Sunlight poured from the ceiling in a cathedral hush, gold threading the air.
I woke rested, which felt suspicious. My arm, however, had defected—trapped beneath Heiwa like a treaty signed under pressure.
"Heiwa," I whispered, nudging her shoulder.
"Good morning, Miss Victoria. Miss Heiwa." Ezra's voice layered itself in the room, a chord struck and held. They stood to the side as if they had been there all night—because they had.
"What—" Heiwa jolted upright, dignity losing to gravity as she wiped at her cheek. "Have we arrived?" She took my hand and asked Ezra like the answer might evaporate if not caught quickly.
"Yes." They rose from the chair, rings in their eyes turning a fraction, as though time itself were a dial.
"Oh, we should—"
A lifted hand stopped me. "You should change to something more appropriate."
Right. Of course. New city, new skin.
"Bath first or breakfast?" Ezra asked while folding the bedding with surgical neatness.
"We are already at Twins Hill," Heiwa said, peering out the window. "A bath first."
"Same," I added, suddenly aware of the business port below—masts like a forest of iron, cranes moving with the patience of old gods.
In the bath, orange blossom drifted through steam. So that's what it smells like, I thought—bright, almost defiant. The water held warmth without clinging. I stretched until my spine remembered its length.
By the time I returned, breakfast waited as if summoned by etiquette itself. Heiwa emerged in a blue plaid skirt and white blouse; mine was green, a softer declaration.
"You look lovely," I said.
"Thank you—you as well." A small sigh escaped her, half pride, half dread.
"Thank you for the meal," we offered. Ezra nodded once, priestly.
I buttered my bread and leaned in. "We are in so much trouble."
Heiwa froze mid-egg, eyebrow rising like a warning banner.
"We didn't visit Aunt Hazel's shop."
Silence. Then the realization landed—slow, heavy, inevitable.
"What do you think their reaction was when they returned?" I asked sweetly.
Fear bloomed across her face with impressive speed. "We should hurry."
"Eat carefully," Ezra said from the side.
She nodded with a full mouth. I giggled. The apocalypse could wait; Aunt Hazel's disapproval could not.
When we disembarked, the earth felt solid in a way the sky never does. The port was busy, not rough but not gentle either. Work went on. No one approached. Eyes followed.
We stood out. Two pressed uniforms in a place of oil and rope and salt. Ezra behind us, carrying our weapons in one hand and a small box in the other, refusing help as though gravity itself had asked.
"What about the airship?" Heiwa glanced back at the vessel—vast, gleaming, already turning away.
"It will return," Ezra said.
"And you?" I asked.
"I will be with you for the foreseeable future."
Oh.
Housing. Money. Reality.
The morning air tasted of brine and commerce. Merchants called out prices; fish flashed silver; vegetables stacked in disciplined pyramids. Life unfolded like a market ledger—debits, credits, no sentiment.
"Do you have any money?" I asked quietly. "We could buy apology groceries."
Heiwa checked and came up empty. "No."
People were staring at Ezra now—at the stillness that did not acknowledge being watched.
We walked.
The hill rose ahead, and at its crest the shrine stood—quiet, masked, older than the docks, older than the noise. It watched us the way stone watches weather: patient, unimpressed.
Like two strange birds, we approached.
A famous gate, they say. A threshold that remembers every footstep. Tradition holds the line when the world forgets itself. You bow before entering because pride has no place beyond the beam.
We stopped at the base.
The town hummed below us—industry, appetite, ambition. Above, the shrine held its silence like a blade.
Heiwa exhaled. "Ready?"
Was I? Aunt Hazel's shop forgotten. No money. A guardian with rotating eyes.
And a gate that stood silent while the birds argued for us.
I looked up at the torii.
The wood was older than the docks below—grain darkened by hands that had bowed before us and would bow long after.
If the world is a collection of oddities, constantly rewritten, then shrines are the structures that refuse to fade.
"Let's go," I said.
And we began to climb.