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Step by step, Verso trudges up the lonely path to the cabin. The woods are eerily silent around him, not even a breeze whispering through the branches.
He does not know where he is, exactly. He does not know how he got here. All he knows is this: The Paintress must die. For her sake. For his sake.
He steps into the small, wooden shack. Dust coats every surface and the scent of old, musty wood hangs in the air. In the corner, a plain, unassuming table holds a plain, unassuming blade, pristine and untouched. Not a speck of rust dares to tarnish upon its shining surface.
He picks it up. It settles in his palm as though it were made for him.
Pushing open the door, he lets his eyes adjust to the darkness for a second before he dares to place a foot on the step. It creaks beneath his foot, groaning as though it might give way for a brief second, but it accepts his weight without breaking.
A voice echoes up from the darkness, “Who’s there?” She sounds cautious, wary. He says nothing, only tightening his grip on the blade and continuing down. The dark stairs give way to an open, bare basement, lit by a single window. A single person kneels within, chained to the wall by a heavy manacle.
Maelle. Alicia. The faint starlight illuminates her white hair and shines in her pale eyes. Her face is unmarred by scars or age, still the sixteen-year-old she had been on the beach. So alike and yet unlike his sister.
“Verso?” Her voice is hopeful. “Have you come to save me?”
His jaw clenches for a brief moment as he debates whether to answer, then finally replies, “In a manner of speaking.” He will save her, even as she doesn’t wish to be saved.
He doesn’t give her another chance to speak. In a single motion, he plunges the pristine blade into her heart. Her eyes go wide with shock and panic, fading to resignation before the light in them goes out. It’s done.
Wearily, he stands, pulling the blade from her chest as he does. Her body lies motionless, her eyes wide open, staring at him. Accusing him. Judging him.
She hasn’t faded to petals.
He pushes the little voice aside. Whatever has happened, the wound was a lethal one. Alicia is gone, forced back home. The corpse that remains must be little more than a final twist of the knife; an expression of blame and guilt to torment him in her last moments.
He lifts the knife, still red with his sister’s blood. He doesn’t even hesitate before slitting his own throat.
Everything goes dark, and he dies.
She doesn’t remember what happened, exactly. They were fighting, her and Papa and Maman and her friends and Verso, fighting over the future of the Canvas.
Papa had reached out and torn a hole in the fabric, Maman had been watching silently from above, Verso had been reaching out, the world itself had been holding its breath–
And then the air had shuddered as another soul forced its way in. Cried out. The Canvas, twisted by the Fracture, weakened by the constant tug-of-war between two gods, had collapsed in on itself like a dying star.
Reality inverted. Everything had gone inside-out and backwards and upside-down, splintering and fracturing again and again like a hall of mirrors all shattering simultaneously. The Chroma itself screamed as eight different wills fought for dominance and self-actualization.
She’s on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is her brother.
She’s here to save him. If she doesn’t, it will be the end of the world.
Her footsteps on the dirt path are slow, as if she can delay the inevitable that awaits her. And yet, all too soon, the cabin looms ominously over her, dark and silent like a mausoleum.
She steps inside. The sound of her boots striking the wooden floor echoes through the hut with each step, but fades back into the overwhelming silence all too quickly. She doesn’t spare so much as a glance towards the pristine blade, tucked neatly into its corner.
Her brother waits below. She knows this, as surely as she knows her own names.
She places one hand on the dusty wall as she descends the dark stairway. He doesn’t call out, doesn’t ask who’s coming, doesn’t utter a sound. She doesn’t look up until her feet have touched the basement floor.
Her brother is chained to the wall by a heavy manacle, starlight reflecting off the white streak in his hair. His steel blue eyes meet hers. There is no hope, no love, no light in his eyes.
“Maelle.” His voice is heavy with resignation.
The bitter sting of betrayal colors her response. “Why, Verso?” She presses her hand to her chest, the memory of icy steel piercing her heart still fresh.
His gaze doesn’t waver, doesn’t falter. “You lied.”
Her breath catches in her throat. “I – ”
“You never intended to leave, did you?”
She feels her hands curl into fists, nails digging into the soft leather of her gloves. “The moment I leave, Papa will erase the Canvas.” It feels like a poor excuse now, with the Canvas so twisted and messed-up that she doesn’t think she could fix it anymore. She’s not even sure Clea could do anything.
“It’s not worth your life.” Finally, his eyes shift away from hers, staring down at the floor. “Do you think you can fix all this? Leave.”
Sudden anger flares inside her heart, surprising her with its intensity. “No.”
“Maelle – ”
Abruptly, she strides forward, grabbing his manacled arm to look at the cuff before he can pull away. There is no hint of a seam, nor a keyhole with which to unlock it. “I’m getting you out of here.”
“Maelle.” He tugs his wrist away from her grasp.
“Maybe there’s something upstairs or outside that we could break the chain or pry it from the wall.”
“Maelle.”
She whips around and starts marching back towards the stairs. “I’m going to get you out of here, and then we’re going to find the others, and then we’ll figure out what to do next.”
“Maelle!”
She refuses to listen. She takes the stairs two at a time, shoving her way through the door at the top. The room looks the same as the first time she walked through – dusty, barren but for the table and the blade in the corner. She eyes the table for a moment before dismissing it – too clumsy and large for her to drag down the narrow stairs, and there’s nothing it will be able to accomplish against a thick, metal chain.
Perhaps there’s something outside that would be more useful. She crosses over to the front door and – it refuses to open. The windows refuse to break. They are trapped here.
Fine. She’ll cross that bridge when she gets to it. First, she needs to free her brother. Clutching the dagger in her hand, she makes her way back down the stairs.
“There’s nothing upstairs but this,” she admits, “Maybe we can pick the lock somehow?”
“No lock.” He says flatly, “Not even a seam.”
She steps forward to take a closer look. He’s right, the manacle is a smooth, featureless circle of iron. “Maybe…” she frowns, “We can cut off your hand? It’ll hurt, but you can reattach it after, right?”
“Alicia.” She stiffens at the name as his free hand curls around her wrist. “Let me go. I’m not worth your life.” Gently, Verso pulls her hand until the blade is resting against his throat, drawing a bead of blood. She tries to jerk her hand away, but his grip is like iron, and she only succeeds in drawing another trickle of red from his skin.
“They deserve to live, Verso.” she whispers into the silence. He doesn’t respond. They stand there, frozen in place, both unwilling to surrender.
Finally, she lets her body relax, glancing away. “Papa’s still here,” she says softly, “When we find him, we’ll… I’ll go home, after he helps fix everything. I promise.” The lie tastes bitter on her tongue.
A heartbeat of silence passes. Two. Four. Verso stares directly at her, his gaze searching. And then – his grip on her wrist suddenly tightens, catching her off-guard, bruising her wrist as he twists the blade and draws it across his own throat. Scarlet blossoms across his neck as it opens up, spilling down his shirt as he falls.
“Verso!” She lets the blade fall from her numb fingers, clattering to the ground as she reaches, desperately trying to stem the bleeding. It’s okay, it’s okay, he’s immortal–!
But the wound refuses to close. No pale petals dance across his body. He is breathless, lifeless, cold in her arms.
She clings to him, refusing to let go even as darkness rises and swallows them both.
His steps are slow and limping as he makes his way down the stairs to the basement. He can feel the weight of the heavy, oppressive air around him. Not even in the depths of his prison did he ever feel as powerless in a Canvas as he does now. Chroma is all around him, and yet it stubbornly refuses to obey.
He reaches the bottom of the stairs and he stops. The room is dim, lit only by a single starlit window, but he knows the silhouette in front of him.
Aline.
Not as her doll, nor her hollow, broken form. She sits rigid and proud, bound to the wall by a manacle. Shadows cover her face, but he can still feel her gaze piercing through him.
“Aline.” He breathes like a desperate man breathes a prayer.
“Renoir.” Her voice is deceptively soft, betraying none of her feelings.
He desperately wants to rush to her side, to hold her close like he has been so unable to for sixty-seven years. And yet, it is that gap, that gulf in their history, that holds him at bay. “You shouldn’t have entered this place. You’re going to kill yourself – !”
She laughs; a harsh, broken thing. “Still so blind, are you? I cannot leave, even if I wanted to. And I suspect you can’t either, can you? Whatever happened has trapped us here.”
“Explain.”
“Go ahead. Try.” She leans back against the wall, letting her face catch the light. “It’s not as if I can go anywhere or do anything.”
Much as he dislikes to admit it, she is right. Closing his eyes, he grasps for the thread back to his body, the path he had engraved in his soul more deeply than his own name –
Nothing happens. It’s there, he can sense it, but it remains stubbornly out of reach.
“Many times have I heard stories of Painters unwilling to leave their Canvases,” she muses as he opens his eyes, “But never once about a Painter being unable. Though, I suppose they wouldn’t have escaped to tell their tale, would they?” Her lips twist into a faint, wry grin, and for a moment he sees a shadow of their eldest in her face.
“You’re being remarkably calm about this.”
Her eyes flutter shut. She looks peaceful in the dim light, like a carved statue he would see in a tomb. “I find it difficult to care much, these days.”
“Our daughters are trapped here with us!”
