The silence after Cassie's warning stretched too long and too taut, strung up like a tripwire over a grave. No one spoke. No one *moved*. As if sound alone might summon the thing she'd seen in her vision—whatever still breathed in the hollows of the tree, or waited, grinning, beneath the island's skin.
Except Alice.
Of course it was her. It was *always* her.
She broke the tension like she broke *everything else*—with a smile too wide, a voice too bright, and a laugh that knew damn well it didn't belong here.
"Well," she chirped, twirling a platinum curl around her finger like it was a joke she hadn't finished telling, "sounds like the tree is haunted, the demon has PTSD, and I guess I'm bunking with the soul egg tonight. Slumber party?"
Cassie didn't answer. Nephis didn't blink. And Sunless… Sunless turned his head like something ancient waking in iron chains and shot her a look that boiled the joy right out of her lungs.
It kind fit his name.
She didn't flinch. She never flinched. Her smile stayed up, like a storefront sign in a storm. All teeth and trouble.
But inside?
Inside she was back in yet another orphanage dorm, pressing powder into bruises and pretending she didn't hear the other girls whispering about her behind cheap plywood walls. She was back to being the pretty little thing people *wanted* until they *used* her, then passed her on like a rumor.
*Okay. So, like. Everyone's being weird.*
Cassie looked like she'd watched the world end in IMAX. Nephis had gone full porcelain-doll-meets-weapon, all sculpted silence and unsheathed edges. And Sunny? He looked at her like she was a cartoon drawn on a tombstone .
She didn't blame them. Not really. She was late to the story. Walked in after the blood and the screams and the trust were already forged. But it still stung.
She dug her claws into her palm—hard. Little crescents bloomed in her skin like moons no one would ever write poems about. Her Mist stirred on her skin, warm and heavy, like syrup thickening in a cracked bottle. Comforting. Familiar. She imagined it spilling into the air, wrapping the island in sweetness, in sleep, in surrender.
Wouldn't that be easier? To drown them all in something gentle. Something they wouldn't even fight.
"Slumber party," she'd said. Like a damn *idiot.*
Nobody laughed. Nobody rolled their eyes. They just… stepped around her. Like she was clutter. Like she was *static noise* on their frequency.
God. She hated that more than anger. More than cruelty. She could flirt with cruelty. Dance with disdain. But indifference? That left her nowhere to stand.
*Get it together, babe. You're not the main character here. You're the glitter on someone else's tragedy.*
Puffy gave a soft *hrrrk*, curling tighter around her shoulders. She stroked his batty head. Velvet furr , spiny little tail. Her one perfect sin. He didn't care if she was too much or not enough. He *liked* her like this—liked her sharp and sweet and just a little bit wrong.
At least someone did.
She looked again—at the way Cassie's fingers curled in Nephis's sleeve like it was second nature. At the way Neph checked Sunless before she spoke, like he was a compass she couldn't afford to lose. A unit. A formation. A *family* made in blood and nightmares.
She didn't have that. She never had. Orphanage after orphanage, always the new girl with the wrong laugh. The girl too pretty to protect, too strange to save. Passed around, overlooked, then pushed out when she made the room feel *wrong*.
She had her Mist. Her lamp. Her little monster. A hundred quips and no real home.
They had each other.
She was jealous. Desperately, achingly jealous.
Not of the power. Not of the survival. But of the *closeness*. The unspoken thing between the three of them—the kind that didn't need to be explained to be real. She would bleed for that. Beg for it. Break herself into glittering pieces just to be *part* of it.
She wanted in. She didn't care what it cost.
"…So," she tried again, voice gentler now, like coaxing a stray animal. "The thing Cassie saw. The mimic. Anyone think it might be… you know. Still around?"
Nephis hesitated. Then nodded. One, small, silent gesture.
"Could be."
That was all. Just two words. But they were *given*.
And Alice, for a moment, forgot how to breathe. Because they hadn't ignored her. Hadn't pretended she wasn't there.
Her smile flickered. Softened. Like a candle cupped against wind. She'd take it. She always did. She'd take crumbs and pretend they were gold. She knew how to live off scraps. How to make herself shiny on nothing at all.
Because if they had survived blood together, she could survive what came next. Could make herself *needed*. Make herself *theirs*.
Even if she had to bleed glitter to do it.
"Not like I'm hurt or anything," she murmured to Puffy, brushing nonexistent lint from her thigh. "Just trying to keep morale up. Jeez…"
Still no answer.
But *yet* was better than *never*.
And Alice? Alice could work with that.
She *always* did.