched as her past self uncorked a flask and, without a word, held it out toward the branch where Shelaz sat.
He considered the offer for a long, still moment. Then, with the silent grace of a falling shadow, he dropped from his perch. He took the flask, settled a respectable distance away, and became a quiet, comfortable presence in the shared silence.
The three of them sat there for some time: a perfect, impossible triangle of chaos, life, and death.
⊰
The memory of the impossible triangle faded, replaced by the quiet, comforting smell of old parchment and beeswax. They were in the library at Anlyth’s house, a place she had not been for some time.
Present-day Poppy’s smile was tinged with a deep, aching sadness. “This was the summer I asked her to watch Echo for me,” she whispered to the dragon. “When we named it. Back when we still talked.”
In the memory, her past self was leaning against a doorway, watching Anlyth. The young elf, her half-mask perfectly in place, sat at a table with the strange, blank book open in front of her. She was carefully reading aloud from a children’s book of fables, her voice a serious monotone.
“How’s the babysitting going?” her past self asked softly, not wanting to startle her.
Anlyth looked up, not surprised. She carefully placed a ribbon to mark the page. “The subject is progressing,” she said, her voice the serious monotone of a scholar delivering a report. “It expresses a preference for stories with clear moral conclusions.”
Poppy walked over, an amused smile playing on her lips. “Any progress on a name for our… subject? ‘The Book’ is getting a little dry.”
Anlyth considered this, her brow furrowed in concentration. “I’ve been writing down all my observations. Its responses are often a repetition of words, phrases, or sounds it has previously encountered.” She tapped a careful finger on the blank page of the book. “It echoes, in a sense.”
“Echo,” Poppy’s past self mused, testing the word. “I like that. Simple, not too over the top.”
Anlyth nodded, a rare, almost imperceptible gesture of agreement. “We could consider ‘Echolalia.’ It refers to the unconscious repetition of vocalizations and is related to its current method of communication.”
Poppy’s past self let out a delighted laugh. “Oh, I love that! So, okay, the book is now named Echolalia, or Echo for short.”
Poppy watched her, a fond, complicated ache in her chest. The methodical notes, the serious reports, the immense responsibility she had taken on without question—it was a painful echo of her own Civenite childhood, of being given tasks far beyond her years.
“A secret, entrusted to one so young and precise,” Draconus murmured, his gold and white scales shimmering.
“A burden I gave her,” Poppy corrected, her voice tight with old guilt. “I saw a child who had been forced to wear armor that was too big for her, and I handed her another piece of it. But she never complained. She just… did it.”
In the memory, Anlyth finally looked at the newly named Echo. Its blank page shimmered, and a single word, in a neat, careful script that looked remarkably like Anlyth’s own hand, slowly materialized:
Friend.
Anlyth looked from the book to Poppy, a small, proud smile touching her lips behind the mask. “It learns quickly,” she reported, all business. “It seems pleased.”
The memory faded, leaving present-day Poppy with a profound ache in her chest. “We were so close,” she whispered. “It was so easy back then.”
“And now it is not,” Draconus observed, his voice a quiet rumble. “She has not spoken to you in months. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Poppy said, the lie tasting like ash in her mouth. She knew exactly why. “She came with us. To Lapis’ shrine. When we summoned…” She trailed off, realization dawning.
“You and Lapis were investigators, prepared to face a god for a terrible truth,” Draconus stated, his voice devoid of judgment. “Anlyth was a child you brought to the foot of a volcano. You were both so focused on the answers you were seeking, you never stopped to consider what that might do to her.”
Poppy squeezed her eyes shut, the memory of Anlyth’s small, terrified face in the snow flashing in her mind. “She saw what was in the lake,” she whispered. “She saw the real you.”
“No,” Draconus corrected, his voice a soft, grave tone. “She saw what you were willing to risk to get what you wanted. And it terrified her.”