Her hands clench in her dress. “I know. And who’s fault is that, mon chéri?”
His voice drops to a low growl, “I never asked Alicia to get involved. I told her to stay home!”
“You left our daughters alone to make their own decisions. And when Alicia did find her way to you, you did nothing to push her back out. Why?” Her eyes open, pale and beautiful and so, so cold. “So you could use her as a weapon in a war you’d already won.”
“She was safer close to me –”
“Safer? Where she might’ve been stabbed by one of her sister’s creations? Crushed by one of yours? Paintress she may be, but you know as well as I do that the memory of a violent death lingers.”
He strikes the floor with his cane in anger. “Safer than languishing alone in that house to choke on her guilt and shame!”
He sees her recoil, her face paling. He doesn’t give her a chance to retort. “Did you ever see her, Aline, or were you too blinded by your own grief? Did you see her as she folded in on herself, day after day, hiding away in her room to avoid running into us? Did you see how much of a shadow she became under the weight of your blame?”
She flinches. “I didn’t – I don’t…”
“Actions speak far louder than words, Aline!” His shoulders slump, the weight of everything pressing down on him. “Whatever your reasons, hiding from her did nothing but add credence to what she already believes. Leaving her to chase you – I was scared, Aline. Every day in that prison was another day I feared that I would lose her for good; that I would step out of the Canvas to find her dead by her own hand!”
She’s frozen, still as ice, by the admission. “You shouldn’t have left her.” She finally whispers, “You should have gone back.”
“I couldn’t,” he breathes, “Losing you… it would’ve broken me, but Alicia? It would have destroyed her. She already blames herself too much for Verso’s death.”
A heavy and oppresive silence falls. Years of pain and betrayal and solitude hang between them; a barrier that Renoir doesn’t yet know how to breach.
How do we fix this, he thinks helplessly, how do we go back to what it was before?
It is Aline who finally speaks again. “There’s no key upstairs, is there?” She lifts her bound wrist, exposing the manacle to the light, It is smooth and featureless; no seam or keyhole to be seen.
“Just a knife,” he admits, grateful for the shift in topic, “Nothing else.”
“A knife, a cabin, and a prisoner,” she muses, “A puzzle with a seemingly plain and straightforward answer.”
Renoir’s blood runs cold. “Aline! You can’t possibly be suggesting…”
“Always so quick to leap to conclusions,” she chides, “I only stated the obvious. That doesn’t mean it’s the only solution.”
“What do you suggest then, ma moitié?”
Her lips twitch slightly at the endearment. “I am suggesting, my dear husband, that you walk back upstairs and retrieve the knife so that we can figure out what to do next.” She waves her manacled hand again. “It’s not as if I can go up there.”
She’s right, he knows, even as he sighs at the prospect of climbing up and down the stairs again. Whatever this place is, it’s forced all the aches and pains of mortality upon him, even as the weight of his long years within the Canvas press upon his soul. Still, it’s a small price to pay for her wellbeing. Step by step, he climbs the stairs and does another sweep of the cabin’s upper room, but it is as bare and featureless as when he first entered. Picking up the knife, he makes his way downstairs again.
She eyes its sharp edge. “Hardly strong or sharp enough to work its way through chains, I think,” she murmurs, “That is an edge made for flesh and bone.”
“We won’t know unless we try,” Renoir tries to reason, “Perhaps we might pry the bolts free of the wall?”
“Mmm. Perhaps.” Doubt is plain to see on her face. “And if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we’ll search for another way.”
He sees her face twist into a bitter smile. “So eager to slay me before, mon cœur. Have you forgotten that a Painter does not die in a Canvas?”
“A Painter should also be able to leave a Canvas whenver they wish, and yet neither of us are able to do so.”
“Fair enough, I suppose.” She leans back again, letting her eyes fall shut. “Have it your way. Death is coming for us regardless.”
Pushing her words from his mind, he limps to the wall and examines the plate that holds her chain. It’s held fast to the wall so tightly that there is barely a seam to wedge the knife into. He tries regardless – the blade is strong, but it refuses to budge. He turns his attention to the chain instead, pressing the knife’s edge against it and beginning to saw.
She grimaces at the loud, harsh sound of metal scraping against metal, raising her hands to cover her ears. “Wonderful. I’ll go deaf before I expire.”
He stops for a moment to check his work; both chain and blade are as pristine as when he began. “Better that then a hand, I think.” He continues resolutely, unwilling to give up just yet. For long moments, only the sound of steel screeching against iron fills the room. Finally, he lets his arm fall to his side, exhausted.
Aline rises to her feet and examines his work. Neither implement show so much as a scratch for his efforts. “Now do you believe me, dear husband? Whomever or whatever has trapped us here intends for us to follow the script.”
He rests his forehead against the cool basement wall. “Do you think that a Writer has found their way into our home again?” He asks wearily, “Trapped us all in a Manuscript of some kind?”
“The style matches that of a Writer,” she muses, “Rigid rules and expectations, rather than the freeform creation of a Canvas. But I am certain that we never left Verso’s Canvas, so that begs the question – how did this happen? Have they found a way to modify a Canvas with writing? And how did they get past Clea?”
She’s close to him, her body a meager few centimeters from his. He wants so badly, and yet he cannot bring himself to reach for her, the jagged hurt between them still so fresh, so painful. And yet, as if sensing his desire, Aline reaches up, tangling her fingers in his hair, and pulls him in for a kiss. It’s fierce, rough, desperate; all teeth and tongue and gasping breaths. He returns it with the fervor of a man possessed, parched by seven decades of solitude. His cane clatters to the floor as he wraps his free hand around her, pressing her in tighter. For this brief moment, they slot perfectly together.
He does not notice one hand lift away from him and brush against the knife he clutches until it’s too late. Her lips curve in a smile against his own, and then she wraps her fingers around his and plunges the blade into her own breast before he can stop her.
She gasps in both pain and triumph as she takes the knife to its hilt. He feels as it sinks through flesh and muscle; the liquid warmth of her blood spilling over his fingers. With her other hand, she gently curves her hand around his cheek. “Better me than you, mon lion.”
“Aline!”
“My time is running short regardless.” Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth as she speaks. “If I die here, so be it.”
He cradles her close as she slumps, heedless of the red staining his vest. “Aline,” he whispers, “My love. Ma ciel étoilé.” A thousand unsaid words die in his throat as her body loses its warmth.
He doesn’t notice the world begin to unravel until the nothingness claims him.
Lune has been able to feel Chroma for most of her life and has had Pictos etched into her skin for almost half of it. Being without it now, unable to even create a single spark, has her on edge. She grabs the blade off the table in an attempt to settle her nerves; better to have some weapon to defend herself with. She descends into the basement, alert for any signs of danger. From below, she hears the rattling of chains.
When she reaches the bottom, she sees woman with long auburn hair tugging at the manacle wrapped around her wrist. She wears a white shirt and dark skirt, and her feet are as bare as Lune’s. Clea, she realizes, recalling the similar figure within the depths of the Flying Manor. This must be the real Clea.
Clea stops pulling at the chain and turns to face her. “So one of you ended up in this mess as well? I’m surprised; I thought that all the Chroma in the Canvas was being used for,” she gestures at the empty basement around them, “Whatever is going on.”
Lune frowns. “You don’t know either?”
“No. I don’t.” She tugs at the chain again. “This place. Are you familiar with it? Did it exist in your Lumière?”
Lune shakes her head. “Not to my knowledge, and we never saw anything like it on the Continent either. It’s not a place in your world?”
“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of cabins in forests all over the world. But we’ve never visited one, so I fail to see any relevance.” Her manner is brusque and acerbic, not at all like the rest of her family.
“Why are you here, anyways? Maelle said that you were too busy with some sort of war to enter the Canvas. Why change your mind?”
Clea studies her for a long moment, as if debating whether to answer, then finally speaks. “I grew tired of waiting for this foolish, sentimental family. I intended to finish things myself.”
“But you didn’t – ”
“No. It happened the moment I entered. It’s as if the whole thing gave way beneath my feet.”
Lune frowns. “So you did cause it.”
Clea scowls in response. “Don’t jump to conclusions. A Canvas can hold any number of Painters without issue; my entering shouldn’t have done anything.”
“Have any of your other Canvases ever been like ours before? Torn apart, held in a state of Fracture by two warring people?”
“It shouldn’t have made a difference.” But her scowl lessens, betraying a fraction of doubt. “It shouldn’t.”
Lune lets it go. “Regardless, how do we fix it? You’re a Paintress, can’t you just…?”
“Don’t you think that I would if I could?” Clea yanks at the chain binding her wrist again. “Do you think I like being chained up here?”
Lune bites back the sarcastic maybe on the tip of her tongue. Antagonizing her won’t help them out of this situation. “There wasn’t any sort of key or tool upstairs besides this knife.”
“Wonderful. A cabin, a knife, and a prisoner to execute. How straightforward. How lacking in imagination.”
She shrugs. “Don’t you Painters just get kicked out when you die? Wouldn’t it be a good thing for you?”
“Normally? Yes. But normally we can also just leave when we feel like it. And I don’t think following whatever script they want us to follow is a good thing.” Clea holds out her hand. “Give me the knife.”
