The study was larger than she expected and somehow smaller than it should’ve been. Darkness hunched between the rows of shelves, swallowing whatever light dared to exist. The air smelled faintly of dust, ink, and something metallic, like old coins rubbed thin.

  “How can you even see where you’re going?” Kitai asked as she stepped in, one hand brushing the doorframe as if to make sure it was still there. Still real.

  Hermit clapped twice.

  Clap. Clap.

  A low hum rose from somewhere deep in the room, a note that tugged at Kitai’s chest with the familiarity of a song half-remembered from childhood. Another note joined it. Then another. The hum swelled until the shelves themselves seemed to vibrate.

  Little motes of light sprang from the spines of books, the gaps between shelves, the corners of the ceiling. Tiny figures—winged and glowing—tumbled into the air, yawning themselves awake. One by one, they fluttered upward, humming in layered harmonies as they drifted to the ceiling. Their voices locked together, chaotic and somehow precise, each finding its place in an invisible pattern.

  Kitai forgot, for a moment, about dead mothers and sacrificed fathers and the weight of a universe that expected too much from her. She just watched.

  “They look so chaotic, but so organized,” she breathed. “What are they?”

  “They’re called Elven Sprites,” Hermit said, strolling deeper into the room like he owned the shadows. “I call them floating bulbs. Don’t damage them, though. They’re nearly extinct on this plane.”

  Kitai blinked, pulled out of the awe. “You use almost extinct creatures to light your study?” She lifted a brow, grateful for the distraction of moral outrage. That feeling was easier to sit with.

  “I own their names, so I own them,” Hermit replied without a shred of shame. “So I use them how I see fit. Which, at the moment, is as lights.”

  “There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don’t even know where to start,” Kitai said. Sarcasm was safer than saying, I just read how you watched my life through a mirror like TV reruns. “Don’t you feel even a little bad? How do you know you’re not torturing them?”

  “Sadly, I don’t care,” Hermit said, pausing at a shelf to pull out a couple of books. “They had no purpose. I gave them one. And they like being near the books, so I let them live here.”

  Kitai watched a sprite settle on the edge of a shelf, its tiny hands pressed reverently to a spine. She wondered if anyone would ever say the same about her: She had no purpose. We gave her one.

  The thought stung, so she grabbed onto the books he shoved into her arms instead.

  “Here. Hold these,” Hermit said. “We need to be ready when Adali gets here. I prefer not to be in the same room with him, so I’m leaving you with the texts you’ll need to survive mediocre whimsicality.”

  He turned toward a side door.

  “Wait. Why?” Kitai asked through the stack of books, their edges pressing into her ribs. It was easier to sound annoyed than admit the small, childish panic rising in her chest: Don’t leave me alone with another stranger.

  “Because I’m the only person in this maze he doesn’t own by name or right,” a voice whispered right into her ear.

  Kitai screamed and dropped the books. A cloak poured out of her own shadow, unfolding like spilled ink. It rose, shaping itself into a broad-shouldered, bronze-skinned man with curly smoke-dark hair and a body unfairly tailored by whoever designed him.

  “Hello, Kitai,” he said, smiling.

  Her cheeks flared hot. “Hey,” she managed, bending to scoop up the books with hands that were not quite steady. She tried to sound more confident than terrified. It came out thin anyway.

  “Running away, King?” the man asked, amusement curling around the word “King” like thorns. He bent beside her, gathering the fallen books with effortless grace.

  “Not running, Adali,” Hermit said as he opened the side door. “I just have better things to do than babysit you both.”

  He glanced back at Kitai. “I’ll send Gemini your way. I probably won’t see you again for a while, sis. Try to have fun.”

  The door shut behind him with a click that sounded too final.

  Kitai exhaled slowly. Of course he left before she could ask anything real. Of course he walked away just as grief threatened to breach her sarcasm. Easier to throw her at someone else than sit with the way her hands had trembled around that letter.

