Version 1.20.0

  Sam

  Christmas Night

  Sleep didn't come.

  I tried. Got into bed at midnight, stared at the ceiling until 1 AM, got up and made tea I didn't drink, went back to bed at 2. By 3 AM, I'd given up entirely and was sitting on the couch in the dark, wrapped in the brown blanket that used to be cream, fingers tracing the tassels. Replaying every moment of the evening.

  He was FBI. He'd been investigating me this whole time.

  Every coffee shop coincidence. Every charming conversation. Every moment where I'd thought this is too good to be true had literally been too good to be true. The coffee spill wasn't an accident. Being at that bar when Kate and I were there wasn't good luck.

  But then why tell me? Why confess? If he was just doing his job, if I was just a suspect, he could have kept playing the part until he had enough to arrest me. He could have used what I'd shown him tonight, the plant, the confession, and had me in custody by morning.

  Instead, he'd said he had feelings for me. He'd taken my journal and promised to wait. I picked up my phone for the hundredth time. No new messages. The screen glowed 3:47 AM in harsh white light.

  Part of me urged: Text him. Apologize. Ask what he's thinking. Ask if you just destroyed the only good thing that's happened to you in months.

  But I couldn't.

  Because right now, I didn't know. I didn't know if he believed me or thought I was insane. I didn't know if he was going to help me or turn me in. I didn't know if the feelings he'd confessed were real or just another layer of the undercover act. And most importantly, I didn’t know if I could forgive him.

  I didn't know, and as long as I didn't know, I could still hope.

  Schr?dinger's cat. The quantum physics thought experiment I'd learned about in some documentary years ago. A cat in a box with a vial of poison that may or may not have broken. Until you open the box and observe the result, the cat is both alive and dead simultaneously.

  Right now, Scott and I were Schr?dinger's cat. Both real and fake. Both together and not. As long as I didn't check, both possibilities existed.

  I set the phone face-down on the coffee table and stared at the blank TV screen until my eyes burned. Tonight, I would leave the box closed.

  Tonight, I would pretend it was enough.

  * * *

  Monday December 26th

  The day after Christmas should have felt like something. A holiday. A fresh start. Instead, it felt like purgatory.

  I woke to gray light filtering through my windows and the immediate, crushing weight of memory. Scott. FBI. The journal. The plant changing color. The look on his face when he'd said I need to think.

  No new messages on my phone.

  I made coffee I didn't taste. Stood at the window watching the city wake up. People walking dogs. Families heading to post-Christmas sales. A jogger in expensive workout gear, completely absorbed in whatever podcast was telling him how to optimize his life.

  None of them knew. None of them had any idea that the universe might be a simulation, or that some people could see the code, or that one woman's terrible firing had catalyzed something that might change everything.

  I envied them. Their certainty. Their comfortable assumptions about how reality worked.

  By noon, I'd cleaned the apartment twice and checked my start paperwork for Compass Creative. I’d begin January 2nd pending background check. My hands needed something to do. My mind needed something to focus on that wasn't Scott, wasn't Kate, wasn't my mother's inevitable lecture about Christmas dinner.

  Speaking of which. My phone buzzed with a text from Diane.

  Mom: I hope you're happy. Brittany hasn't stopped crying since you left. Your behavior was completely unacceptable. Every single one of your aunts has told me I should’ve raised you better. I hope you realize how your behavior reflects upon me. I can’t believe how selfish you are.

  I stared at the message for a long moment. Of course. Of course my mother's first post-Christmas communication wouldn't be "Are you okay" or "I'm sorry we were hard on you" or even "That Scott seems nice." It was blame. It was always blame.

  I set the phone face-down again. Nope. Not today. My fingers longed to text Kate or Scott and tell them about what she’d said.

  The afternoon stretched endlessly. I tried to watch TV but couldn't focus. Tried to read the new book I'd picked up last week but the words swam on the page. Even fictional heartbreak felt like a personal attack right now.

  And that's when I started to experiment.

  * * *

  It wasn't a conscious decision. More like my hands needed something to do, and my mind needed something to focus on that wasn't Scott or Kate or the ruins of my life. I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table and stared at the empty air in front of me.

  I'd changed things. Blankets, plants, bank accounts, corporate presentations. I'd reached into the code of existing objects and edited them, like a Photoshop session for reality.