Lune steps back. “What? No.”
“I’m not going to stab you. I’m going to see if I can pry the chain from the wall.”
It sounds reasonable enough, she supposes. Stepping forward, she flips the blade around and extends it towards the Dessendre –
Quick as a snake, Clea snatches it and strikes. Still feeling half-blind from her loss of Chroma sense, Lune doesn’t register what has happened until she feels blood pouring down her from her opened throat.
“For what it’s worth,” she hears faintly as she falls, “It’s not personal.”
Sciel stands, blade in hand, over the woman who has defined her entire life. The Paintress looks up at her, weary and defeated. “I remember you. You were at the top of the Monolith, weren’t you?”
“I was.” Looking down at the glimmering knife in her hand, Sciel has to fight back the sudden urge to laugh. “It’s… strange. Your presence has loomed over me my entire life. You were death. The ever-present timer on my life. And now we’re here, and you’re just so… human.”
“Human. I suppose I am.” The woman looks tired in a way that Sciel knows well. “I haven’t felt human in a very long time.” She sighs. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry. I created Lumière as little more than a backdrop for my ideal life. I never intended for any of this to happen to you.”
“You lost a child.” Unconsciously, Sciel reaches up and brushes her fingers across the scar on her stomach. “I would’ve done the same, if I could.”
The Paintress’s eyes stare deep into her own. “How old?” Is all she asks.
“A miscarriage. No more than sixteen weeks old.” She looks down again at her reflection in the blade. “She would’ve been six. Could you…?”
A quiet shake of the head. “I’m sorry.”
Silence falls over them for a few brief moments before the Paintress speaks again. “You’re a gardener?”
“A farmer. How did you…?”
“A lucky guess, perhaps.” Something in her face softens. “I have a garden I enjoy tending.”
Sciel suddenly recalls the glasshouse resting atop the mysterious Manor. “The glasshouse – is that yours as well?”
“It is. Though I imagine the one in reality has sprouted into disarray, in my absence.” Her eyes are a well of nostalgia, dark and deep. “Alicia used to love it there.”
“She doesn’t still?”
“She retreated more and more into her room as she grew older.” The older woman sighs. “Looking back – I wonder if the weight of our expectations were simply… too much. We wanted her to have the world, but… maybe she was content without it.”
Sciel thinks of Maelle and her love of flowers, of how anxious she’d been of this huge world and yet how amazed she found herself at each new wonder. She remembers her quiet melancholy as they’d climbed the Monolith, affected by memories she didn’t even understand, and yet at the end she’d reached towards the broken Paintress with something like compassion. “She doesn’t hate you.”
A sudden hitched breath. “What – ”
“Maelle. Alicia.” Mind made up, she sits down cross-legged in front of the Paintress and sets the knife between them, where either of them can reach for it. “I don’t think she hates you.”
“How can you possibly – ”
“I’ve seen hate. I know hate.” She recalls the sudden shift she’d seen in the girl after her hair had turned white; how her bitter resolve had hardened into something like desperation. How she’d silently accepted her mirror’s request for death without pause.
(If another version of Sciel came up to her, begging for death, she would grant it without question.)
“She hates herself, I think. Or – she’s running away from herself, from whatever she thinks defines ‘Alicia.’ It’s not about running away from you.”
The Paintress looks away. “Perhaps not, but there’s no doubt that I’m to blame. I was a coward; I couldn’t face her – I can still barely face her.”
“So fix it.”
Her gaze snaps back to Sciel. “What?”
“Fix. It.” Sciel leans forward. “All of you can claim fault as much as you like, but it doesn’t do anything unless you take action. You still have her and Renoir; you can still make an effort. Rebuild things.” She touches her stomach again. “I didn’t have that.”
The Paintress gazes at her for a long time. And then, softly, “What’s your name?”
“Sciel. Renoir called you Aline, didn’t he?”
The Paintress – Aline – extends her hand in greeting, which Sciel clasps. “I think,” she says, “Should we get out of this alive? I would very much like for you to show me Lumière’s gardens.”
Sciel feels her lips curve into a genuine smile. “Only if you agree to give me a proper tour of your glasshouse.”
“Agreed.” Aline releases her hand, then looks down at the knife between them. “I suppose that still doesn’t solve our problem, however.”
Sciel shrugs. She picks up the knife again. “You can fix everything, right? Repaint us once you figure out how to break out of,” she gestures around, “This?”
“Sciel, wait – ”
“I’ll be fine.” She brings the blade up to her throat. “Perhaps I’ll even get to see Pierre again for a little while.” The blade is so sharp that she barely feels it slice her skin, only the rush of warmth as her lifeblood spills out onto her hands. Distantly, she’s aware of a pair of hands gripping her wrists and pulling her forward, letting her collapse onto a warm shoulder instead of the hard floor. Offering comfort?
She never gets a chance to find out. The warmth is replaced by a cold numbness, and she falls into nothing.
Verso finds himself in the cabin once again.
The wood is aged, crumbling to dust, with thick cobwebs forming over the walls. The smell of dust is now mixed with decaying wood and the faint scent of rot. The blade sits on an elegant table in the corner, still as pristine as when he first saw it.
He picks it up. Best to have a way out, if necessary.
The door to the basement groans open, the stairs creaking under his footsteps. Step by step, he descends, dreading who he might find down below. How many more times will he do this before the Canvas collapses entirely?
The basement is devoid of life. Instead of a living person, a withered corpse lies on the floor, still chained to the wall. His blood runs cold; he recognizes her pale hair and the decaying rags clinging to her bones.
He’d plunged the blade into her heart – and yet she’d stood in front of him, very much alive – what was happening? Had he doomed her somehow by his hasty decision?
He takes a step forward, then stops. What he thought was a flicker of cold starlight coalesces into a wane, ghostly shape. Long white hair drifts around her, as if in an invisible breeze, her booted feet refusing to touch the floor. She is drawn in monochrome, save for the splash of deep red that runs down her chest.
She looks hauntingly, painfully like his sister.
Alicia, he almost says. “Maelle.” He whispers instead. “How are you – ”
“I don’t know.” She looks down at her translucent hands. “I just… woke up like this.”
He reaches out, but his fingers pass through hers, leaving only the faint impression of an icy touch. Sudden panic grips his heart. “You can’t stay – look at what this place is doing to you!”
Her expression hardens. “Better here than out there.”
“Alicia.” He shivers as the room’s temperature suddenly drops several degrees. “Please, listen to reason – ”
“Reason?” Her laugh is high and cold, like breaking glass. “Reason won’t fix my broken body. Reason won’t undo my mistakes! If you want reason, Verso, what about this?” She swoops close, staring eye-to-eye with him. “Is it not reasonable to prioritize many lives over one? Is it not reasonable for me to live out my life fixing Lumière instead of doing more harm? Is it not reasonable for me to want my brother to live?”
He shudders at the intense chill. “I can’t,” he begs, “I can’t be responsible for your death. Please, Alicia – Maelle – I can’t do this anymore!”
She reaches out, lightly brushing his face with her icy hand. “Verso…” she breathes softly, and then, so quietly he almost thinks he imagines it –
“Why won’t you understand?”
She moves – a flash of grey and white and red smudging across his sight – and grabs him. No – she sinks into him. It feels like feathers brushing across his skin, light and delicate, and yet he sinks to his knees under the weight of it.
He expects it to be cold. Instead, he is burning.
Heat sears her face her throat her eyes she is clawing desperately to put it out but her hands are on fire and she cannot breathe, she cannot breathe and the pain is so terrible she wishes she would die from it–
He chokes on smoke that isn’t there, chest tightening, he cannot breathe!
The world has gone gray and cold and empty, tinged with the ghostly flames that lick under her skin at every moment. She feels his absence in silent halls and dusty pianos, in the shadows lining her family’s faces, the hollowness in their eyes. Guilt and shame dog her heels and her hands feel stained with her brother’s blood–
He stands in a broken world, hands dripping with his lover’s blood, all he knows upended around his ears. Guilt and pain claw at his heart. He stumbles forward, somehow finds his way to the remains of his home, where his father embraces him and his sister clings to him and the broken thing that was once his mother reaches out and cups his face–
Her mother turns away again and again and again and again and she cannot find the words to fix it, cannot find any words at all. There is nothing she can say or do to mend what she has broken. Wishes will do nothing to change the past and yet with every ragged breath she wishes that she had been the one to die saving him–
He wishes he were dead. Death would be a mercy; death would release him and his family and all of Lumière from this slow, torturous anguish. Oblivion inches closer, year by painful year, held barely at bay by his mother’s pride and father’s stubbornness, and each day feels like a lifetime–
Her days are torturously slow, each minute feeling instead like hours. She cannot speak. She cannot sing. She can barely force her frozen fingers to write. Her mother has disappeared into the Canvas, her father has chased after her, and every day she wonders if there is anyone left in her family who can still bear to love her. When Clea pushes her after their parents, it’s far too easy to let go and lose herself–
He’s on the floor. He’s not sure which of them is screaming with his voice.