  Adali led her deeper into the Study, down a narrow aisle that opened into a sitting room tucked in its heart. Here, the shelves curved inward in a half-circle, embracing a cluster of mismatched chairs and a low glass table. Lanterns floated at different heights, their light tinted by colored glass.

  Every step Adali took rang with music—soft, layered notes that chimed underfoot, like the floorboards were strings and he was bowing across them.

  Kitai’s body tensed automatically at the sound. Her brain was already full; every new strange detail felt like an extra stone piled on.

  “Is the music bothering you?” Adali asked as they reached the sitting area. He sank into a velvet armchair with a kind of practiced grace, drawing his cloak tighter around his frame. “I can silence it if you wish.”

  “No. It’s fine,” Kitai said, placing the books in a careful stack beside her chair. The thump echoed in the humming room. “Sorry for staring. I’m just trying to figure out what instrument could even make that sound.”

  “Oh?” His lips lifted. “You probably wouldn’t know it.”

  “I’ve been force-fed art and music for years,” she said. “Try me.”

  “Well.” His smile turned sly. “The instrument is me.”

  Kitai blinked. “You’re a musical instrument?” A humorless laugh slipped out. “Is that… a normal thing here, or is that just an extra weird-for-me thing?”

  “If you’re a reincarnated soul fused with Terpsichore’s First Instrument and Odinala’s Ode, it’s less a choice and more… a permanent condition,” Adali said calmly.

  As he spoke, small luminous notes drifted from the folds of his cloak, lazy and bright. They floated toward a towering corner shelf, where Elven Sprites stirred awake. Thumb-sized, winged like shards of stained glass, they perked up as the notes neared them.

  They caught each sound delicately, like handling something sacred, and passed it along between them. The entire shelf hummed in layered harmony.

  The Study breathed around them. Books muttered in cracked voices. Scrolls rustled against their cases. Wind-chime ribs made of crystal bones tinkled faintly overhead with every shift of Adali’s weight.

  “Beautifully chaotic, isn’t it?” he said, watching the Sprites ferry books off the shelves and float them toward the armchair beside him.

  “Yes,” Kitai admitted, voice hushed. “They are.”

  For a heartbeat, she forgot that her mother had died in resistance and her father had erased himself. For a heartbeat, she was just a girl in a library that sang.

  “Terpsichore is one of the nine Muses, and Odinala is an Igbo deity,” she added. “How are you connected to both?”

  “I’m not,” Adali said. “I just won their Fables and stitched them into my Soulframe. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

  Kitai’s shoulders tensed. “I’ve been kidnapped by air, stabbed, body-snatched, dumped in a tournament prep montage, and learned my entire life is a cosmic loophole,” she snapped. “Forgive me if some of your genius goes over my head.”

  The words came out sharper than she intended, a reflexive shot. Better to be prickly than cracked open.

  The music faltered. The Elven Sprites paused, their humming thinning into uneasy whispers. Even the books stilled, as if listening.

  “You frightened them,” Adali said gently, rising to his feet. “That will be your first lesson—as your teacher in all things of this plane.”

  His cloak spilled around him and reshaped into a sharp black suit, clean and tailored. The transformation was so casual it made Kitai’s neck prickle.

  “This world is governed by pattern and rhythm,” he said. “To guide a tale, a Fable, or a crowd, you must first find their rhythm. Then decide: make it yours or leave it alone. Never create dissonance unless you must. And if dissonance is all you know?”

  He met her eyes.

  “You won’t last long.”

  Kitai sat straighter. Her instinct was to argue, to fire off some joke about dissonance being her natural state. But the way he said won’t last long made something old and orphaned inside her flinch.

  The room dimmed. The Sprites retreated back into their corners, shrinking from the air as if it had grown sharp. Adali moved.

  He began to dance.

  Music spilled from him, not in a graceful melody but in clashing shards. Every step, every turn released a new burst of chaotic sound. It was wrong in ten directions at once: overlapping tempos, mismatched chords, colliding rhythms. The Study rippled with disjointed noise, like an orchestra arguing in the dark.

  “What do you hear?” Adali called, dipping an invisible partner low.

