The simplicity of it cut deeper than a scream. Her voice, fragile and thin against the roar, held every ounce of warmth she had left to give. It felt like a hand on his back, pushing him away from the edge even as the world dragged them down.
His chest burned. "No," he thought desperately, though he wasn't sure if the sound ever left his mouth. "No. Not just me. We'll both live. If someone has to fall alone, let it be me. You're the one who should survive. You're the one who still has a future."
Words tangled and scattered, lost to the height and the wind.
Their bodies spun slightly in the air, but their arms never loosened. They held on as if they could anchor each other against gravity itself.
To anyone watching from far away, it might have looked almost peaceful: two silhouettes locked together, falling through a luminous sky toward the dark face of the sea.
For them, that brief slice of time became everything.
Fear was still there, coiled tight in their stomachs, but it no longer held them hostage. There was grief, too, for all the things they would never do, all the words that had waited too long to be spoken. Yet over all of that flowed a quiet, stubborn tenderness.
His mind dimmed at last, overwhelmed by shock, cold, and the sheer impossibility of what was happening. Consciousness slipped. His grip weakened.
But even as the darkness closed in, one fact remained solid and unshaken: he did not let go of her. And she, with the last of her strength, did not let go of him.
Whatever waited for them below, in the deep and silent world beneath the waves, they met it together.
"Miss Mirror… Miss Mirror."
The voice reached her as if from underwater. Nova's body jolted forward, and the world of roaring wind and falling sky shattered.
She lurched in the saddle, the ground tilting beneath her. Her hand flew to the horse's mane just in time, fingers tangling in coarse hair as the animal flicked its ears in protest.
For a moment, she swayed, half awake, her weight listing dangerously to one side. Then balance returned, and she drew in a sharp, shaking breath.
Her hair clung damply to her forehead and neck. Sweat cooled quickly against the morning air, leaving a faint chill on her skin.
Her chest still heaved as if she had been screaming, yet the only sound now was the slow, steady tread of hooves and the rustle of grass beneath them.
The shriek of tearing metal, the howling wind, the distant roar of an engine breaking apart… all of it had vanished, leaving behind only echoes in her bones.
It hadn't been a dream.
The images rose cleanly in her mind, no longer blurred or half-remembered. The hum of the plane. The thick clouds are outside the window. Senior sitting beside her, her notebook open, hair falling in a silk curtain over one shoulder. The announcements. The first jolt of turbulence. The sudden plunge. Terror was tearing the cabin apart, followed by that impossible confession spoken as the world collapsed around them.
She remembered the feel of Alice's arms around her, the strength in them despite the fear. The warmth of her breath on his ear.
The words "I like you" were spoken in a moment where death was almost certain.
And she remembered the last thing, more than anything: that final, trembling line as they fell toward the ocean together.
Keep on living.
The memory clamped around her heart until it hurt.
Now that she saw it clearly, she understood. Alice hadn't just comforted him out of duty or simple kindness.
She had loved him.
While he was busy thinking of himself as a foolish boy who didn't deserve to stand near her, she had quietly watched him, noticed every clumsy sideways glance, every awkward retreat. She had reached out first. Chosen him.
And even when faced with her own death, her instinct had been to protect him, to give him warmth, to lessen his fear.
Nova looked down at herself.
This body, unmarked and perfect, sat upright in the saddle. Her skin was smooth, her limbs intact. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically, each breath faintly visible in the cool dawn air.
There were no burns, no broken bones, no water filling her lungs. No sign at all that she had plummeted out of the sky.
"Senior…" she whispered inside her own mind. "As you wished… I'm alive. I survived."
The words tasted like guilt and gratitude in equal measure.
"But what about you? Where are you?"
Her vision blurred.
Tears rose, hot and sudden, then spilled over, tracing wet lines down her cheeks.
She bit her lip and tried to keep the sound in.
Darius walked just ahead, leading the horse by the reins, and she didn't want to break down in front of anyone. If they had been alone in some empty field with no eyes watching, she might have sobbed until she could no longer breathe.
Why was it her, and not Alice?
Why had she woken up under an ancient sky, wrapped in Alice's body, while the girl who had risked everything to comfort her seemed to have vanished into nothing?
It didn't feel fair. It didn't feel right.
But even now, she could still feel that last embrace, lingering like warmth on her skin. That had to mean something.
Maybe Alice hadn't disappeared entirely. Maybe a part of her was still here, woven into every heartbeat, every breath.
Perhaps the person she needed to protect now… was the one she was wearing.
"Miss Mirror, are you all right?" Darius's voice floated back to her, cautious and subdued. He kept his gaze turned slightly away, as if out of respect for her private grief, yet his concern seeped through regardless.
Nova swallowed and wiped at her cheeks with the back of her sleeve, trying to clear her vision.
Her throat felt tight, heavy with all the words she could never say to this man. He watched her from the corner of his eye and must have seen enough.
"So much sorrow…" he thought aloud, almost under his breath. "Miss Mirror Nova, just how much misfortune have you faced?"
But he did not press her. He did not ask what had happened or what she had remembered. He simply walked on in silence, the lantern at his side now extinguished, the reins loose in his hand.
As the dawn had begun to gather at the edges of the world, the silhouettes of old wooden houses appeared in the distance, clustered beneath a mountain ridge, their roofs low and flat.
Darius gestured toward them. "That is the Cray estate, where you will be staying," he said. "This land belongs to Aurelius Cray. Shall we go on now, or would you prefer to rest a while?"
Nova took a slow breath and pinched the inside of her palm, grounding herself. Her tears had dried, leaving a faint tightness in the skin around her eyes.
The ache in her chest hadn't faded, but it had settled into a steady, bearable weight.
"I'm fine," she answered quietly. "Let's go."