The fire took a while to settle.
At first it snapped too sharply—green wood complaining, smoke drifting low before rising again, like it had to decide whether it belonged to the ground or the sky. When it finally steadied, the light softened. Less flame, more glow. It stretched across the campsite in uneven patches, catching on metal, cloth, skin.
We sat inside that glow like we had chosen it.
We hadn't.
"Well, now we know the book can warp time—amongst other things," Noi said.
She crouched near the fire, turning something over a flat piece of metal balanced on stones. The smell wasn't bad. Toasted grain, something faintly sweet, something faintly burnt. Her hands moved without hesitation, like repetition had already claimed the motion—even if it hadn't. That ease felt off. Or maybe I just didn't trust it.
No one answered.
The silver sun dragged itself toward the edge of the world, its light thinning as it went. It didn't fall so much as slip. And with it, the air shifted—cooler, quieter. The kind of quiet that doesn't ask before settling into your chest. I didn't like how quickly it settled.
"So," Noi pressed, glancing over her shoulder, "what's the issue with reporting the criminal to the police?"
She flipped the food again. A soft scrape. A low hiss.
"She's likely wanted too," she added.
I nodded without thinking.
My body felt wrong. Not injured—just… misaligned. Dirt clung where it shouldn't. My skin itched in places that took effort to reach. The thought of a bath lingered at the edge of my mind like something deferred too long. Sleep hovered closer. Heavy. Patient.
And still—nothing in me resisted what I had done earlier.
Cauterising the wound.
The smell had stayed longer than it should have. I could still almost taste it.
"He."
Yori's voice cut through, low and steady. He leaned forward, adding a twig to the fire. It caught slowly, flame creeping along its length before committing.
"What?" Noi said.
My gaze shifted.
The bound figure lay a short distance away, half in shadow. Wrists tied. Ankles—
I stopped the thought before it formed completely.
Unconscious. Still.
"That was a man," Yoru continued. "We were attacked by men."
Noi turned fully now, frowning. "What? But I saw a little girl."
A pause followed.
Not disagreement—just space. As if the world itself had hesitated.
"It wasn't far off," she added, quieter.
That didn't make sense.
Or maybe it did, and I didn't want it to.
"He's correct," Bao said.
His voice came from behind me. Calm. Measured. Not persuasive—just present.
"They were male."
The word lingered.
Noa didn't respond. She simply moved.
No rush. No hesitation. She crossed the dirt in a straight line, boots pressing into the ground with soft, dull weight. She crouched beside the unconscious body and reached down, fingers working with practical detachment.
Fabric shifted.
No ceremony. No discomfort. Just confirmation.
"Male clothing," she said after a moment. "But I attributed it to choice. Or necessity."
She let the fabric fall back into place and stood, brushing her hands together once, then again. Dust fell. Or something like it.
She walked back without looking at anyone.
The fire cracked.
Somewhere beyond the trees, something moved—branches brushing, leaves adjusting, the quiet reshaping itself.
No one spoke.
Night arrived properly then. Not all at once. It crept in through the edges—between shapes, between sounds. The kind of darkness that doesn't hide things immediately, only makes you question them.
I found myself watching the shadows too closely.
"So," I murmured, my voice lower than I expected, "if we turn them in… we'll have to explain the missing legs. And the gender change."
The words felt strange once spoken.
Not wrong.
Just… misplaced. Like they belonged to someone else's situation.
"And control of the information in that book," Yori added, "is why we were the ones moving it."
He didn't look at me.
"This could have happened to us."
He paused.
This time, the silence that followed wasn't empty.
It filled.
"If the narrative had required a man," he continued slowly, "a mermaid… or a beast…"
The fire popped sharply. A spark lifted, drifted, died.
"It might have morphed our forms."
The thought settled like cold water.
I didn't like how easily it made sense.
Behind me, Bao shifted. A faint metallic click followed—his gun brought out, adjusted, placed within reach.
"Or," he said, "the most change happens to the one that reads the book."
I looked at my hands.
They looked the same.
I think.
"We were lucky," I said.
The words came out softer than intended.
Not relief.
Not quite.
They felt… thin.
"Victoria," Noi said, pulling off her coat and tossing it aside with a dull thump, "can't you lock the book somewhere? Like Miss Rho or something?"
I shook my head slightly.
"I can't think of a simple way to contain it."
That wasn't the full answer.
I could think of ways.
None simple.
None safe.
"Then let's just kill them."
Noi said it the same way she might suggest adding more wood to the fire.
No weight.
No pause.
That bothered me more than the idea itself.
She handed me something.
I took it without thinking.
It looked like chocolate.
It wasn't.
The texture gave it away immediately—dense, dry, resisting just slightly too much. Grains. Oats. Something binding it into a shape that pretended to be food rather than committing to it.
I almost laughed.
Didn't.