  “Noise,” Kitai said. “Chaos.”

  “Exactly.” He spun. “Now listen deeper. Even chaos has a rhythm. It always does. Your first assignment: identify the dance. You have one minute.”

  Kitai watched him move. Sharp footwork, stalking lines, sudden stillness. Her brain, trained by years of dance classes she pretended to resent, clicked in around the edges of her panic.

  This felt strangely familiar.

  “Tango,” she whispered. Then louder: “Tango. You’re dancing American tango.”

  “Correct.” Adali twirled, the notes around him sparking. “Now find the rhythm.”

  She tried. The noise still felt like a storm of broken clocks.

  “I can’t see it,” she said, frustration biting at her throat.

  “Of course you can’t,” he snapped, not unkindly. “You don’t see rhythm. You feel it. Close your eyes and feel.”

  Normally she’d argue,butThis time, she just obeyed. Darkness folded around her. Without the distraction of his moving form, the noise became a weight pressing into her chest, along her ribs, down her arms.

  Underneath it, there. A pulse. Not steady. Not smooth. But repeating.

  She opened her eyes. “You said: control the rhythm or accept it. I can’t accept this, so…”

  She stepped toward him, heart pounding, and slid into the chaos.

  Her feet moved on their own training. She caught his pattern, then cut across it, redirecting steps, shifting tempo. Adali didn’t resist; he let her in. Their bodies intersected, and slowly, the noise bent.

  She switched the dance.

  From tango to waltz.

  The room’s rhythm changed. Three-count instead of two. Longer glides between steps. The music softened, threads of melody emerging from the previous chaos.

  Adali’s grin widened. “Correct,” he said.

  Kitai kept moving, letting the dance speak where she couldn’t quite. This was easier than saying my mother loved me enough to defy gods or I’m afraid I’m not worth the cost they paid. Here, she could just decide. Here, she could lead.

  “You’re a walking orchestra with no conductor,” she said, guiding him through a natural turn. “So I’ll be your conductor.”

  Her lips quirked into a smirk as she shifted again, slowing the steps, rolling through the hips, grounding the movement.

  Rumba.

  “Why the switch?” Adali asked, amused. “Waltz not good enough?”

  “I love waltz,” she said. “But it’s too fast to tame your chaos. Rumba’s slower. Gives me room to breathe. To steer.”

  He said nothing. He just followed, letting her set the pace.

  Around them, the Study brightened. Elven Sprites peeked back out, called by the new melody coalescing around Adali’s frame. The music softened into something warm and low. The floor no longer felt like a battlefield. It felt like a stage.

  Kitai let herself get lost in it. This was the first thing today that made sense. Step, turn, extend, recover. She knew how to do this. She could own this, even if she owned nothing else.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Adali murmured.

  “It’s intoxicating,” she admitted.

  “Then let’s give them a finale,” he said. “We have an audience.”

  She turned toward the entrance. Gemini stood there, hands over their mouth, eyes bright. Saon hovered a few feet above the floor, wings beating lazily, a faint smile on his face that looked suspiciously like pride.

  “Ignore them. Focus,” Adali whispered.

  Kitai faced him again and switched back to tango, letting the tempo sharpen. Fan. Open promenade. Reverse turn. She finished with a slow, dramatic corte, her body dropping low, one leg extended, breath heaving.

  Silence.

  Then the room erupted.

  The Sprites chimed furiously, creating a cascade of tiny bells. The shelves murmured. Somewhere, a wind chime shattered and reformed in applause.

  Gemini ran forward and scooped her up in a hug, spinning once before setting her back down. “That was beautiful,” they breathed.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  Kitai laughed, breathless and flushed. “How much did you see?”

  “Since the waltz,” Saon said, drifting closer.

  “She’s the best dancer I’ve ever had the honor of coaching,” Adali announced.

  “Hey! You trained me too!” Saon protested.

  “Exactly.” Adali gave him a look. “You’re the son of Hermes and you move like a newborn giraffe.”

