The name hits me like a brick to the skull.
Zara.
Not Tinnah. Not whatever the system called me when I woke up in that alley with blood on my hands and no memory. Zara.
Six other versions of me are staring, waiting for me to break. The seventh door behind them pulses, and I swear I hear breathing from the other side.
"Zara," I say out loud. My voice cracks on the R. "That's my name."
The girl with my face but dead eyes — the one who tried to strangle me in Ch7 — tilts her head. "Took you long enough."
The memory doesn't come back all at once. It comes back in pieces, and each piece is a knife.
A classroom. A fire alarm. A man in a suit telling me to run. Blood on my school shoes. A ritual circle drawn in chalk. Azrael's voice, but younger, kinder: "You'll be the seventh, Zara. You'll save us all."
I was twelve.
I look down at my hands. Twenty-two now. Ten years gone. Ten years of my life carved out and fed to whatever hell this is.
"Who did this to me?" I ask the six. My voice doesn't shake.
The one with burns covering half her face laughs. It's not a human sound. "You did, Zara. You volunteered."
---
"Liars," I say. But my chest is hollow because part of me knows she's right.
The Zara with burns steps forward. The others part for her like she's royalty. "Check the door. Door 1. Go on. See what you did."
I don't want to. Every instinct screams that opening that door ends me. But the seventh door is still pulsing, still breathing, and Azrael's binding spell on my wrist is starting to burn.
He's fighting it already.
I cross the room. The six watch. The Zara with dead eyes smiles.
Door 1 isn't locked. It opens at my touch.
Inside is a bedroom. Pink walls. Glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. A desk with half-finished homework. A photo on the nightstand — me, age twelve, missing a front tooth, grinning with a man who has Azrael's eyes but no horns, no blood, no shadow.
Dad?
The memory hits so hard my knees buckle.
"Zara, sweetie, it's time," he says in my head. He's kneeling in our living room. There's chalk on the floor. Six other kids are there, all twelve, all terrified. "You're the strongest. You have to go last. You have to close it behind you."
"Close what?" twelve-year-old me asks.
"The door, baby. When the others fall, you close the door so nothing else comes through."
I look back at the six Zaras in the room with me. Not clones. Not alternate versions.
The other kids.
We were all Zara. We all took the name. We all went through the door.
And I was supposed to be last.
---
"What happened to him?" I ask, staring at the photo. My voice is barely air. "The man. My—"
"Your father," Burned-Zara finishes. "Azrael killed him."
The room goes cold. The seventh door stops breathing.
"No."
"Yes," Dead-Eyes says. She's right behind me now. I didn't hear her move. "You brought Azrael through, Zara. You were supposed to close the door. Instead you opened it wider and let him in. He used your blood. Your name. Your trust."
The memory slices in: My dad's hands on my shoulders. "You can do this. You're my brave girl." Then screaming. Then Azrael, stepping out of the chalk circle, not twelve anymore, not human anymore, with my dad's blood on his mouth.
"Thank you, Zara," he'd said. "You gave me a name. Now I'll give you eternity."
I was twelve. I let a demon into the world because I thought I was saving it.
I stumble back out of Door 1. The six are all smiling now. Same smile. Same teeth. Too many teeth.
"You remember," Burned-Zara says. "Good. Now you can die knowing why."
My binding mark flares white-hot. Azrael's voice claws into my skull:
ZARA. YOU DO NOT GET TO REMEMBER. YOU DO NOT GET TO DIE. YOU BELONG TO ME.
The six lunge.
---
I don't think. I move.
Ten years of missing memory, but my body remembers the ritual. My hand slaps the floor. Blood from my bitten lip hits the wood and the binding circle from Ch7 reignites — except this time it's not gold.
It's black.
The six Zaras hit the circle and scream. Not in pain. In rage. Their skin ripples. The human faces slough off.
They weren't the other kids.
They were pieces of him. Azrael. Fragments he made wearing my face, wearing my name, keeping me trapped in this loop for ten years. Feeding on my guilt.
"You used me," I snarl. The black circle climbs my arms. It doesn't burn. It feels like coming home. "You used my dad. You used my name."
The seventh door explodes outward.
Azrael steps through. Not the wounded, bound thing from Ch7. This is him whole. Seven feet tall. Horns scraping the ceiling. Eyes like collapsed stars. My dad's blood still on his mouth after ten years.
"I DID NOT USE YOU, ZARA," he says, and the room bends. "I MADE YOU. AND NOW YOU WILL OPEN THE FINAL DOOR FOR ME."
He raises one hand. The black binding on my wrist shatters.
I'm free.
He's unbound.
And there are six more doors behind me, all starting to open.
We fall again.