The weight of that truth settled on Poppy, another scar she hadn’t realized she was carrying. The guilt was a familiar, bitter taste in her mouth. She pushed the feeling down, forcing herself to focus back on the investigation. There were other memories, other pieces of the home she had built. Lighter pieces.
⊰
The scene dissolved and now they were in the Maplewood bazaar at dusk, the air filled with the pleasant smells of sawdust and evening cookfires. Her past self was at her Steamy Ink stall, gathering up stacks of paper in preparation for closing time.
“Poppy, do you have a minute?”
“Hmm?” she looked up to see Enzo standing at the booth, setting his shield down to lean against the bench. “Sure, what’s up?”
The sound of their conversation faded out, allowing present-day Poppy a moment to herself. She laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth.
“What’s so funny?” the dragon asked, his scales a gentle, shimmering gold and white. He attempted to scuttle closer, but Poppy stuck her foot out, and he tripped, falling comically onto the floor with a puff of dust.
“He said he wanted to talk about subscription prices. Don’t worry about it.” It wasn’t a total lie; Enzo and she were talking about subscriptions. Several of them, in fact.
The memory’s sound faded back in.
“…You’re one of my best customers, Enzo. I mean, you pay for Catori’s subscription.”
Enzo leaned against the stall, his usual easy smile replaced by something more serious. “Ah, yeah. But I needed to talk about my other one. For my other friend. He actually asked me to cancel it.”
Poppy’s own smile faltered for a second as she paused her work. “Oh? Is he no longer interested in the puzzles?”
“He’s just… moving on,” Enzo said, his voice a low murmur. “He said to tell you he very much enjoyed the games.”
The finality in his tone was unmistakable. This wasn’t just about a subscription.
“I see,” Poppy said, her voice now equally quiet and serious. She met his gaze. “Well. Thank him for his patronage for me.”
“I will,” Enzo said, pushing himself off the stall. He picked up his shield. “Be safe, Poppy.”
“You too, Enzo.”
⊰
The bazaar faded, replaced by the cheerful sounds of Harvest Fest. The air was filled with the smell of roasted nuts and spiced cider, and the sound of music and laughter. In the memory, Evilynn had pulled her past self aside, into a quiet corner behind the brightly-lit stalls.
“I hated this conversation,” present-day Poppy murmured, a fresh wave of guilt washing over her. “Because she was right. And I had already made up my mind to lie to her.”
In the memory, Evilynn looked impeccable as always, but the usual social grace in her eyes was replaced by a raw, genuine concern. “Poppy, we need to talk about your ordeal.”
“I’m busy, Evilynn,” her past self said, her voice a little too sharp. “There’s a war on. I don’t have time.”
“That’s exactly why you must make time,” Evilynn insisted, her voice low and urgent. “Don’t you see the trap? The Entity knows you. It knows you can’t resist a clue. It will keep dangling scraps of information in front of you, one shrine after another, leading you on until you’re too exhausted to fight. It will let you solve its puzzle, and when you have nothing left to give, it will take you. You’ll just become another voice in the hivemind.”
Her past self was silent, unable to meet Evilynn’s piercing gaze.
Evilynn’s voice softened, losing its sharp edge and becoming something more intimate, more vulnerable. “Poppy, I get it. We’re nobles. We were taught that our lives are a currency to be spent for the greater good, that our duty is to sacrifice ourselves for others.” She reached out, almost touching Poppy’s arm before pulling back.
“I understand the impulse,” she continued, her voice a near whisper. “I do. But this path you’re on, this obsession… this isn’t a noble’s sacrifice. It’s just an end. You’re letting the Entity win by doing its work for it. You’re letting it kill you.”
The words hung in the air between them, sharp and undeniable. Her past self finally looked up, her face a mask of false sincerity. She reached into a pouch and pulled out a small object, about the size of a tea strainer—the final component for her ordeal.