  Saon shrugged and grabbed a book off the shelf just to have something to do with his hands.

  “Ignore them,” Gemini whispered to Kitai, still close enough that she could feel the warmth of them at her side.

  Kitai giggled, the sound strange and almost foreign in her own ears. “They sound like best friends.”

  “We are not best friends,” Adali and Saon said in perfect unison.

  Gemini and Kitai exchanged a look and burst into laughter. The tight ache in Kitai’s chest loosened, just a little. For the first time since Boca, she didn’t feel like a stranger in someone else’s life. She felt… almost invited.

  Adali sank into a chair beside Saon, watching Kitai and Gemini with a thoughtful expression. “Kitai, Gemini is the helper you chose,” he said. “Now that they’re here, we can truly begin your lessons.”

  “I didn’t ask for Saon, though,” Kitai said, though there was no real heat in it.

  “I’m here because the Singer thought I’d be useful,” Saon said, flipping his book open.

  “The Singer?” Kitai frowned. “You mean the skeleton in my basement?”

  “Yes,” Saon said, nodding toward Adali. “That’s him.”

  Kitai blinked at Adali. “That isn’t a skeleton.”

  Saon snorted.

  “Shut it, Saon,” Gemini said, smacking him lightly with the book they’d just thrown at him. “She’s only been here a few hours. And Adali never told her his moniker.”

  “I was going to,” Adali said, smoothing his now-returned cloak. “It just wasn’t important yet.” He waved a hand lightly. “I’m patron of an underworld god. I have a Wraith form for the Remembered Plane. That’s what you saw.”

  “Oh,” Kitai said. The explanation should’ve bothered her more. Instead, she just filed it on the growing shelf of “things that are horrifying but fine for now.”

  She glanced at Saon. “Then why do you look the same on both planes?”

  “Half wind-nymph,” Gemini answered. “His kind looks the same anywhere.”

  “One of the few perks of my chaotic ancestry,” Saon said, wings twitching.

  “Sure,” Gemini muttered.

  Adali clapped once. The sound rippled through the air.

  “Now that everyone has their roles,” he said, “Kitai, are you ready to hear your quest?”

  Kitai’s fingers twisted around each other in her lap. Fear curled in her stomach like something nesting. “I don’t think I’m ready,” she admitted softly.

  “Good,” Adali said, smiling. “That unreadiness is your best defense. Overconfidence kills heroes. Trust your gut—and your helpers.”

  Gemini slipped their hand into hers, fingers warm and steady. “I’ll protect you,” they said. “As best I can.”

  Kitai swallowed, eyes unexpectedly stinging again. She nodded. “Alright. What’s the quest?”

  Adali’s grin turned fox-like. “Have you ever heard of John Henry?”

  The library shifted around them. The stained glass windows rippled, replaying scenes from stories lost to time. Flickers of men and women, beasts and gods, glowed in fractured color along the shelves. The ceilings above them shimmered with constellations rearranging themselves into new shapes.

  “John Henry was an African American railroad worker who raced a machine and won,” Adali said. His tone smoothed, posture straightening as his accent swung toward something crisp and regal with a faint Irish lilt.

  “Could you maybe just talk like a person instead of narrating a musical?” Saon grumbled, settling near his feet.

  Adali’s cloak shifted into a neat blue shirt tucked into khakis. “Better?”

  “Perfect,” Saon said, smirking. Kitai wondered how often he actually got to win small arguments like that. It made her oddly fond of him.

  “So why is John Henry important to Kitai’s quest?” Gemini asked, shifting subtly more masc, shoulders squaring, jawline sharpening. Kitai’s body flinched before she could stop it—a leftover reflex from never quite knowing how to exist around new people.

  Gemini’s hand slipped out of hers. They moved to sit beside Saon instead, giving her space. Saon’s smile widened a fraction. Kitai’s dimmed.

  Great, she thought. You’re scared of the one person who hugged you without an agenda. Good job, Kitai.

  “John Henry was a man of impossible will,” Adali said. “He faced a machine powered by soul-steel, and with nothing but his own body and a borrowed hammer, he beat it.”