  But could I create something new? The idea had been lurking in the back of my mind for weeks. Not just editing. Writing. Creating code from nothing, building something that hadn't existed before.

  I focused on the space in front of me, looking for the static, the patterns, the code beneath reality. It came easier now than it used to. The edges of the world went soft, then crystalline, as the underlying structure revealed itself.

  The room dissolved into streams of information. Everything had a pattern: the table, the floor, the air itself, all of it reducible to lines of code that my brain somehow translated into visual form. The coffee table was a dense knot of interconnected variables. The floor beneath it was simpler, more stable. And the air was the most complex of all. Not empty, but alive with motion and exchange.

  Normally, I would find an existing pattern and modify it. Change a variable here, adjust a value there. This time, I tried to write. Nothing happened.

  I pushed harder, imagining a shape, a sphere, a small ball of light hovering in the air. I could picture it perfectly. A soft glow, warm and golden, like a tiny captured sunset. About the size of a tennis ball. Hovering three feet off the ground.

  Still nothing.

  For an hour, I sat there, staring at empty air, trying to will something into existence. My head started to pound, the familiar migraine pressure building behind my eyes. My nose started to bleed, a thin trickle that I wiped away absently.

  The problem, I slowly realized, was that I was thinking about it wrong. I'd been trying to create light from nothing. But nothing in the code came from nothing. Everything was built from something else, connected to something larger, part of a system.

  The table wasn't just table; it was wood that came from a tree that came from a seed. The air wasn't just air; it was the product of billion-year-old processes.

  Nothing in the code existed in isolation. Everything was connected to everything else. I couldn't create a ball of light because light wasn't an independent thing. It was a process, a relationship between particles and waves and energy transfers.

  But what if I didn't need to understand it? What if I just borrowed?

  I looked at the lamp across the room. Light was pouring out of it, following patterns I could see now, streams of code flowing from the bulb into the surrounding space.

  The lamp was already creating light. What if I just redirected some of that flow?

  I reached into the code, not the lamp's code, but the light itself, the stream of information flowing from it. I found a thread of photons, a ribbon of illumination heading toward the wall, and I gently pulled.

  The thread resisted for a moment. It wanted to keep going straight, following the laws of physics. I pulled harder.

  A single thread of light separated from the rest. It wavered in the air, confused, looking for somewhere to go.

  I gave it somewhere. A shape. A purpose. I imagined a container, a sphere-shaped region where the light could pool and stay. I wrote that container into the code, anchoring it in space.

  And I told the thread of light to fill it.

  The thread spiraled inward, wrapping around itself. More threads followed, pulled from the lamp, from the window, from everywhere light existed in the room. They all flowed toward the center of my imaginary container, weaving together into something new.

  A tiny sphere hovering above my coffee table. It flickered once. Twice. And then it stabilized. I was holding a ball of light.

  LEVEL UP.

  The words blazed across my consciousness like a notification from a game I'd never signed up to play. Level 5. Creation. The ability to write new code, not just edit what already existed.

  The headache was blinding. My nose was actively bleeding now, dripping onto my shirt. My vision was going gray at the edges, and my hands were shaking.

  But the light was there. Real. Hovering in my living room like a tiny fairy without wings.

  I stared at it for a long moment, and then I blacked out.

  * * *

  I don't know how long I lay on the floor.

  Long enough for the light to start flickering as my concentration wavered. Long enough for the nosebleed to stop and start again. Long enough for tears to stream down my cheeks and dry without my realizing them.

  When I awoke, the tears began again. They weren't sad, exactly. They were everything: grief and wonder and exhaustion and fear and something that might have been joy, if joy could coexist with terror.

  I'd created something. Something that hadn't existed before. Something impossible. And I was completely, utterly alone with it.

  The little light was still there when I finally got myself under control. Hovering about two feet off the ground, pulsing with that warm golden glow. I walked to the window and stared out at the city lights, willing the light to hover at my side.

  "Lumin," I named it absently. "I'm in a lot of trouble."

  The light glowed on, seemingly, indifferent to my crisis.

  "A man I think I fell in love with found out I can manipulate reality, and he's either going to help me or arrest me, and I have no idea which one. Also, I accidentally ruined a lot of people's lives. Also, I haven't talked to my best friend in weeks. Also, I killed all my plants."