"Is this some sort of energy bar?" I asked, chewing, forcing it down.
"Yes," Noi said. "Yes, it is."
No one acknowledged what she had said before that.
The fire shifted.
Yoru picked up a bowl, steam rising faintly. He drank without comment.
"There's possibly someone from the city who informed them of our arrival," he said.
The idea settled too easily.
Of course there was.
Of course we weren't unseen.
I didn't like that it didn't surprise me.
"What—"
The voice cut through everything.
Sharp. Raw. Disoriented.
"What the hell is going on?"
The figure on the ground jerked upright—or tried to. The bindings caught, redirected the motion into something frantic and uneven.
"Ah—my feet—what happened to my—"
The scream didn't complete.
It fractured.
"Ahh—"
Yori moved.
Fast.
One hand over the mouth. Firm. Efficient. No wasted motion.
The sound collapsed into something muffled.
The prisoner thrashed.
Violently.
Too violently.
It wasn't just fear.
It was confusion.
Their head snapped side to side, eyes wide and unfocused—like they were trying to lock onto something that kept slipping away.
The more they looked—
The less they saw.
It was visible. Not metaphor. Their gaze refused to settle, sliding off shapes, misjudging distance, failing to anchor.
Reality wasn't holding for them.
That—
That was wrong.
They bucked against the bindings, breath breaking against Yoru's grip. Firelight hit their face in uneven flashes—too bright, too dim, never consistent.
Something in me recoiled.
Not from them.
From the possibility.
"That… wasn't how I planned to celebrate the Crimson Peak," Bao said.
He lifted a cup and took a slow sip of coffee.
Like none of this required urgency.
I stared at him a second longer than I should have.
"What is that?" I asked.
He lowered the cup slightly, considering.
"Tomorrow," he said, "like on the fifteenth of every month… the Crimson Moon reaches full visibility."
His tone didn't shift.
"It appears alongside Solis in the sky."
I tried to picture it.
Two lights.
Not blending.
Not sharing.
Competing.
The moon—red, but not fixed. Shifting. Breathing through shades. Pale at the edges, deeper toward its core.
Alive.
And the sun—silver. Distant. Unyielding.
"How come I never noticed?" I murmured.
Or maybe I had.
And it hadn't mattered.
The thought didn't sit right.
"It is the only day each month," Yori said, tightening his grip slightly as the prisoner's movement slowed just enough to be controlled, "where two dominant light sources compete instead of cooperate."
That felt wrong.
Or maybe just honest.
A yawn forced its way through me. My jaw ached slightly. My eyes burned faintly.
Fatigue wasn't creeping in anymore.
It had arrived.
"You two go to bed," Yoru said. "We'll take the first shift."
Noi exhaled, something close to a yawn slipping through despite her effort to suppress it.
"We can all go to bed," I said, pushing myself upright.
The ground resisted slightly. My legs followed slower than I wanted.
I didn't like that.
"I'll secure the perimeter."
"Oh?" Noi said, tilting her head. "What are you going to do, little bear?"
There was a smile in her voice.
Not soft.
Just sharp.
Bao began packing things away. Metal touching metal. Soft clinks. Order returning.
"Simple fix," I said, another yawn catching halfway through, "with mathematics."
I turned toward the edge of the campsite.
The trees stood unevenly spaced, their trunks catching what little light remained. One—slightly thicker, bark rougher—sat at a distance I could measure without moving.
"The radius from the camp area to that tree," I said, pointing, "takes ten factorial seconds to cross."
The words felt heavier than they should have.
As if they carried something with them.
Something I didn't fully control.
I didn't wait for a response.
I walked toward the tent.
Each step felt delayed. Not slower—just weighted.
"How do you know it worked?" Noi asked behind me.
There was movement—felt more than seen. Her presence shifting closer.
"Want to try it?" I said, glancing back.
She stopped.
Actually stopped.
That—
That was satisfying. More than it should've been.
Yori shifted forward—
And Bao threw a stone.
It left his hand cleanly.
A smooth arc.
Then—
It didn't land.
It hung.
Mid-air.
Not frozen.
Not falling.
Just… existing between.
I stared at it.
Something about that felt deeply wrong.
Firelight touched one side, leaving the other in a shadow that didn't behave correctly.
"See?" I said. "It's going to take forty-two days for that stone to resolute."
No one laughed.
No one argued.
That silence again.
I turned back and stepped into the tent. The fabric brushed against my shoulder, rough, familiar. Inside smelled faintly of dust and something older—like it had been stored too long before being used again.
I didn't adjust anything.
Didn't prepare.
I just let myself drop.
The ground met me harder than expected. The thin padding barely softened it.
It didn't matter.
My body had already decided.
Outside, the fire cracked once more.
A voice started to form—
Or maybe I imagined it.
Sleep took me before I could tell the difference.