The first time he sees Maelle, it’s a shock, like something out of a half-forgotten dream. He knows his sister was Painted into being with her scars, a punishment for a sin that wasn’t hers, and yet he remembers her face before the fire. He keeps his distance, first physically and then emotionally, determined to cut off every possible reason for her to stay, and yet–
She keeps her distance from the tall, dark, stranger, angry at his failures. Gustave’s death is a fresh, bleeding wound; a hole carved into her heart that she refuses to fill. And yet she finds herself drawn to him all the same; a strange friendship between hearts carved by grief and solitude–
He has been hardened by solitude and betrayal, but it has not beaten the kindness from him yet. He looks at the mirror image of his sister, unburdened by shame and yet weighed down with the grief that he forced upon her, and he cannot help but offer small kindnesses. Gustave’s journal. Small conversations by firelight. A moment shared on the bench of a piano, playing a song woven through the texture of his painted soul, and he knows that she is not his sister. But perhaps he can atone for what he’s done to both her and his Alicia–
Perhaps she can atone for what she did, by protecting this last piece of him. She knows he is not her brother, but she can still love him as though he were, tuck away the parts of her soul that are raw and hurting. She has done nothing but bring ruin to her family, it would be better this way, for her to stay–
It would be better for everyone if he were dead.
He cannot bear it. She cannot bear it. They are tangled together, unable to tell where one ends and another begins, trapped in an endless cycle of pain and love and loss and hurt–
It would be better for everyone if he she they had never been born.
The blade is still clutched in his hand. He doesn’t know which of them plunges it into their heart.
Renoir slumps down the stairs, one step at a time. He is tired, so tired of this scene playing out ad nauseum, but he cannot stop. He won’t stop. Not until his family is home. Once again, he steps down into the basement, and his breath catches at what he sees.
Aline.
There are more shackles this time; one around each wrist and a collar around her neck. On the wall next to her, another chain leads to a manacle that hangs open. There is still a thin tear in her shirt where the knife once pierced her, though the scarlet blood that spilled over it is now gone.
“Renoir.” This time, there is a hint of something warmer in her voice, something akin to familiarity or nostalgia.
He stumbles forward, the blade in his hand clattering to the ground. “Aline.” He drops to his knees in front of her, reaching out and clutching one of her hands in his own. She is pale, the shadows underneath her eyes deeper than ever, but she is warm and alive. “You’re…”
“Foolish man.” With her other hand, she reaches up and brushes his cheek. “I told you there was nothing to fear.”
“Forgive me for being concerned about your wellbeing, ma sirène.”
“You are entirely too concerned about me, at times.” She sighs deeply, “I am not a fragile bird to be kept in a cage, my dear.”
He gently tilts her wrist, running his thumb across the smooth, featureless fetter wrapped around it. “This place begs to differ.”
“That is besides the point.”
“Regardless, I fear I won’t be attempting to cut you free in any manner.” He gestures at the collar around her throat. “Unless you feel like losing your head.”
“Then pick up the knife and be done with things, Renoir.” She pulls her hand from his grasp. “You and I both know that time is running out. Both for us and for this Canvas. Whatever has happened, it cannot possibly sustain itself like this forever.”
“And then what, Aline? I kill one of us, everything resets, we just keep going around and around each other as everything falls apart?”
“Do you have a better idea? Kiss and make up, like that will magically break apart these chains? And even if that somehow works, then what? How does that get us out of this Canvas?”
He sets his jaw. “There must be something we’re missing.” Pushing himself to his feet, he scans the entire room again. The barred window. The pristine blade, still on the floor where he’d dropped. Aline. The fourth chain, still hanging empty. He frowns. “That empty chain wasn’t there in any previous loop.”
“This whole place has started changing more and more,” she points out, “I’m surprised it still resembles a cabin right now.”
“Still…” He reaches out for it. “I can’t help but feel that it’s important.”
“Renoir, I don’t think you should – !”
The moment his hand touches the manacle, it leaps at him. He doesn’t even have time to move before the collar snaps around his neck, the lock clicking shut with grim finality. He helplessly reaches up and tugs at it. “…Ah.”
Aline stares up at him with a mix of frustration, anger, and resignation. “Well. That is certainly a way to mix things up.” She finally says.
With a defeated sigh, he slumps down to the floor next to her. “Indeed.”
She grabs his cane and reaches out as far as she possibly can with it towards the abandoned knife, but it comes short. “The blade – can you – ”
Try as they might, the blade remains stubbornly out of reach. They are trapped with no way out. What a familiar situation we find ourselves in, he can’t help but think as he leans back against the cold wall.
The silence between them stretches long, feeling like an eternity before Aline finally speaks again. “I refused to leave because of you, you know.”
“Aline…” Her face is angled away; he cannot see her emotions, but he can hear her pain.
“I never planned to stay. I… all I wanted was a reprieve from the terrible grief, Renoir. Was that so much to ask?”
“How long, Aline?” He sighs deeply. “It’s so easy to tell yourself, ‘Just one more day,’ day after day, until you lose track of time. You blink and a month, a year has passed, all while your body withers away.”
“I don’t know,” she admits, “But you… you never asked. You assumed. You attempted to tear it all away without ever trying to come to an agreement.”
“I knew you weren’t going to let it go.”
“Or maybe I would have, given time and comfort instead of judgement!” Her voice is sharp, echoing in the empty room. “I clung to it so tightly to keep you from destroying it, mon cœur. I could not leave while I knew you would destroy it.”
“And I could not leave and trust you to follow,” he retorts, “I know how intoxicating our worlds are. To leave would be to give up my only chance.”
She sighs deeply and slumps back against the wall. “Foolish man,” she breathes, “What a pair we make.”
He shifts, trying to find a comfortable seat in this cold, hard room. Hesitantly, he reaches out his hand and places it over her own, feeling the unyielding chain wrapped around her wrist. “I will never stop loving you,” he says softly, “No matter how many times we hurt each other, I will always love you.”
Gently, she turns her hand and lets his palm slide into hers. They fit together like a key in a lock. “My heart,” she murmurs, “My hope, my light, my rock. I never stopped loving you.”
He does not know how long they wait together. The connection between them is still so fragile, so precious, so painful. Not healed, perhaps, but the first steps have been made. They’ve reached out to each other, willingly, for the first time in so very long.
Perhaps it is only a few heartbeats, or perhaps it is an eternity. But at some point, he looks up and sees stars. “Ma ciel étoilé,” he rasps in quiet wonder. He does not think the night sky has ever looked so beautiful.
“Mon roc.” She whispers. The sky to his earth.
Her fingers squeeze his hand a little tighter, and then they are whisked away from each other by gentle darkness.
Lune’s lost count of how many times she’s been here, facing down Clea Dessendre. The basement itself has shifted with each loop, slowly turning to jagged rock and twisting blue-black lumps of Chroma. Every time they face each other, they fight – Lune stabs Clea, Clea breaks Lune’s ribs, Lune flings the dagger at Clea, Clea drags it from her ribs and slices open Lune.
They’ve tried every permutation. They’ve killed each other, killed themselves, they’ve fought and fought and fought, exchanging harsh words as well as blows, and Lune is tired, an exhaustion she can see mirrored in Clea’s eyes.
“The Canvas is collapsing. Slowly.”
“Collapsing?” Asks Lune.
“Yes.” Clea purses her lips. “It can't maintain… whatever this is forever. Look at it.” She gestures at the crags around them. “It's breaking down, losing its form.”
Lune looks down at the blade clutched in her hand again. “And when it gives way?” She asks quietly.
“You and all those other creations in the Canvas will have it lucky. You'll die – instantly, painlessly.”
“Lucky?” She breathes, incensed.
Clea's face is hard. “Us Painters? We probably won't die right away. We'll just be trapped alone in the nothingness left behind – unable to leave, unable to create – until our life bleeds from our living bodies.”
Lune swallows. Lucky indeed. It sounds like a fate worse than death. “How long–?”
“Depends. For those who've been here a long time already? Months, perhaps, no more than a few years. For someone like me, who’s fresh?” The corner of her mouth twists up in a wry, humorless smile. “Decades. Probably more than a century of your time.”
Lune looks down at her reflection in the blade one last time. And then – she makes her decision and lets it fall to the ground.
Clea takes a sharp breath in. “What are you–”
“No more.” She takes a deep breath and lets the last of her anger dissipate. “You hurt me, I hurt you, around and around we go, and it won't ever stop until one of us chooses to.”
“You think it’s that easy? You think we can just – choose to stop and all of that pain will go away?”
“I don’t know.” For as long as she can remember, she’s held onto a quiet, burning fury to use as fuel to push her forward. Anger at the Paintress, at the world, at her parents, at Verso, at the Dessendres, at her own powerlessness. “But I’m tired, aren’t you?”
Clea stares at her for a long moment before she lets her shoulders slump in wordless admission. “It doesn’t help us get out of here.”
“No.” Lune looks down at the blade. “But fighting each other over and over didn’t either.”
Clea’s jaw works for a long moment, and then she extends her chained arm. “Cut me out.”
The words hit Lune like a thunderbolt. “What are you – ?”
“I can’t do it.” The taller woman looks away. “I’ve tried. I just – can’t.”
Hesitantly, she leans down and picks up the knife again. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Quit asking before I change my mind.”