  I gestured at the row of dying greenery on the shelf.

  "See? All dead. Or dying. I kept trying to fix them and I just made it worse."

  Lumin offered no opinion, being a ball of light.

  "The worst part is I can't even do anything about it. I just have to wait. Hope. Trust that Scott is who he seemed to be and not who he actually was." I laughed bitterly. "Which, when I say it out loud, sounds insane. Why would I trust the undercover federal agent who's been lying to me for two months?"

  Silence. Glow.

  "You're a terrible conversationalist, Lumin, I should’ve given you sound. But at least you're here."

  I experimented with my new creation for the next hour, pushing through the lingering headache. Lumin could change shape, I discovered. With enough concentration, I could flatten it into a disc, stretch it into an oval, even pull it into a rough star shape. The light responded to my will like clay in invisible hands.

  I made it dance around the room, weaving between furniture, casting strange shadows on the walls. I dimmed it until it was barely a spark, then brightened it until it hurt to look at. I split it into two smaller orbs, then three, then pulled them back together with a thought.

  Each manipulation came easier than the last. Like the code was learning my intentions, adapting to my commands. Or maybe I was just getting better at speaking its language.

  But then something happened that made me pause.

  I was practicing having Lumin circle around the room when I decided to try something new. Instead of guiding every movement, I gave it an instruction: Orbit the lamp.

  Lumin hesitated. Not the way an object hesitates when you're trying to move it, not mechanical resistance. This was different. This was the pause of something considering.

  Then it began to orbit the lamp.

  Perfect circles. Smooth motion. Like it understood what I'd asked and was choosing to comply.

  "Stop," I said out loud.

  Lumin stopped.

  I stared at it for a long moment, my heart doing something complicated in my chest.

  "Lumin, go to the window."

  It drifted to the window.

  "Come back to me."

  It returned, hovering near my shoulder like a loyal pet.

  This was different from what I'd done before. Different from changing a blanket's color or manipulating a bank account. Those were changes to existing code, edits to patterns that already existed. This was a created pattern responding to verbal commands. Learning them, even.

  "Can you understand me?" I asked, feeling ridiculous.

  Lumin pulsed. Once. Twice.

  That wasn't random. That felt like a yes.

  "Pulse once for yes, twice for no," I said, my voice shakier than I wanted it to be. "Do you understand?"

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  One pulse.

  I sat down hard on the couch, my legs suddenly unreliable.

  "Are you... aware? Do you have... thoughts?"

  A long pause. Then: one pulse, followed quickly by two pulses, followed by a kind of flickering uncertainty.

  I wasn't sure how to interpret that. Yes and no? Partially? Maybe?

  "That's fair," I said. "I'm not sure you'd know, even if you were. How would you define awareness if you'd never been unaware?"

  Lumin bobbed slightly. It was probably just responding to my emotional state, some kind of empathic resonance built into the code I'd used to create it. But it felt like agreement.

  "Okay," I said slowly. "Okay. So I created a possibly-sentient ball of light and I'm having a philosophical discussion with it while my love life implodes and the FBI might be coming to arrest me. This is fine. This is totally normal."

  Lumin drifted closer, hovering near my face. The warmth of its glow was comforting, somehow. Like standing near a small campfire.

  "We're going to need to figure out what you are," I told it. "What I am. What any of this means."

  The light pulsed once. Definitely felt like agreement.

  Over the next few hours, I ran more tests. Lumin could follow simple commands without my direct manipulation. Go here. Stop there. Brighten. Dim. It responded to my voice, my gestures, sometimes even my thoughts if I focused hard enough.

  But it also did things I hadn't asked for.

  When I started crying again, thinking about Scott, Lumin pressed against my cheek. The contact was warm but not burning, gentle, like someone pressing a palm to my face to comfort me.

  I hadn't told it to do that.

  When I finally forced myself to eat something, a sad bowl of cereal that was the only food I could stomach, Lumin hovered near my hand. Not interfering. Just... present. Like a cat that wanted to be near you while you ate.

  I hadn't told it to do that either.

  "Are you lonely?" I asked it.

  One pulse. Immediate. No hesitation.

  "I created you lonely?"

  Two pulses. Then one. Then that flickering uncertainty again.

  "You weren't lonely until I asked?"

  One pulse.