  “Yes, I know the Folklore,” Kitai said, grateful to drag her attention away from the hollow feeling in her palm. “I saw a show about him once.”

  “Folklore,” Adali scoffed. He floated a book into Saon’s hands. “Just another word for history someone decided was inconvenient.”

  “John Henry wasn’t real,” Kitai said, though even as she spoke she heard her own doubt. “He was a symbol. Hope dressed up in muscle. A story people told themselves when the world was ripping them apart.”

  “Kitai…” Disappointment colored Adali’s voice. “You’re on a plane where goblins, fae, unicorns, and Nyx-born exist. And this is where you draw the line?”

  He flicked his fingers; glyphs of sound shimmered in the air.

  “I’m not doubting the story,” Kitai said, softer. “Just… how? The Remembered Plane doesn’t have soul power like you do. How did he beat something he couldn’t match?”

  Adali’s smirk returned. “He didn’t use his own soul.” He pointed at her bag. “He used one of yours. One of your family’s.”

  A heavy book floated into her lap. The cover prickled cold against her palms: Lafiyas and Their Crimes Against the Planes.

  “Oh good,” Kitai muttered. “We have a rap sheet.”

  “Open to page one,” Adali said.

  She did. At the top, stamped like a brand, was a crest: a star cradled by a skeletal figure with curled antlers. It pulsed faintly, in time with her heartbeat.

  Her throat tightened. “Is this… our family crest?”

  “Yes. If you want to see it up close, Saon and Gemini wear the signet on their rings.” He pointed lazily. “Now flip to page sixty.”

  She obeyed. A hammer filled the page, heavy and brutal, its head etched with the same skeletal star. Below it, the caption read:

  Hammer of Will – Last Wielder: John Henry of the Remembered Plane.

  “Your family,” Adali said, summoning four cups of tea that floated to each of them, “has had a hand in an embarrassing number of turning points across the planes. This was one of their more beautiful sins.”

  Kitai cupped her tea, letting the warmth seep into her fingers. “If the event was so important, why is it remembered like a bedtime myth?”

  “Because the story changed,” Adali said. “Originally, John Henry was history. People knew what he’d done. But when it became clear he used an artifact from the Forgotten Plane, memory started to rot.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what we are,” he said, voice flattening. “For the Remembered Plane, we are erosion. Anything we touch blurs. Facts become legends, then stories, then campfire lies. But the emotional truth—the hope—sticks.”

  “So we helped them,” Kitai said slowly, “and then they forgot.”

  Adali nodded. “They forgot where the help came from. Not what it felt like.”

  Saon huffed. “Nice story, teacher. How does this translate to ‘Kitai doesn’t die next week’?”

  “Because she needs that hammer,” Adali replied. “It’s sitting in Thrill Park, disguised as a ornament. And now she knows what it looks like and what it did last time someone swung it.”

  “You never said what it does now,” Gemini said.

  “He did,” Kitai murmured, eyes tracing the hammer’s outline. It pulsed under her fingertips. “It gives the wielder indomitable will.”

  Adali lifted his cup to her in a tiny toast. “Correct. Last time it was used, the wielder nearly shattered a plane in half.”

  “Oh good,” Saon muttered. “Subtle.”

  Adali glanced at the invisible clock of the room. “You’re on a deadline, heir. You should be moving.”

  “What about my bag?” Kitai asked. “The compass? The scroll?”

  Saon floated her bag to the center of the group and upended it with zero ceremony.

  “Thanks, I could’ve done that,” Kitai said dryly.

  “You could have,” Saon said. “But you wouldn’t. Because you’re holding something more important.”

  Kitai glanced down and realized she was still holding Gemini’s hand in her mind. Her actual hand was empty. The phantom awareness made her pulse jump. She looked up, and Gemini was already smiling at her like they could read the thought.

  Saon smirked. “Thought so.”

  “Stop teasing or I’ll put you in another bubble,” Adali said.