“You’re right,” she lied, placing the object in Evilynn’s hand. “Hold onto this for me. After the last shrine is dealt with, you can do it. You can finish it for me. I promise.”
The memory of Evilynn’s relieved, grateful face was what hurt the most as the scene faded.
“A convincing performance,” Draconus noted quietly.
“It was a betrayal,” Poppy whispered, her voice tight with shame. “I stole it back from her room the day of the final fight. She knew, of course. She’s too smart not to. She told Enzo.” Poppy winced, the phantom sting of that last-minute confrontation with him still sharp. “He shamed me out of my grand, stupid plan to do both at once.”
She shook her head, a bitter smile on her lips. “It didn’t matter. In the end, I just ran straight for the fire anyway.”
⊰
The memory of Evilynn’s desperate plea faded, replaced by the smell of woodsmoke and the crackle of a bonfire. The memory had shifted to the previous month, outside the inn, after the near-disaster at a shrine.
“I was so angry at them,” present-day Poppy murmured, a wry smile on her face. “I had made a decision. We were out, we were safe. And they all wanted to turn around and run right back into the fire for two people who had said to leave. Idiots.”
In the memory, her past self was sitting at the fire, ignoring the main group of survivors who were loudly retelling the story of the disastrous shrine fight. She was still fuming.
“Hey Poppy?” she looked up to see Arcturus sitting on a log, exhausted but alive.
“Hey, Arc?” her voice was quiet and clipped.
He didn’t rise to the bait. “Good job back there.”
Her past self froze, staring at him, completely stunned into silence.
“You made the right call,” he continued, his voice firm. “You went back and got help. We got the others out. We told you to go and leave us. You listened. You did your job.”
The memory ended on her past self’s shocked, uncomprehending face, the sarcasm and anger completely drained away, replaced by a quiet, dawning sense of wonder.
“They weren’t angry,” Poppy whispered to the dragon. “I basically left them to die, and they… thanked me for it.”
“You made a cold, sharp, tactical decision,” Draconus observed, his gold and white scales shimmering peacefully. “And they did not resent you for it.”
“No,” she said, the final piece of the puzzle clicking into place. “They valued it. They trusted me to be the one who could make the hard choice their friends couldn’t.” A warm, genuine smile finally spread across her face. “They didn’t just accept me in spite of my sharpest edges. They counted on them.”
⊰
The final memory of Maplewood dissolved, leaving Poppy on the dock, surrounded by the phantom warmth of her friends’ laughter.
“You have always seen yourself as a solitary star, Poppy,” Draconus said, his gold and white scales shimmering peacefully. “Burning brightly, but destined to burn out alone. You were wrong. You were just part of a constellation.”
A constellation. The words clicked into place, and for the first time, Poppy felt the truth of it—not as a distant pattern in the sky, but as a living network of light connecting her to the others. She wasn’t a pillar, fated to stand or fall alone. She was a single point of light, made stronger and brighter by the ones she was tied to.
It was then, in that moment of quiet acceptance, that she noticed the silence.
Not the muffled, wrong silence she had felt when she first arrived here, but a clean, sharp silence. A true silence. For the first time in over a year, the space in the back of her own mind was just… hers. The phantom weight of the Entity, the background hum of its presence wasn’t just quiet. She closed her eyes, searching for the oily black shimmers that always danced at the edges of her vision.
It was gone.
The full realization hit her with the force of a physical blow, followed by a feeling so overwhelming she wasn’t sure if the sound that came out of her mouth was a laugh or a sob.
Her ordeal.
Titus, Lynn, Enzo… they had finished it for her.
While she was running toward her own death, they had stood their ground to fight for her life. They had saved her from herself, even as she fought them every step of the way. She was a part of their constellation as much as they were part of hers, and they were refusing to let one of their own stars burn out.
“You see now,” Draconus said, his voice no longer a dragon’s rumble, but a familiar, gentle echo. “This was the final piece of the mystery. Not just knowing why you should live, but finally being free to do so.”