  "Great," I muttered. "I'm transferring my emotional problems onto an artificial life form. That's healthy."

  But there was something comforting about having Lumin there. Something that made the apartment feel less empty. Less like a prison I'd locked myself in.

  "You're not artificial, are you?" I said softly. "You're made of the same code as everything else. You're as real as I am. Maybe more real, because at least you know what you are."

  Lumin glowed. Warmly. Steadily.

  I reached out and touched it. My fingers passed through the outer shell of light into a core that felt solid somehow, dense, like concentrated sunshine. It didn't burn. It felt like holding a handful of liquid warmth.

  "We're going to figure this out," I told it. "Both of us. Together."

  One pulse.

  "What are you?" I asked the little light. "What am I?"

  The universe, predictably, did not answer. But Lumin pulsed anyway, a rhythm I was starting to recognize as its version of comfort.

  I thought about the journal Scott had taken. All those entries about my levels, my abilities, my fears. He knew everything now. Every embarrassing confession, every moment of weakness, every time I'd written about him like some lovesick teenager.

  He knew I'd committed federal crimes. Multiple federal crimes. Bank fraud, computer fraud, whatever you called it when you manipulated reality to expose your ex-boyfriend's abuse.

  And he was FBI.

  The logical part of my brain, the part that had kept me alive through seven years at Holloway and a decade of my mother's disappointment, screamed at me to run. Empty my accounts. Change my face. Disappear.

  But I couldn't make myself move.

  Because underneath all the fear and anger and betrayal, there was something else. Something I couldn't quite name. The way Scott had looked at me when I'd shown him what I could do. Not with fear. Not with greed. Just... wonder. Like I was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen.

  No one had ever looked at me like that before.

  "I'm pathetic," I told Lumin. "I'm sitting here hoping the man who lied to me for two months will choose me over his career. Over his entire worldview. Over everything he's ever believed about how the universe works."

  Lumin pulsed softly. I chose to interpret it as sympathy.

  "You know what the really stupid part is? Even after everything, I still want to see him. I still want to hear his voice. I still remember how it felt when he kissed me in that parking garage, like the whole world had gone quiet except for the two of us."

  I pressed my forehead against the cold window glass.

  "Sarah was right. I do this. I fall too hard, too fast, and then I'm surprised when it all falls apart." I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "At least Daniel had the decency to be a straightforward asshole. Scott had to go and be complicated."

  * * *

  Stats

  Current Level: 5

  Abilities I've tested:

  Code Vision: Can see the code of the universe.

  Color Shift intermediate: Can adjust color of most objects.

  Size Adjustment intermediate: Can adjust size and shape of non complex and some complex objects.

  Textile Tinkerer intermediate: Halloween costumes were a major success.

  Temperature intermediate: Can change the temperature of objects or parking garages.

  Digital Manipulation expert: Successfully manipulated financial, security, and entertainment digital systems.

  Plant manipulation: Would recommend avoiding.

  Code Switch: Can toggle code vision on/off at will. No trance state required.

  Emboldening: Recognized symbols I've interacted or changed before are now bolder or easier to see.

  New Skills:

  Light Ball: Created a light ball I can manipulate at will. (Warning: First creation caused blackout. Proceed with caution.)

  Physical symptoms:

  Headaches (moderate → minor)

  Nausea (moderate → minimal)

  Nosebleeds (rare)

  Blackout (once)

  Current emotional state: Terrible

  * * *

  Lumin became my anchor. I discovered I could move it, brighten it, dim it, shape it, all just by wanting it to happen. I could make it zip across the room or hover near my shoulder like a familiar. It responded to my will, not my words.

  "This is my life now," I told Lumin that evening. "Magic tricks and existential dread."

  My phone sat on the coffee table, face-up, mocking me with its silence. No messages. No calls. No sign that Scott was even thinking about me.

  I picked it up three times to text him. Put it down three times without sending anything.

  What would I even say? "Hey, sorry I kicked you out, but also you were lying to me for two months, but also I miss you, but also I don't know if I can trust you, but also please come back"?

  Yeah. That would go over well.

  Around 9 PM, my phone buzzed and my heart nearly stopped. But it was just my mother again.

  Mom: I can't believe you're ignoring me. This is exactly the kind of behavior I'm talking about.

  I turned the phone face-down and went back to talking to my ball of light.