The first step is the hardest. She’s now very well aware of how dangerous Clea is in close quarters, and she can’t help but fear that this is yet another trick. But Clea doesn’t move, and so she takes another step. And another.
Cautiously, she wraps her hand around Clea’s and raises the blade to touch her wrist. She feels the woman tense, but she makes no move to strike her. “It’ll be harder if you’re tense.”
“Oh, you try relaxing in this situation.” Her caustic tone conceals an undercurrent of anxiety that Lune pretends not to notice.
Lune takes a deep breath, steels her nerves, and presses. The edge of the blade meets little resistance as it carves through skin and muscle. She has grown familiar with the feeling of metal slicing through flesh and she pushes resolutely on, threading the knife between the bones of the wrist.
Clea is as taut as as drawn bowstring, but she doesn’t make a sound. Doesn’t pull away, even as the blade grates against her bones. Lune doesn’t dare to look away from her work, but in the corner of her vision, she sees Clea bring her free arm up to her face.
And then – suddenly it is done. The knife slices through the remaining flesh with ease. The shackle slips from Clea’s wrist and clatters to the ground, followed by her severed hand. Lune quickly uses the still-bloody knife to tear a piece of her coat and wraps it around the severed limb in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.
Clea pulls her arm from her mouth and grimaces at the circle of blood welling up from where her teeth punctured her flesh. “Putain! That fucking hurt!”
Lune grabs her Expedition band from her arm and pulls it tight around Clea’s forearm as a makeshift tourniquet, causing Clea to spit out a few more curse words. “I told you to relax more.”
“Merde. Let’s just get the hell out of here before I bleed out.”
Despite her strong words, the woman’s face is as white as a sheet. Wordlessly, Lune steps to her other side and pulls her good arm over her shoulders, letting Clea lean against her for support. Step by step, they push their way up the stairs.
“It’s funny,” Clea mutters, “I always thought of you people as mistakes. Abominations. An insult to Verso’s memory. Toys in Aline’s toybox.”
Lune doesn’t let the barbs stick. They’ve said worse to each other across these repetitive cycles. “And now?”
“Now I also find myself helpless at the whim of an enigmatic god and it. Fucking. Sucks.”
Lune reaches forward and pushes open the door at the top of the stairs. “Can’t disagree there.” It’s only a few paces to reach the front door. Lune presses her hand against it, but hesitates. “If this doesn’t work…”
“Then I bleed out and die on the floor of this cabin and we start all over again. At least it’s new.” Clea leans forward, letting her weight settle against the door. “Just fucking try it already.”
Lune turns the handle. The door opens and the two of them tumble out onto the grass. She blinks up at the starry sky, feeling as though it’s been an eternity since she’s seen anything but the interior of the cabin.
Beside her, Clea barks out a harsh, exhausted laugh. “Huh. Would you look at that.”
Lune rolls over to look at her. They’ve clashed for so many loops, hurt each other in ways beyond count, and yet she feels an odd sort of kinship with this woman after so long. “Now what?”
The edges of her vision begin to unravel into soft, familiar darkness. Clea groans. “Of course it’s never that simple.”
She clenches her fists, fingers digging into the grass beneath her. “No,” she rasps, “Not again.”
Clea says something, but she never gets to hear it. The darkness reaches up from beneath the world, unraveling her perception and wrapping her in warm nothingness.
Knife in hand, Verso stands in front of his oldest friend.
“Bit of a pickle we seem to find ourselves in,” Monoco says in his gruff, dry voice, “Perhaps moreso than the usual, I’d say.”
“Indeed,” Verso responds weakly, “Even that blasted serpent was easier to handle, I think.”
“Hmmm.” A long moment of silence as Verso eyes the chain on the wall, wondering if he can use the knife to pry the plate loose, and then, “Are you going to stab me with that?”
He whips his head around, horrified. “What – no! Why would you think such a thing?”
“I do not know this place. But somehow, I think it will not let one of us leave until the other is dead.” There is the clattering of wooden joints as Monoco settles himself into a seated position. “So. Are you going to get it over with?”
“There has to be another way. Maybe we can saw through the chain. Or…” He grimaces, “We could always find a way to reattach your arm, right?”
“Gestrals are reborn after death. You know this. Though, I suppose it would be impossible if the Sacred River is gone forever.” His oldest friend’s face tilts to the side, almost quizzically. “You didn’t seem that bothered by the thought of my death before.”
Verso recoils. “What – how could you possibly think – ”
“Your plan.” Monoco’s head tilts the other way. “You knew what the outcome was going to be, after expelling your mother. Lumière’s death. Our death. Your family’s death. Eventually, your death. It’s why I left, all those years ago. I couldn’t bear such a path of self-destruction any longer.”
His head is reeling. “But you came back,” he whispers.
“I suppose I did. Boredom, perhaps, after so many years. Or loyalty. Perhaps I am simply unable to refuse you.” Monoco tilts his mask back, baring his wooden chest and neck. “Regardless, I fail to see why the manner of my erasure would bother you so.”
Verso’s heart thunders in his ears. The ground feels as though it’s shifting beneath his feet and he falls to his knees, blade clattering to the floor.
Our death. Your family’s death.
He still recalls the quiet, cool look that his Alicia had given him as she’d faded into petals. The way she’d dropped his letter to the ground without so much as a word. She’d entrusted him with finding another path, another way, and he’d dropped it into the ocean without a second thought, sealing her fate with his own hands.
And now Monoco sits in front of him, casually baring his throat, asking Verso to strike him down for his own benefit. Expecting it. As though Verso only saw him as a tool for his own goals. Did Esquie think the same? Was that how they all saw him?
Except… that’s how he’d treated everyone around him, wasn’t it? Gustave had been a sacrifice to push Maelle away from the Canvas. Maelle herself had been a means to his ends. He’d asked Monoco to join him on an Expedition that would result in their deaths. He’d played nice with them all, offering hope and friendship in outstretched hands while using them as tools for his own goal.
All because he was too terrified to look for another way.
He reaches up to rub his hands over his face. “Merde. I’ve been a fool, haven’t I?”
“Hmm. It appears to run in the family, from what I’ve seen.”
He can’t help but force out a choked laugh. “I suppose it does. Fuck, Monoco, I’m… I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that… I don’t deserve you as a friend.”
“You don’t.” He can hear a smug smirk in Monoco’s voice. “But I will continue to grace you with my friendship, nonetheless.”
“You – ” Verso sighs. “I don’t suppose you have a way out of here, do you?”
There is the clinking of chains, and then Monoco holds up his arm, free of the manacle. “Whoever designed this did not have Gestrals in mind, I think.”
“You – ” Verso splutters, “You absolute bloody bastard. You could’ve gotten out this whole time?”
“Of course.” Monoco pats him on the shoulder on his way past. “Come, shall we make our escape?”
With an irritated groan, Verso gives up on getting an explanation and follows him up the stairs. The door opens easily to their hands, but they’ve barely made it a few paces out before they fall back into the darkness.
Aline’s in a cabin, except it’s not a cabin. It’s a manor room, ceiling high and arched. A fire burns in a fireplace, casting light and warmth across the room. And in front of her sits Verso. A chain binds his wrist to the piano he sits at. He’s not in his Expeditioner uniform; he’s dressed neatly in his favorite blue suit. Around his neck hangs the pristine blade, suspended by a thin, silver chain.
“Verso…!” She chokes. She stumbles forward across the carpeted floor, falling to her knees beside him and clutching him in a tight embrace. “My son!”
“Maman.” She hears the clinking of chains as he reaches up to embrace her.
“You’re alive,” she breathes, “You’re alright.” Pulling back, she reaches up to caress his face, her heart clenching as she sees how weathered and scarred he has become. “Oh, my son…”
Gently, he reaches up and pulls her hand away. His eyes are shadowed and pained and so so old. “I’m not,” he whispers, “I’m not your son. You have to let me go.”
“Verso – ”
“I know what you want of me.” He indicates the familiar room around them. “But I cannot be happy in such a cage for eternity, no matter how pretty and perfect it is. I’ve lived almost a century, Maman. Please… let me go.”
Tears well up in her eyes. She wants so desperately to push the painful memories away, to pretend that nothing ever happened. She craves it with an intensity that burns, searing inside the hollow left in her heart, and yet. She cannot. She cannot.
She rises and settles onto the piano bench next to him. “A favor, mon ange,” she whispers, “One last performance?”
A soft breath, and then he lifts his hands to the keys.
The melody is gentle and slow, filling the space around them. It breathes with her, swelling and falling and rising again, wrapping her in light and warmth. She doesn’t attempt to hold back the tears that fall from her eyes. She closes them and for a moment she can imagine…
The space is filled with warmth and life and light. Alicia laughs as her father lifts her into a spin. Verso sits at the piano with a smile, fingers dancing lightly across the keys, as Aline guides Clea through a sophisticated waltz. For this brief moment, everything is perfect.
The music climbs to its crescendo, then dips into a quiet finish, the final notes ringing in the air for a precious few seconds. She feels Verso reach down and tangle his fingers in hers, gripping her hand in silent comfort. She weeps, weeps for both days long gone and days that will never happen. She wonders if this Verso, too, grieves the long shadows of lost possibilities. She does not have the heart to ask.