  He crouched near the scattered items and picked up the compass first. He brushed his fingers over its face, then—bizarrely—licked the rim.

  Kitai stared. “Did you just—”

  “This compass is old,” Adali murmured, ignoring her. “Older than some dead planes. I can’t tell exactly how it works, but you’ll need a connection to the glpyhs to use it.”

  “How do I get those?” Kitai asked. “I just learned what glyphs were, like, three hours ago.”

  “When your Soulframe has a Fable and earns a True Name, glyphs attach more willingly,” Adali said. “You’re a special case, though. You’re already seeing things you shouldn’t without training. That tells me your Frame doesn’t behave like most.”

  Kitai exhaled, long and slow. “I hate how often ‘special case’ is code for ‘you’re going to suffer for everyone else’s plot.’”

  “You’re not broken,” Adali said, surprisingly gentle. “You’re extraordinary. Which is worse in some ways, but useful in others.”

  He picked up the scroll. It pulsed faintly in his hand, reacting to her presence.

  “This,” he said, “is a Fable Soul. You already have one in you now. This would make two. You’ll need that kind of reinforcement if you want to wield the hammer without it cracking you open.”

  Adali held his hand out to her. Kitai stared at it.

  If I take it, she thought, there’s no going back. No pretending I can just wake up in Boca and go to Writing 101.

  Fear rose up, cold and crisp. So did something else: the memory of the Nyx-born in her basement, of the fog curling under the door, of Saon whispering “Trust your gut” with fear in his eyes.

  Petrichor reached her before arms did.

  Gemini stepped up behind her and wrapped their arms around her shoulders, chin brushing her hair. The scent of wet earth and lightning surrounded her.

  “It’ll be okay,” they murmured. “One step at a time.”

  Kitai’s throat tightened. She nodded and put her hand into Adali’s.

  “Repeat after me,” he said. “I am true to no one but myself, and now you shall be true to me.”

  She echoed him.

  Light rushed through her. Her Frame flared, a kaleidoscope of colors flickering through her spectral veins. The scroll dissolved, liquefying into threads of ink and light that sank into her palm.

  “How do you feel?” Gemini asked.

  “Like I just swallowed espresso and therapy,” Kitai said, breathless. “Amazing. Clear. Less… hollow.”

  “A good Fable will do that,” Adali said. “What’s its name?”

  “The Lament of Atum,” Kitai answered immediately. “I don’t know how I know that. I just… do.”

  “Because it’s yours now,” Adali said. “Its knowledge, its pattern, its voice—they’re part of your Frame. Which is why we need that hammer to ground you. Will without anchor is how monsters are made.”

  “And the bag?” Kitai asked, lifting it.

  Adali’s expression shifted, reverent for once. “That is your first heirloom. The first object ever crafted in the Forgotten Plane. Once wielded by the mind that split the planes.”

  Saon hovered again, eyes gleaming. “That bag is worth more than you could imagine.”

  “And nothing at all,” Adali added. “Unless you’re its rightful heir.”

  “Why does it respond to me and not to Hermit?” Kitai asked softly.

  Gemini answered. “Something happened generations ago. The heir at the time sealed the bag to only respond to the Head of House Lafiya. Your mother believed it lost.”

  “You’ll be the first in centuries to wake it,” Saon said.

  “But… how?” Kitai asked, fingers tightening on the strap.

  “By drawing on your glyphs,” Adali said. He traced a circle into the air; it flared on the floor beneath their feet. “Once you can form a stable green glyph, you’ll drop it into the bag. If it accepts you, it’ll open. If not…” He shrugged.

  Kitai stared down at the circle. At the bag. At her friends. At nothing and everything that had brought her here.

  Grief pressed at the edges: for the mother she’d never meet, for the father scattered like ash across her Frame, for the girl in Boca who thought her biggest problem was an essay deadline.

  She swallowed it down.

  Banters, bargains, dances—if that’s what it took to keep from drowning, then fine.

  “Alright then,” she said, lifting her chin. “Let’s harness some glyphs.”