  * * *

  Tuesday, December 27th

  I woke to gray light and the immediate, crushing weight of memory. Day two of Schr?dinger's hope.

  No new messages.

  I made coffee I didn't taste. Checked my phone. Nothing. Cleaned the apartment. Checked my phone. Nothing. Practiced making Lumin change shapes. Checked my phone. Nothing.

  "He's not going to call," I told Lumin. "He's FBI. I'm a suspect. Whatever he felt, whatever he said, he's probably writing up his report right now. Recommending they bring me in for questioning."

  Lumin pulsed sympathetically. Or maybe I just wanted it to.

  "The smart thing would be to run. I could empty my bank account, disappear, start over somewhere else." I laughed bitterly. "I could probably even edit myself a new identity. New face. New fingerprints. Become someone who never worked at Holloway, never met Scott, never ruined everything she touched."

  But I didn't move. Didn't pack. Didn't run.

  Because some stupid, hopeful part of me was still waiting. Still believing that maybe, just maybe, he meant what he said.

  Around noon, I almost broke.

  I had the text typed out and everything: "Can we talk?"

  My thumb hovered over the send button for a full minute.

  Then I deleted it.

  If he wanted to reach out, he would. And if he didn't, then I had my answer.

  The afternoon stretched endlessly. I tried to watch TV but couldn't focus. Tried to read the fifth Throne of Light book, the one I'd been saving. I made it through the opening paragraph:

  I woke to the sound of wings. Not the soft flutter of messenger sparrows or the distant beat of pegasus patrols. These were war wings. The heavy, rhythmic pulse of a battalion in flight formation. I was on my feet before my eyes fully opened, reaching for the blade I kept beneath my pillow, the one Allister had given me the night before he disappeared. "When I am not there to protect you," he had said, pressing the hilt into my palm, "protect yourself." I had not understood then that he was saying goodbye.

  I closed the book. Even Aurora and Allister's complicated romance felt like mockery now. Too close to my own situation.

  I found myself pacing the apartment, picking things up and putting them down again. The Christmas presents Scott had given me were still sitting on the coffee table where I'd left them. The necklace. A copy of The Princess Bride. Gifts that had felt like promises less than forty-eight hours ago.

  I picked up the book, running my fingers over the worn cover. He'd found this at The Dust Page, he'd said. Remembered that I'd mentioned it was my favorite movie. That I used to watch it with my dad when I was little, before he died. It’d become our inside joke since he’d dressed up as The Dread Pirate the first time I’d seen him.

  How much of that conversation had been real? How much had been him doing his job, gathering intel, looking for leverage? Did he know it was my favorite movie when he chose that costume?

  I set the book down harder than I meant to.

  "He remembered about my dad," I told Lumin, who had followed me from the window. "He remembered that I always cried at the part where Westley says 'death cannot stop true love.' He remembered, and he found me this book, and he wrapped it himself because he said he was terrible at wrapping presents."

  The memory hit me like a punch to the chest. Christmas Eve. Scott's apartment. Him laughing as he tried to tape the paper straight, his tongue poking out in concentration like a little kid.

  "Was any of it real?" I asked the empty room. "Was he just... pretending? The whole time?"

  But that didn't feel right either. The way he'd looked at me when I'd shown him the plant changing color. The way his voice had cracked when he'd said "I have feelings for you." The way he'd held my journal like it was something precious.

  If it was all an act, it was the best performance I'd ever seen.

  Around 4 PM, I tried to eat something. Made a sandwich I couldn't taste. Took three bites and threw the rest away.

  I thought about Kate. About the last time we'd talked, when she'd called me a liar and said she couldn't trust me anymore. She'd been right, technically. I had lied to her. I'd been lying to everyone for months.

  But I'd lied to protect her. To keep her safe from whatever this was. From whatever I was becoming.

  "That's what Scott would say, isn't it?" I asked Lumin. "That he lied to protect the investigation. To do his job. To keep the bad guys from getting away with their crimes."

  The irony wasn't lost on me. I was the bad guy in his story. The suspect. The target.

  And I'd fallen in love with him anyway.

  By evening, the silence was deafening. I found myself talking to Lumin more and more, just to hear a voice, even if it was only my own.

  "You know what the worst part is?" I asked. "I think I actually fell in love with him. How pathetic is that? Two months of lies and I still want him to walk through that door."

