The door had been locked for three days.
The morning light was thin and cold, pressing against the window like something trying to get in.
Her pink hair was a tangled mess against the pillow, strands caught in yesterday's knots.
Too much effort.
The sweater she'd worn to the aquarium was still draped across the chair where she'd left it, sleeves still too long, the fabric still holding the faint smell of salt water.
Sloth.
Her hands were hidden in the blanket, fingers curled into her palms, nails digging crescents into skin that was already marked from the days before.
The wound on her palm had healed, Hoshimi's spell had seen to that, but she could still feel it sometimes.
[What if what he said was really true?]
The words circled her skull like birds trapped in a room, beating against the walls, looking for a way out.
[Dominic didn't kill Audrey, did he? I don't want to trust him. I don't]
She closed her eyes. Behind them, the aquarium bloomed, blue water and drifting light, and Dominic standing beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him through her sweater.
[He's changed lately, I feel like he's suddenly more serious all of a sudden]
She rolled onto her side, the mattress sighing beneath her, and stared at the wall.
White.
Too clean, too new, like the room was still waiting for someone to actually live in it. Her books were stacked by the window, her clothes folded in the dresser, her notes arranged on the desk in careful piles.
She'd run from the Shaw estate with nothing but the clothes on her back and the sound of Neila's voice in her ears.
[I'm not good enough]
She'd believed it then.
She believed it now.
{You're not defined by what you lack. You're defined by what you want.}
Sarah's voice, soft as poison, warm as a fever.
{I could give you what you want. Not forever, perhaps. But long enough.}
"But if Hoshimi was right then…. then I won't know who to choose."
[But I like him. I still do. He looked at me. In the shark tunnel. He looked at me like I mattered.]
She remembered the way his hand had brushed hers when they walked through the crowd, accidental maybe, maybe not. The way he'd stayed close, close enough that her shoulder almost touched his arm. The way his voice had gone soft when he said her name, that single syllable, Seraphina, like it meant something.
[I miss him already.]
Knock.
Three soft taps.
Seraphina's breath caught. Her eyes, fixed on the door. The light beneath it had shifted, someone standing on the other side, their shadow cutting a dark wedge across the floor.
"Seraphina."
Dominic's voice. Low, careful, the way you'd speak to an animal you didn't want to startle.
She pressed her back harder against the door. Her heart, which had been a sluggish drum in her chest for days, suddenly hammered against her ribs like something trapped.
"I know you're there," he said. "I can hear you breathing."
She didn't answer. Couldn't. Her throat had closed up sometime on the second day, or maybe the third, and she hadn't tried to speak since.
"You haven't eaten." A pause. "Edward's been leaving trays outside your door. They're all still there, piled up."
Seraphina looked at the space beside her. She could see the trays through the crack beneath the door, the food congealed, the tea cold.
"The others are worried about you." Another pause. "I'm worried about you."
His shadow shifted. She heard him slide down the door, the soft scrape of his back against the wood, until they were sitting on opposite sides of the same barrier, close enough that she could feel the vibration of his voice.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, "it was my fault for dragging you into this mess."
Seraphina's hands curled into fists. Her nails found the scar on her palm, pressed into it, let the pain ground her in her body.
"You tried to save me." The words came out cracked, barely a whisper.
"Of course I did."
"Hoshimi, he said something about you." She stared at the scar, the pale tissue that would never quite fade. "I don't want to trust him, I don't, but I can't help it."
Silence. She could hear him breathing on the other side of the door, slow and deliberate, like he was measuring each inhale.
"I'm scared of you," she whispered. Her voice cracked on the last word, and she pressed her hand over her mouth, as if she could hold the confession inside.
She felt him go still. The silence stretched between them, thin and fragile, and she watched the strip of light beneath the door, waiting for his shadow to move.
"I'm scared too."
His voice was different now. Softer. He exhaled, a long, shuddering breath.
"I black out sometimes," he said. "Wake up places I don't remember going. Do things I don't remember doing." A pause. "Hoshimi thinks it's my reincarnation. He thinks that whatever is inside me is a murderer. And maybe he's right. Maybe there's something inside me that I can't control, can't stop, can't-"
His voice broke. She heard him swallow, heard him try again.
"I would never hurt you. I need you to know that. Whatever I am, whatever I become, I would never do such a thing."
"I know."
The words came out before she could stop them. She pressed her forehead against the door, felt the cool wood against her skin, and closed her eyes.
"When Hoshimi pulled the trigger," she said, "The fear of death didn't scare me, I was prepared for it. I was scared that he was right. That you were a murderer, whatever was inside you had killed Audrey."
She heard him exhale. A soft, broken sound.
Black.
"You told me to come find you when I figured out what was happening to me. And I haven't figured it out. I'm not even close. But I'm here anyway because-" He stopped. She heard him press his forehead against the door, felt the slight give of the wood. "Edward said that you haven't eaten, he wanted me to come talk to you, he's worried, I'm worried about you. I'm scared. I'm scared of what I could do. I just wanted you to know."
Seraphina stared at the door. At the grain of the wood, the curve of the handle, the thin strip of light beneath it.
She'd spent years watching him from a distance. Years telling herself that wanting was enough, that hoping was enough, that someday she'd find the courage to reach for something she actually wanted.
And now he was here. On the other side of a door she'd locked with her own hands.
"I'll go if you want me to," he said quietly. "But until then, I'll stay right here, on the other side of your door."
Seraphina's fists uncurled. Her hands found the door, her palms flat against the wood, and she felt the vibration of his breathing through the barrier.
"I don't want you to go."
The words came out small, cracked, but they were the truest thing she'd said in days. She felt him shift against the door, felt the weight of his presence settle beside her like a second heartbeat.
"Okay," he said. "I'm here."
She let her head rest against the door. The wood was cool against her forehead, solid and real, and she could almost imagine that she was leaning against him instead of the barrier between them.
The door creaked open.
Seraphina's hands were still flat against the wood, her forehead still pressed to its surface, and when it swung inward she nearly fell, her weight carried forward by momentum she hadn't known she'd been holding.
Dominic caught her.
His arms came around her before she could register the movement, one hand finding her shoulder, the other bracing against her back, steadying her against his chest. She felt the warmth of him through her thin shirt, the solid weight of his hands, the quick rise and fall of his breathing matching her own.
He smiled at her.
"You really are pretty aren't you?"
Her throat had closed up sometime between his knock and the door swinging open, and now all she could do was stand there, her cheek pressed against his collarbone, her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, breathing, her cheeks flushed red.
He smelled like soap and coffee and something else, something warm that she'd never been close enough to notice before. His heart was beating against her ear, a steady rhythm that she found herself matching, inhaling when he inhaled, exhaling when he exhaled, until their breath synced.
"Seraphina." His voice was low, careful, the way you'd speak to something fragile. "Can you look at me?"
She shook her head. The motion pressed her face deeper into his shoulder, and she felt his hand move from her back to her hair, his fingers threading through the tangled strands with a gentleness that made her chest ache.
"Okay," he said. "That's okay. We don't have to do anything you don't want to."
6 days until Seraphina's death.