A long slow breath, and then, “You are not my Verso,” she finally admits, “But…” She turns to face him again, reaching up to caress his scars. She wills herself to look at him, to see the marks of a hard life, the black scar torn down his face, and for a few brief seconds, she thinks that she can stop seeing Verso in him. “You are still my son.”
“Maman.” His voice is choked with emotion, and he lifts his hand to cradle her face in return. “I – ”
She pulls him close, her face pressing against his suit. “Adieu, my son.” She breathes into his shoulder, speaking both to him and to the ghost that haunts her heart. “Adieu.”
“Adieu, Maman.”
This time, the darkness that rises feels… comforting. A gentle embrace that wraps around them and pulls them down.
She’s in a cabin in the woods. A thousand chains rattle around her, making up the walls and ceiling and trailing across the floor. There is no blade to be seen. Her father kneels on the floor, a dozen chains wrapped around his body.
“Papa.” She murmurs.
He looks up as she crosses the empty space between them and kneels to face him. “Alicia.”
She swallows. It’s one thing to know that her father was trapped for over half a century, it’s another thing to see a representation of it in front of her. “I – ”
“I know how much you love this Canvas.” His voice is quiet, but resolute. “But it’s not worth your life.”
What life? She wants to scream, to beg, to plead for him to understand how little she cares for her life outside. She doesn’t. “Please…” she whispers, “I’ve seen enough death, Papa. Don’t make me carry theirs too. I couldn’t… I can’t bear it.”
“Do you think I can?” He rasps, “To lose you, so soon after Verso – do you think I could stand it?”
“You wouldn’t – ”
“Alicia.”
She stares down at her hands. “You already have,” she admits softly, “I – I can’t go back to who I was before. Both before the Canvas and before – before the fire. I’m not the same person.”
“You don’t have to be.” The chains clank against each other as he strains against them, trying to reach out towards her. “You never have to be anything more than my daughter.”
“Papa.” She forces herself to look him directly in the eyes as she asks. “You saw me there, every evening, with the Expedition. Do you really think I can find that happiness outside?”
“Yes.” The answer is immediate, desperate. “Alicia – ”
“I don’t.” She’s never been able to bring herself to admit it before, not to herself nor to him, but now the words spill from her like hot coals. “It hurts, Papa. Speaking, moving, breathing – it hurts! And worse than that is the emptiness where Verso used to be and the knowledge that it was my fault!”
Her father’s breath catches and she sees a terrible pain in his eyes, but she cannot bring herself to stop. “For me, the world out there is the prison. I’m trapped, Papa, a prisoner of my broken body, with no voice to speak with! Our home is a cage to me!”
“Alicia…” His voice is quiet and fragile.
“Please, Papa,” she begs, “Don’t tear this place from me. From us. Verso wouldn’t want that.”
Silence falls heavy over the two of them, disturbed only by the sounds of the many chains clinking together, like strange wind chimes. They gaze at each other, both unwilling to move, and then –
“I don’t want to lose you. But – ” He closes his eyes. “I don’t want to see you wither in a cage either.”
“Papa…” Gently, she reaches up and wraps her arms around him, pressing her ear to his chest where she can hear his heartbeat. Neither of them will speak an apology for what they’ve done, but perhaps neither of them have to.
Nothing more needs to be said. His heartbeat lingers in her ears as darkness wipes away reality.
She’s in a cabin in the woods. Except… that isn’t quite right. She’s in the remains of a cabin, a burnt out husk terribly similar to the Manor’s burned skeleton. Around her are roses, their scarlet blooms standing in stark contrast to the gray landscape. And in front of her is a mass of thorns. Somehow, she knows that whoever is waiting for her is in the midst of those thorns.
There is no door. There are no walls. And, most telling of all, there is no blade.
Aline takes a step forward. Her boots protect her from the thorny vines, though they still catch and snag at her long dress. Hiking up her skirt, she takes step after careful step down into the darkness. For her to trip would be a bloody, painful experience.
The air is warm, as if the ground itself still recalls whatever fire scorched it. The scent of ash and cinder hangs heavy, bringing up unpleasant memories. She pushes onward. The cramped hallway opens up into a room filled with more briars, with only a hole in the roof to light it. The fragile starlight shines down into the brambles, illuminating the figure at their center, and Aline’s breath catches as she sees who it is.
Her daughter kneels in the center of the briars, wrapped up in thick, thorny vines. Bloody scratches cover her entire body. Even her pale hair is stained red with blood. Clutched in her hands is the missing blade.
“Alicia…!” Aline cannot help the cry that escapes her lips. Her daughter immediately looks up to face her, and she feels the blood drain from her face. Alicia is scarred, the familiar burn marks that marr her face in reality plain to see here. The briars wrap around her throat, with one vine winding up into her empty eye socket. Her other eye widens, and Aline sees her grip on the knife tighten.
Aline feels ill. She swallows back bile at seeing her beloved daughter like this, forcing herself to remain calm for Alicia’s sake. “Stay there,” she chokes, “I’m coming, I’ll be right there!”
Alicia says nothing, frozen in place. Aline pushes her way forward, heedless of the thorns ripping and tearing at her clothes, until she stands a few paces away from her daughter. Up close, she looks so much worse. The vines are wrapped tightly around her, pinning her arms close to her body. Fresh blood is seeping down her in rivulets, every small movement dragging the thorns across her flesh. Her scars are just as twisted and horrifying as Aline remembers them being. And her eye – blood is weeping from the empty eye socket as her daughter trembles, the briars digging deep into sensitive tissue.
And yet, her grip on the blade does not loosen. Instead, she tilts it further towards herself, angling the blade as if she means to strike at the brambles choking her – or at the vulnerable flesh beneath. Aline sees fear mingled with the anguish reflected in her daughter’s good eye as she gazes at her mother, and it strikes her like a dagger to the heart. “Alicia…”
Alicia says nothing. She is still shaking, even as it twists the thorns through her skin.
Aline reaches for the knife. “Let me cut you free – ” she tries, but Alicia jolts away from her. The brambles dig deep with the sudden movement, slicing harshly across flesh, and a choking cry is ripped from her daughter’s throat.
Aline freezes, afraid to make another movement as Alicia gasps in pain. The scent of charred wood, the sounds of her daughter’s cries, the feeling of utter helplessness sinking into her bones – it brings up bitter, unpleasant memories that she can’t ever seem to escape from. The days immediately after the fire, filled with grief and fear and anger, pacing outside of her daughter’s room, caught between the desperate need to go in and comfort her and the fear of seeing those horrid, horrid burns again – !
She’d fled every time, ashamed to face her daughter. Ashamed to see the marks of her failure written on her daughter’s face. Afraid of the knife twisting deeper into her own heart, the gaping wound that was Verso’s loss bleeding anew. She had depended on her husband and Clea to do what she could not.
Renoir’s words thunder in her ears. “Actions speak far louder than words, Aline – you and I both know this. Whatever your reasons, hiding from her did nothing but add credence to what she already believes.”
Her daughter is afraid of her, and she has only herself to blame. Furthermore, she has neither her eldest nor her husband to step in as a buffer. She must fix this herself.
“Alicia…” She whispers again. She doesn’t grab for the knife this time. Instead she slowly, cautiously extends her hand, palm up. An invitation. The seconds stretch out into an eternity between them. Alicia watches her, still trembling, taking shallow breaths to avoid further pain from her prison. She doesn’t move, nor does she speak. She can’t speak, Aline realizes, whatever has forced her to wear her scars has taken away her voice.
Carefully, Aline bends down to be level with her daughter. Step by careful step, she inches forward, ready to stop at the slightest sign of panic. Alicia is still frozen, still clutches the knife, but the fear in her eye is softening to wariness. When Aline is less than a meter away, she kneels down in the thorns in front of Alicia – her daughter makes a soft sound of distress at seeing her mother settle on the thorny bed, but Aline ignores the sticklers tearing her skirt to shreds and pricking the skin beneath.
Again, she reaches out her hand, palm upraised. “Please, Alicia,” she whispers, “Let me help you. Let me make up for how I’ve wronged you.”
Again, the moments stretch out into what feels like an eternity. Aline can see every tiny movement her daughter makes, the blood seeping from each cut. Finally, Alicia’s grip on the blade loosens, and she offers a tiny nod.
Gently, Aline wraps her fingers around the blade, and Alicia gives it up without a fight. With her other hand, she grips the vine wrapped around her daughter’s shoulders – sharp thorns dig deep into her palms, and rivulets of her own blood mingle with her daughter’s. She doesn’t care, ignoring the pain as she sets the blade’s edge against the bramble. Thankfully, the knife is sharp, and it doesn’t take much to cut the vegetation.
Vine by vine, she cuts her daughter free from her prison. The briars tear painfully into her hand with each one she grasps, but it’s a small price to pay. With each thorn unwound, her daughter relaxes a little more, can move a little more freely. The ones at her throat and face are hardest – Alicia is as rigid as a statue as Aline carefully slices into the bramble wrapping across her face, then gently works it free. Small sounds of pain escape her daughter’s throat as she works. Finally, she pulls the last one free and sets the knife to the side.