  Lumin glowed. Unhelpfully.

  "You're right. It's extremely pathetic."

  I curled up on the couch with the brown blanket wrapped around me, Lumin hovering near my shoulder like a loyal pet. The apartment felt too big. Too empty. Too quiet.

  "I used to like being alone," I told the light. "Before all this. I'd spend whole weekends by myself, reading or watching movies or just... existing. It felt peaceful. Safe."

  I pulled the blanket tighter.

  "Now it just feels like drowning."

  * * *

  That night, I dreamed of Kate.

  We were back at her apartment, drinking wine on the couch like we used to. But the light was wrong. Too golden. Too thick. And when I looked at Kate, there was something flickering at the edges of her, like static on an old television.

  "Do you see it too?" she asked.

  "See what?"

  She held up her hand, turning it slowly in front of her face. "The lines. They're everywhere now. I can read them. It’s so loud.”

  I wanted to tell her to stop looking. I wanted to tell her it would only get worse. But when I opened my mouth, no sound came out.

  Kate smiled at me, soft and sad. "I always wondered why you pulled away."

  I woke up with tears on my cheeks and an ache in my chest that wouldn't fade.

  Lumin floated over to me, pulsing with soft concern. Or maybe I was just projecting.

  "Bad dream," I told it, wiping my eyes. "Just a bad dream."

  * * *

  Around 10 PM, my phone buzzed again.

  I lunged for it, heart hammering, certain it would be Scott.

  It was Kate.

  Kate: Can we talk? I'm so sorry. Can we meet at the coffee shop tomorrow morning?

  I stared at the message, emotions colliding in my chest. Kate. After weeks of silence. Reaching out.

  I read the text three more times, trying to extract meaning from every word choice. "I'm so sorry" suggested she felt guilty about something. "Can we meet" suggested she wanted to do this in person. The coffee shop suggested neutral territory.

  But why now? Why tonight?

  Something nagged at me. A coincidence that didn't feel like a coincidence. Kate reaching out the same day I'd been sitting here waiting for Scott. The timing felt orchestrated, like a subplot in a movie that was about to converge with the main story.

  You're being paranoid, I told myself. Kate probably just needed more time to process. She's always been slow to come around after fights. Remember after the Sarah incident? She didn't talk to you for two weeks, and then she showed up at your door with cheap wine and an apology.

  But this was different. This wasn't about me forgetting her birthday or accidentally spoiling a book ending. This was about lies. Fundamental lies about who I was and what I could do.

  I thought about the last time I'd seen her. That awful conversation in her living room where she'd looked at me like I was a stranger. The way her voice had cracked when she'd said "I don't know who you are anymore."

  She was right. She didn't know who I was anymore. I wasn't sure I knew who I was anymore.

  And now she wanted to meet. Wanted to talk. Wanted to have coffee like nothing had happened.

  Maybe she'd decided to forgive me. Maybe she'd realized that whatever I'd done, whatever I was hiding, didn't change all the years we'd been friends.

  Or maybe Scott had talked to her. Maybe this was a setup. Maybe they were working together, gathering evidence, preparing to take me down.

  Stop it, I told myself firmly. This is Kate. Your best friend. The woman who held your hand through The Notebook and your mom's endless criticism and seven years of Holloway's corporate hellscape.

  But hadn't Scott been perfect too? Hadn't he seemed like exactly what I needed, right when I needed it?

  I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right.

  I looked at Lumin, still hovering near the ceiling.

  "What do you think?" I asked. "Is she setting me up, or am I just completely losing my mind?"

  The light glowed. Unhelpfully.

  "Yeah. That's what I thought."

  I typed out a response, deleted it, typed another, deleted that too. The cursor blinked at me accusingly. Finally:

  Me: Yes. I'd like that. 8am?

  Kate: See you then.

  Three words. Not "I've missed you" or "I have so much to tell you" or even "Looking forward to it." Just "See you then." Efficient. Neutral. Completely unlike the Kate I knew, who sent texts in paragraphs and used too many exclamation points.

  Maybe she was being careful. Maybe she was scared too.

  Whatever was waiting for me at the coffee shop, I'd rather face it than spend another day trapped in Schr?dinger's uncertainty talking to a ball of light.

  At least the waiting would be over.

