The infusion of capital from Lilith was like a desperately needed blood transfusion. It didn't solve all their problems overnight, but it stabilized the patient. The frantic, panicked energy of the first two weeks was replaced by a grueling, but manageable, strategic campaign. Kaelen was still struggling, the sheer volume of work required to pilot two companies one newborn, one on life support was immense, but she was no longer drowning. Sera's help had turned the tide.
She had let Sera in.
They became a true, formidable partnership. In the Vesper Pharmaceuticals boardroom, they were a united front. Sera, with her innate grace and deep knowledge of her family's legacy, charmed the board and rallied the demoralized employees. She became the soul of the company, the face of its hopeful resurrection. Kaelen was its ruthlessly efficient brain. Bolstered by Lilith's funds, she restructured debt, re negotiated contracts, and began pouring money back into the dormant R&D labs. She was still working brutally long hours, but now, more often than not, Sera was there with her, a quiet, supportive presence in the late hours of the night. Things had been stabilizing. They were still in a fight for their lives, but for the first time, it felt like a fight they could actually win.
It was a Tuesday evening, nearly a week after Lilith's message. They were at the penthouse, a rare night where they both managed to get home before Iris was asleep. They were sitting together on the sofa, a datapad between them, looking over a calendar of upcoming deadlines and board meetings. The moment was peaceful, a quiet domestic scene that had become their new normal.
"Oh, look at the date," Sera said suddenly, her voice bright with a happy realization as she pointed to a day in the near future. "We need to start planning. Iris's birthday is in two weeks! Her tenth! I can't believe she's going to be ten. We should throw her a real party this year, a huge one."
The words, so full of innocent joy, hit Kaelen like a truck.
Tenth birthday.
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. The warmth in the room leached away, replaced by an arctic, mind numbing dread. The sound of Sera brainstorming party themes faded into a dull, roaring in her ears. A passage from 'Corporate Omega,' a block of text she hadn't thought about in months, seared itself into the front of her mind.
The details of the tragedy, as written in the novel, were mundane, which made them all the more horrifying. It wasn't a dramatic assassination or a fated event on her birthday. It happened on a bleak, snowy morning sometime during her tenth year. In the original story, the impoverished and broken Seraphina could no longer afford a private car, and because of this neglect born of despair, Iris had been commuting to school via public transport. She was hit by a transport truck on a slippery road, and her death was ruled a tragic accident. That incident was the final, crucial catalyst that fueled Sera's all consuming rage, convincing her that the Blackwoods were ultimately responsible for every horror in her life.
For a single, wild moment, Kaelen felt a wave of relief. Wait. She's not commuting. She has an armored car and a security detail. The circumstances are completely different. The cause the neglect has been eliminated. She's safe.
But the relief was immediately choked by a new, more insidious horror. But what if it's not the circumstances that are fated? What if it's the outcome? The original plot was gone, but what if the story's major events were like magnets, pulling the narrative back towards them no matter how much she tried to steer away? What if the universe of this story didn't care how the accident happened, only that it did happen, sometime in her tenth year?
Sera's happy talk about a birthday party was no longer a celebration. It was a countdown clock. Not to a single dangerous day, but to the start of the most dangerous year of Iris's life. A 365 day long vigil where any slip, any moment of complacency, could lead to the tragedy the book had promised.
"Kaelen?" Sera's voice cut through the fog of her panic. "Are you okay? You look like you've just seen a ghost."
Kaelen blinked, her eyes struggling to focus on Sera's concerned face. She had. She had seen the ghost of a future she was now terrified was still possible. "Sorry," she managed, her voice strained. "I just... ten. It's a big number. It just hit me how fast she's growing up."
Later that night, long after Sera and Iris were asleep, Kaelen sat alone in her office. The Vesper financials were forgotten. Instead, her screen was filled with a dizzying array of new data: blueprints for the most advanced armored vehicles on the private market, dossiers on the city's most elite private security firms, detailed analyses of city traffic patterns and accident reports.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: A major canonical time frame [Iris Vesper's Tenth Year] is approaching. The original plot outcome for this period is [FATAL]. As you are operating without a script, future outcomes are unknown. No guidance can be provided.]
Kaelen dismissed the message, her jaw set in a hard, determined line. The System could offer no guidance. The novel could offer only a death sentence. Fine.
The story may be unwritten, she thought, her eyes blazing with a cold, protective fury. But I will not let it end in tragedy. I will not let one snowy day, one moment of bad luck, or one twist of fate take her from us. I'll burn this world down before I let anything happen to her.