Gently, gently, she reaches out again, cradling her daughter’s face with her unmarred hand. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I’m sorry, ma fifille.” She curls her left hand close to her breast, blood dripping from her clenched fist onto her lap.
Alicia hesitantly reaches out and grasps her wrist, opening her mother’s hand. She flinches at the sight of shredded skin and exposed muscle, making a small, distressed sound.
“It’s nothing,” she murmurs, “A small price to pay.” She moves to close her hand again, but Alicia shakes her head vigorously. Reaching up to her one of her shredded sleeves, she tears it before Aline can say anything. The cloth is thin and smeared with Alicia’s blood, but her daughter carefully wraps it around her mother’s mutilated hand, even as her own wounds continue to weep.
“Alicia…” Aline reaches up and caresses her cheek again, careful to avoid the bloody scratches. “Ma petite fleur. I’m sorry for what I did to you.” Gently, she gathers her baby girl into her arms, cradling her close to her chest. She hears a soft sobbing hiccup from Alicia as she buries her face in her mother’s shoulder.
It’s easy to pull thorns from flesh, she thinks, but wounds of the heart are so much harder to mend. But maybe – maybe it’s not too late to start.
When both of their tears finally run dry, Aline glances down. “The blade,” she starts to say, but Alicia shakes her head firmly. Her daughter grabs and flings it away into the nest of thorns. Aline cannot help but smile at her daughter’s stubbornness. “Very well. The stairs, then?”
She stands, reaching down and helping her daughter do the same. Step by step, they limp together towards the stairwell, leaving a trail of bloodstained brambles in their wake. The thorns that line the stairs are long and angled downwards, painful and sharp, but Aline refuses to let that deter her. She takes the lead, letting her daughter take shelter behind her.
They reach the top, and Alicia’s breath catches at the burned skeleton of the house. Bad memories linger in both of their hearts, a nightmare they won’t soon forget, but that’s all they are – memories.
We’ll make it through to dawn, someday.
Step by step, they limp over the threshold together, clutching each other tightly as the darkness comes once again.
She comes to awareness in the now-familiar empty room. A chain digs into her wrist, binding one arm to the wall. It is quiet, and she is alone.
No. She’s not alone. Not this time.
Verso…?
She feels him, tucked away in the soft corners of her mind.
Alicia?
She looks down at her hands – unmarred, free of blood and scratches. “How are you…”
I don’t know.
Her fingers brush across the all too familiar manacle. “I remember… we were…?”
It was rather unpleasant. A frisson of distate runs through her mind.
“…Yeah.” She tucks herself into a ball. The feeling of their worst thoughts running together, echoing and compounding until they had drowned out everything else, is not one she’ll soon forget. “Say… there’s only ever two people in one of these – these loops, right?”
As far as I’ve experienced.
“So… if you’re in here with me… do you think somebody’s ever going to come down those stairs?”
A long moment of silence passes. I don’t hear anyone upstairs.
“Me neither.”
And the blade’s definitely not down here.
She reaches up to touch her chest, remembering the feeling of steel piercing her flesh. “No.”
So I guess… we’re stuck like this?
“Forever?”
I don’t know. Forever’s a long time.
Forever used to be a pretty word, an abstract concept filled with love and hope and promise. Forever was a word to describe something she could never imagine living without. Maman and Papa were forever. Verso was forever. Clea was forever. Her home was forever.
Now, it felt bitter on her tongue. Forever was how long she would have to endure her broken life. Forever was how far away Verso was. Forever felt like a long, unending hell.
Forever was how long her mother’s Verso had waited for release.
“…Verso?”
…Yeah?
“I’m sorry.” She can feel tears welling up in her eyes and tries to blink them away. “You were right – I was planning to stay. I wanted to stay with Gustave and Esquie and Lune and Sciel – with you, no matter the cost. I just – I couldn’t go back. How could I, with how empty it felt?”
A long pause, and then, Even if I wanted to die?
“Yeah.” She presses her face into her knees and mumbles, “Wouldn’t you do the same, with your sister?”
I would. I did.
“Yeah.”
You killed her.
“She wanted to die.” I wanted to die. She doesn’t say the second part aloud, but she doesn’t need to. He can hear her thoughts.
I don’t have a family to go back to anymore. You do.
“You have me.” She had said that, once upon a time. She doesn’t say it now. She understands how callous, how cruel those words had been. “I don’t want my family here to die. Gustave and Esquie and Lune and Sciel… I don’t want to lose anyone else!” The tears are back in full force. She scrubs at her face with her free hand, but they refuse to stop falling.
Another long moment of silence, broken only by her hiccuping sobs, before Verso speaks again. I’m sorry too.
“Verso?”
I never respected your choice. I let Gustave die, never told you the truth, never gave you my sister’s letter. A tinge of regret enters his voice as he adds, I never respected her wishes either, did I?
She swallows hard and says nothing.
I should've tried harder to find another way. I was just…
“Scared?”
Yeah. Scared that I'd spoil the one chance I had.
She feels it, feels his fear mingle with her own, her chest tightening with the burn of it. She squeezes her hands into fists and pinches her fingers until the pain drives down the anxiety.
I was so focused on my suffering that I never thought that you might be feeling the same. He hesitates, and then adds dryly, What a mess we both are.
She can’t help it. She gasps out a chuckle through her tears. “Yeah.”
A long pause, and then, So… what do we do now?
She looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t know,” she whispers, “I don’t know anymore.” She’s so very tired of these endless loops, the constant suffering.
They sit together in silence for a long time. Nobody comes. It is just them and their thoughts.
Say… if you could live a life in both worlds, what would you do?
Maelle blinks, surprised by the sudden question breaking the silence. “I'd… focus on fixing Lumière first, I think. And the rest of the Continent – do you think there’s anything left?” She blanches, suddenly realizing the magnitude of the task in front of her. “Merde, I’m going to be making it all anew, aren’t I? Where do I even start? How do I possibly…?”
She feels warm amusement that isn’t her own bubble up inside. We’re chained up in a basement with no way out and you’re freaking out about that right now?
“I…” Put that way, her anxieties do seem somewhat silly. “Yeah, I suppose there’s no point in getting worked up about it.”
Assuming you just fix up Lumière and bring everyone back, then what?
“I would…” She has never bothered to think that far ahead. “Live with Gustave, I guess? And Emma. And I’d visit Lune and Sciel every day.”
Would you create stuff of your own in the Canvas?
“What – no! I couldn’t! This is Verso’s Canvas, I couldn’t possibly–!”
Why not? He created it together with Clea, right? Why wouldn’t he let you add your own art to it?
“Because…” She idly twists her white hair between her fingers, searching for the words to describe the feelings deep inside. “What if I… mess it up? I’ve never been good at Painting.”
Oh, like it wasn’t all messed up already by what happened?
“It’s not the same.” She mumbles into her knees. Adding to her dead brother’s Canvas felt… wrong somehow. Like a defilement.
She doesn’t know if he feels her thoughts, but he changes the subject regardless. What about reality? What would you do there?
That made her grimace. “I don’t know.”
Maelle.
“I don’t, alright? How do I even begin to live a life where I have no voice and half a face?”
You could write, couldn’t you? Alicia wrote such beautiful poetry.
“I guess…” She hasn’t picked up pen and paper since the fire.
And you could Paint some works of your own, maybe? Share your feelings in art instead of through words.
“I’m still not very good at painting.”
Music, maybe? Hey, maybe you could learn guitar from Papa and play with Lune.
The mental image makes her smile faintly. “Sciel could dance for us.”
She could teach you how to dance as well.
“Maybe.” She shifts uncomfortably on the cold, hard floor. “What about you? What would you do if you could live a normal life in the Canvas?”
She feels his discomfort. Maelle…
“Oh come on, you can’t just ask me and not think about it yourself. What would you do?”
A long pause. I – I don’t know. I haven’t thought about that in… a very long time.
“What about playing for the Opera House?”
I can’t exactly do that all hours of the day and night.
“I guess not.” Sudden inspiration strikes her. “You could teach music!”
A thread of amusement. Music is my passion, but it doesn’t need to be my entire life.
She pouts. “Fine then. What else do you like to do?”
I thought you would know. Didn’t you spend time with your Verso?
“Yeah, but…” She buries her face in her knees again. “You’re not the same person. Maybe you started out as him, but – you’ve had decades to change and become a different person.”
Silence from within the depths of her mind, but she feels his wordless shock radiating through her.
“Verso?”
I… I never thought of that. I only ever thought of myself as just – just Verso. Or a painted shadow of him.
“Me too.” She admits ruefully, “But then I got inside your head and I realized – I don’t think you’re like him anymore. You’re a lot more… like me.”
Another long spell of silence and then, so quietly she almost thinks she imagines it, I don’t think I mind being you. It’s a lot better than being me.
Tears prickle in the corners of her eyes again, and yet her mouth stubbornly curls into a small smile. “Really? I think I’d rather be you than me.” She chokes out.
You’re lying.
“You’re lying!” She shoots back.