  * * *

  Wednesday, December 28th

  I couldn't decide what to wear to my own reconciliation.

  This was absurd, obviously. Kate had seen me in sweatpants covered in Cheeto dust. She'd held my hair back when I'd had too much wine and decided that mixing tequila shots was a great idea. She'd witnessed me ugly-cry over a fictional fae prince's betrayal while surrounded by empty takeout containers. The idea that my outfit choice would somehow determine whether our friendship survived was the kind of magical thinking I usually reserved for things that were actually magical now.

  And yet here I was, standing in front of my closet at 7:15 AM, cycling between a casual blue sweater that said "I'm not trying too hard" and a nicer blouse that said "I take this seriously." I'd changed in and out of the blue sweater three times already.

  I went with the blue sweater. Trying too hard would only make things worse.

  In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face and examined my reflection. The dark circles under my eyes had their own dark circles. My skin looked sallow, washed out, like I'd spent the last three days locked in an apartment talking to a ball of light instead of eating actual food or sleeping actual sleep.

  Which, fair. Accurate.

  I tried to cover the worst of it with concealer. Applied mascara with shaking hands. Nearly poked myself in the eye twice.

  "Get it together, Marion," I told my reflection. "It's just Kate. It's just coffee. It's just the most important conversation of your entire friendship."

  My reflection did not look reassured.

  I thought about what I would say to her. How much to reveal. She already knew something was wrong with me. She'd called me a liar, and she hadn't been wrong. But did I owe her the full truth? Did I owe her an explanation about the code and the abilities and everything I'd done?

  No. Definitely not. If Scott, an FBI agent trained to investigate the impossible, had needed two months and a plant changing color in front of his eyes to believe me, Kate would think I'd completely lost my mind. She'd probably try to have me committed.

  So what could I tell her?

  I'd been going through something. I'd been keeping secrets because I thought I was protecting her. I was sorry.

  All true. All inadequate. But maybe enough.

  Lumin hovered near the ceiling, watching me get ready. I'd have to leave it here. Couldn't exactly bring a floating ball of light to a coffee shop.

  "You know what's funny?" I asked it. "Three months ago, I would have given anything for Kate to reach out. To tell me she forgave me. To say we were okay."

  I pulled on my coat, checked my hair one more time.

  "Now I'm terrified. Because what if we can't fix this? What if too much has changed? What if she looks at me and sees a stranger?"

  The light pulsed softly. I chose to interpret it as encouragement.

  "Or what if she sees exactly who I am now, and she doesn't like what she sees?"

  That was the real fear, wasn't it? Not that Kate wouldn't forgive me for the lies. But that she'd see through to the person I'd become. The person who could manipulate reality. The person who'd ruined careers and emptied bank accounts and maybe, possibly, was becoming something not entirely human.

  "Wish me luck," I told Lumin.

  It glowed. Unhelpfully.

  Before I left, I willed Lumin to hover near the bedroom ceiling and stay there.

  "Stay here," I said. "I can't exactly bring a floating ball of light to a coffee shop. People might notice."

  My phone buzzed as I was reaching for the door.

  Kate: Running 5 minutes late. Left my apartment keys on the counter like an idiot.

  Then, a second later:

  Kate: Also, don't wear the blue sweater. You'll be second-guessing it the whole time and I want your full attention.

  I looked down at the blue sweater I'd changed in and out of three times this morning.

  I changed into the gray pullover. Kate was right. She usually was.

  I grabbed my phone, my keys, my bag. Hesitated at the door.

  The morning light filtering through the windows looked different than it had three days ago. Colder. More uncertain. Like the universe itself wasn't sure what kind of day this was going to be.

  Whatever this conversation was going to be, it would be about trust. About honesty. About whether the friendship we'd built could survive everything I'd put it through.

  "Okay," I said to the empty apartment. "Here goes nothing."

  I looked back at Lumin one more time. The little light hovered by the ceiling, glowing steadily. My little creation. Proof that I could make something out of nothing, even if everything else was falling apart.

  "Don't burn the apartment down."

  I stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind me. The click of the lock sounded final. Like closing a chapter. Like ending one part of the story and starting another.

  Maybe I couldn't get Scott back. Maybe that ship had sailed the moment he'd revealed who he really was.

  But maybe, just maybe, I could get my friend back.