She remained frozen in place, waiting for the door to open and for someone to step inside and comfort her. Her mind was blank; she wasn’t thinking or analyzing. The events of the past few hours had simply lost all meaning. She was lost, with no one there to guide her. She shut her eyes, hoping for a sign, but none came. Of course not. Life wasn’t a movie in which a crucial clue appeared just when it was most needed. She would have to figure this out on her own.

  She had no tears left, no anger and no fear. What remained was a dull apathy, maybe a touch of self?pity, but little else. When it finally struck her that she was wasting precious time on these dramatic poses, she slowly rose and walked to the vanity. Sitting across from the mirror, she studied her own reflection, trying to understand who it was she saw. Who was that young girl with foolishness written across her face? Could that really be her? But she felt different. She thought of herself differently. She saw herself differently. No, it couldn’t be her. Disappointed and disgusted, she stood up, took the small chair, and placed it by the window. She sat, staring at the lines of trees beyond, at the blue sky stretching above them. She listened to the birdsong, the rustle of leaves, the music of the forest that surrounded her home. She knew all of it was pure, harmonious beauty, yet in this moment, she couldn’t bring herself to feel it. Pieces of the truth kept clicking into place, the picture becoming clearer by the second, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She had to accept it killing parts of herself, bit by bit. Her subconscious had been right. The truth had always been inside her, but there was a reason it had been locked away so tightly.

  Helena was too terrified to be angry, but Walery made no effort to hide his fury.

  “Why the hell did you send us out! You saw what happened!” he shouted, pacing restlessly around the kitchen.

  Gregory sipped his tea, staring at his left hand resting on the table. Walery’s words seemed to pass right by him, flowing harmlessly into the void. The younger man’s persistence, however, lasted long enough to break through the heavy armor of thought and finally reach the third spirit’s awareness.

  “She’s fighting,” Gregory said quietly. Not to the old couple, but aloud to himself, voicing a thought that had haunted him for some time. “I saw it in her eyes today. She’s fighting with herself, and she doesn’t want us to witness it.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Walery barked, though his face had gone pale.

  Something in Gregory’s tone told him this was no joke.

  “I don’t know how I know, but I do. This is a turning point. For her, for us… for Him, too. He’s watching her. He took her when she screamed. You both saw it. That scream wasn’t normal, it reached places no sound from our world should ever go.”

  “Nonsense!” Walery snapped, dropping into a chair.

  “No, it’s not nonsense. I don’t know what’s happening here, but she is not just an ordinary girl. And this… this is not some childish fit of hysteria.”

  The older man started to argue, but his wife silenced him with a gesture and a face etched in sorrow.

  “He’s right, Walery. I see it too. She’s been different since she came back from that trip. Something happened there, something she hasn’t told us. I thought maybe He had done something to her, but no… that’s not it. Something darker is unfolding, and we are powerless to stop it.”

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  A heavy silence settled over them. None of them could meet each other’s eyes. It was too much. They were afraid, though none dared admit it. Finally, the oldest of the spirits spoke, his eyes brimming with tears.

  “So what do we do? Just wait? Leave her alone with this? There has to be something we can do for her.”

  “No, Walery. Not this time,” whispered Gregory, his own voice breaking. “We’ve taught her everything we could. We’ve prepared her the best we knew how. Now the choice is hers alone.”

  “At least He has left her in peace,” Helena sighed, brushing the tears from her cheeks.

  Hours bled into one another, slowly becoming whole days. She neither ate nor drank; she did not move. She existed in a state that resembled catatonia. In silence she allowed her thoughts to devour her from within. Her face had become a mask: dark circles formed under her eyes, her lips grew chapped and split. Even if something hurt her, she felt nothing. She was listening to herself so deeply she had lost touch with what was happening outside, in the real world.

  With every passing moment she understood more. Details that had at first lain scattered and meaningless began to snap into place. One piece led to another, and another, until the image finally sharpened. She had been born into a world where magic meant mastery over energy. She had been born into a world where properly developed potential became an anomaly. It was no coincidence that her parents had died, nor was it surprising that the Not-a-Doctor had found her. Everything she had lived through so far had been preparation, a training ground for a soldier who didn’t know he was marching to a sure death. For somewhere in that miserable world there lived another girl who did not want to die. A privileged girl, exceptional in every way, who was too good to...

  “No…” she whispered, rearranging the picture in her head as another piece slid into place.

  That girl had once been a black?haired woman whose skin and hair reeked of blood and incense. A ruthless warrior who killed in God’s name. She had become a human and sworn that one day she would return to Heaven and unleash war. Not an ordinary war, but a War in Heaven. When she won — and she would win — God would be forced to keep an ancient promise and... kill humankind. Not one person. All of them, across all worlds and in all forms. Heaven would not bear such a burden without a fight. It would not allow such a catastrophe, not without resistance. That battle had already begun. The woman had been reborn as a human so many times she had learned how to be one, how to live as one; now she had been born as one of them for the last time. This final incarnation was without sin, without flaw, with nothing left to fix, and when it reached its end, the girl would return and claim what was hers. If she died prematurely, Heaven would buy itself extra time.

  That much she knew for certain; beyond it, nothing. The woman had come to her long ago and warned that they would want to kill her. Further memories confirmed what the Not-a-Doctor had said. She had agreed to it, she had signed her own sentence. Why? Because she had believed humanity had no future, though she could not recall that detail now. She did remember, however, that she had chosen her fate herself, planning every detail, every tragedy. It had not been the Not-a-Doctor who killed her parents but herself, long ago, when she wrote the script of her life. The incident at the boarding house had been her idea as well. It was all deliberate, not accidental. No, nothing in her life had happened without reason. It had been a grand performance on a beautiful stage, melodramatic and full of hints. She had been named Alice—couldn’t that be shortened to Al? Yes, that had been the name of that woman, the name of her teacher. A demon walking in her shadow? She could not yet disentangle that, but it was not an accident either. Ghosts as guardians, a power radiating from her for miles, dreams that haunted her, protection from every possible direction. Heaven could not have been unaware of her. No, it had not only known; it had fixed its gaze on her, focused enough to conclude that she was the reincarnation of that black?haired woman and therefore had to be neutralized. No more, no less. She must die so the other could live and fulfill her vow. It did not look inviting. At first it had looked even worse than it did now, when she finally had the full picture.

  What hurt her most was that she had been given a choice once again. Even now she could refuse; even now she could pull back and start over. No, she did not want that choice. She would rather be compelled, ordered to grit her teeth and do what was expected of her.