A beat, and suddenly she is laughing and crying in the same breath. It’s a childish, immature argument, and yet so painfully familiar to them both. Nostalgia blooms in their minds; golden, halcyon days where the world was right and their only concerns were whatever stupid argument they had gotten into that day. Her heart aches. The memories taste like sweet honey and bitter ash lingering on her tongue.
Verso is laughing with her. It’s not an audible sound so much as a feeling, like ripples on a sunlit pond. I don’t think there’s a way we can switch places.
She scrubs away her tears with her free hand. “I suppose not.”
…But I think I like the idea of being not-Verso. Verso, but not Verso.
“Yeah.” She sucks in a deep, shaky breath. “If I go back and try to be Alicia again… could you try living as not-Verso? Just for a little while?”
I… don’t know. I hurt a lot of people.
“You have Esquie and Monoco. They would be sad to see you go.”
I suppose.
She looks down at her hands. “I’d like to play music with you, I think.”
Music? Like a duet?
“Yeah. Maybe I can learn guitar, like you said. Or violin? I tried learning violin once.” She’d lost interest quickly, always telling herself that she’d pick it up again later, even as her Verso teased and cajoled her.
You want to learn violin? You do realize that’s one of the harder instrument to learn, right?
“You don’t think I can do it?”
I think that maybe I’d be an old man before you did.
She pouts. “That’s mean!”
The time difference, Maelle.
“Oh.” She’d almost forgotten about that; her one major barrier to living between both worlds. “Do you think there’s a way to change it?”
Hey, I’m not the Paintress here. My knowledge is limited. But it’s your brother’s soul that maintains this Canvas – maybe he could do it?
“Clea would know.” She mumbles.
This also assumes that we get out of here. Alive.
“Well, yeah.” She sighs. “Any ideas?”
Aside from ‘snapping your own neck’ or ‘degloving your hand to remove the manacle’? Not really.
She groans and lets her head fall back against the wall. Verso’s soul maintains the Canvas, she thinks, and then – “Wait. If the Canvas is still alive, his piece of soul must be too.”
Well, yes.
“Can we – ” She frowns, “I don’t know, call him to us somehow? Talk to him?”
If it were that easy, wouldn’t someone have already tried?
“I don’t know!” She throws her arms up in the air in a (pointless) display of frustration. “Maybe we should just try.”
We? You’re the one with a voice, here.
“Well…” She takes a deep breath. “Verso?” She calls out into the empty room. Silence. “Are you here? Can you… talk to us?”
Present and accounted for.
“Oh, you.” She groans, “Verso. I don’t know if you’re the one causing all this or if you’re as trapped as we are but…” She grimaces. “Is there… anything you can do?”
He’s probably hurting too.
“What?”
Think about it. He’s had to deal with all this fighting for sixty-seven years. He might not even know why.
“Oh…” A twinge of guilt pinches at her heart. She’d never even thought about what he might feel. “Verso, if you can hear me? …I’m sorry for all you’ve had to deal with. Please, just… I want to fix things, if you’ll let me.”
Silence. Disappointment sinks low into her stomach. “I guess that won’t work.”
Wait. Do you hear that?
“Hear what?” She sits upright, listening carefully. “I don’t hear anything.”
Exactly. I don’t hear anything.
He’s right, she realizes. There is a complete absence of sound aside from their voices. Not even the chain is clinking. Is this it? She wonders, is this the end?
Maelle –
The floor is dissolving from beneath her body, and yet somehow she’s not afraid. There’s a tugging, deep inside her heart, like something’s trying to pull her somewhere. “I’m fine,” she whispers, “I think – maybe it might’ve worked.”
Maelle!
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” The manacle on her wrist dissolves and she falls slowly, weightlessly. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
At the end of everything, Alicia wakes up in front of the final piece of her brother’s soul.
He kneels in front of a shattered picture frame. Blue-grey Chroma is splattered across it, mixed with the torn fabric of the Canvas. It still moves slowly, as if struggling to reform itself, but it has nowhere to go.
“Verso.” She whispers. Her Verso.
He looks up at her. I’m sorry.
She kneels down in front of him, the broken Canvas between them. “What happened?” She asks gently.
He looks back down at it. Everyone was fighting over it. It hurt. I just wanted it all to stop and it just – it tore apart.
She has no clue how to repair a broken Canvas. Hell, she barely knows how to make one in the first place. “What can we do?” She asks helplessly, “How can I help you fix it.”
I don’t know. I’m just so tired. Maybe if Clea were here…
“Can I…” She swallows. “I’m not as skilled as she is, but maybe I can replace her? Please, I’ll do anything.”
He studies her for a long moment. Maybe… you could offer a piece of yourself to hold the world up. To replace me and Paint it anew.
Her breath stops. “Replace you?”
I’m tired. He has no eyes, no face, and yet somehow she feels his gaze pinning her in place. I don’t want everyone to die, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep holding the pieces together. Please.
“I’m such an awful Paintress though,” she whispers, “I’ll just… mess it all up.”
You were the only one who called out to me. You cared.
She swallows nervously again. If she does this… this won’t be Verso’s Canvas any longer. She’ll be giving up the last piece of him she has.
The faceless boy stares at her, waiting for her to do something.
“I’ve – never done this.” She admits, “Given up a piece of myself. I don’t know how.”
Wordlessly, he gets up, taking both of her hands in his own. His hands are small, leaving blue-gray smudges of Chroma on her skin.
You have to care. Love.
Love?
She presses her hands, smudged with paint, to her chest, feeling the steady pulse of her heartbeat. She lets her mind drift back, back to her days growing up in Lumière. She thinks of the people she had encountered, how she had never let anyone grow close for fear of losing them.
She thinks of Gustave, gentle, protective Gustave, how he’d pushed through her walls with a single-minded stubbornness. She recalls how Sciel had comforted her in her grief in the days following his death; how Lune had taken the time to gently encourage her even as she pushed her forward. She thinks of soft Esquie, proud Francois, loyal Monoco.
It’s not enough. Nothing is happening.
Desperately, she recalls the scarlet forest, the unyielding cliffs, the bloody battleground. The Gestrals and Grandis. The brilliant colors that her siblings had painted into this world, full of life and light. No matter how much she replays her memories, no matter how much she tries, nothing happens.
Doesn’t she love them enough? She’d been willing to die to keep the world safe!
Do you love them enough to live for it?
Her mother, cutting her free of painful thorns. Her father, loving her enough to let go. Sitting in quiet isolation with Verso, finally learning to understand each other.
She’s been afraid to live, afraid to venture out of a shell where she might never be hurt again, afraid to feel.
Let go of your fear. Whatever you’ll create is good enough.
Emotion swells inside of her, as if a dam has broken. Tears run rivulets down her face, stinging against her cuts, tears of grief and joy and pain. Oh, she thinks distantly, so this is what it’s like. She loves, loves, loves; loves without measure, loves without fear of what may happen. She’s not being held back anymore. It’s like chains have dropped from her limbs.
Her fingers tear through her shirt, sinking into her flesh. Blood wells up, staining the white fabric, dripping to the ground and mingling with her tears. She pulls, tearing skin and muscle apart, exposing bones and organs, opening herself up. She reaches further, further, until her hands touch her beating heart.
It is pain and euphoria unlike anything she has ever felt. She kneels over the remains of her brother’s Canvas, lifeblood pouring out onto the dead world, and she finally understands.
It’s not about verisimilitude, it’s about essence.
It’s not about reviving the old. It’s about creating something new.
Verso’s soul has no face, yet somehow she knows he is smiling as he fades away for the final time. As her blood runs rivers through the Chroma, it begins to pulse in rhythm with her heart. Golden petals rise from its surface, whirling together to form a faceless mirror of herself.
And then – she feels. Her senses as a Paintress return to her tenfold. The world is jagged, hurting, broken, on the verge of utter collapse, and for brief seconds she wants to fold, to give up – but she refuses. She refuses. She has not walked all this way to fail now. She has dealt with far worse pain than this.
Maelle lifts her arm and her familiar rapier appears in her hand. Her silhouette follows suit. She can see so clearly now. Despite the burning in her chest, it’s easy for her to pull the pieces back together. The world wants to be repaired, wants to be whole.
It won’t be the same. Much of the Chroma falls into familiar patterns, familiar people, but the landscape won’t be the same. She can never recreate it perfectly. But… she can still honor her brother with it. Build on the foundation that he left for her. For them.
For those who come after, right?
A clock appears in her mind, and it's easy for her to nudge it into a slower rhythm. The pulse between Canvas and reality falls into a similar beat; the time difference not nearly so pronounced. A benefit of being the Canvas's heart, or a final gift from her brother's soul? She cannot say.
With an exhausted sigh, she lets the rapier dissipate into petals. The Canvas now rests on an easel, completely whole, the Chroma shining bright gold and deep black instead of the dull blue-grey it was before. Her soul fragment steps up to it, resting her hand on its shifting surface, before angling her head at Maelle-Alicia.
I’ll take it from here.
Her heart pounds beneath her open chest. She's eager to go back to Lumière, to see what's happened, but - she needs to go back home first. Her first home. She needs to make sure that Verso's Canvas - her Canvas - will be safe and that her family's alright.
Not whole. Not the same as before. But for the first time in a very long time, she thinks maybe, maybe there's happiness on the other side.