Chapter 28 - The Queen Inside. **The Cost of Being Seen**
– Saturday, August 21, 2027 – 2:13 a.m.**
Remy finds me curled against the fence at the bottom of the bowl, knees to chest, shaking so hard my teeth chatter.
He doesn't ask stupid questions.
He just kills the bike engine, vaults the fence, and slides down the concrete to me in one smooth motion.
His arms go around me like they were built for it.
**Remy (low, urgent):**
"Breathe, storm queen. I've got you."
I try.
It comes out a sob.
He smells like pine, motor oil, and the leather jacket he threw on over pajamas.
His heartbeat is steady under my ear (two beats, always two, the locket echoing it).
I finally manage words.
**Celeste (broken):**
"She touched me, Rem.
She touched the bloodstone.
She showed me… everything I could lose."
Remy's arms tighten until I can feel his claws prick through the hoodie. The Queen Inside**
Sunday, August 22, 2027 – 4:47 a.m.**
I'm sitting cross-legged on the cedar stump where Elowene's tree used to be before the black fire.
The valley is still mirror-blind.
The air smells like spray paint and broken glass.
I close my eyes and fall inward.
Mist-space.
The orchard is darker than I've ever seen it (stars gone, sky the color of old blood).
Dacia is waiting under the bare cedar tree.
She's not the towering eight-foot warrior-queen tonight.
She's my height.
My age.
Wearing my face, but with eyes that have seen eight thousand winters.
**Dacia (quiet, almost shy):**
"You finally noticed."
I step closer.
**Celeste:**
"She has the full crown.
She has every piece I'm ever going to find.
But she doesn't have you."
Dacia's mouth curves (my mouth, but softer).
**Dacia:**
"She is everything you could become if you ever decided the world owed you something.
Every ruthless choice, every time you considered burning it all down and walking away.
She is the version of us who never learned how to lose someone and keep loving anyway."
She reaches out and touches the crack in my bloodstone.
It flares warm for the first time since the Forty-Eighth appeared.
**Dacia:**
"I am the version who watched the Danube freeze and thaw eight thousand times and still chose mercy.
I am every grandmother who carried the crown before us and refused to let it make them monsters."
She takes my hands.
**Dacia:**
"She is stronger in raw power.
We are stronger in everything that matters."
The orchard lights up—not with stars, but with memories.
- Six-year-old me and Seras pinky-swearing on a playground in Hanamaki.
- Remy shifting back human on Christmas morning, naked and bleeding, still reaching for me first.
- Holly's last smile on the ridge before she stepped in front of Malik.
- Al Capone tipping his hat to a sixteen-year-old girl and calling her "kid" like it was the highest honor.
Every moment I chose them over power.
**Dacia (voice steady, ancient, proud):**
"This is the real forty-eighth piece, child.
Not a ruby.
Not a shard.
It's the part of you that will never trade their lives for your victory."
She presses her forehead to mine.
The crack in the bloodstone seals—not gone, but healed into a thin silver line.
**Dacia:**
"She wants a war of strength.
We're going to give her a war of character."
The orchard explodes into light.
When I open my eyes, I'm back on the cedar stump at dawn.
Remy is asleep against my shoulder, Seras curled on my other side, Kayo watching the horizon like a sentinel.
I look down at my hands.
No new marks.
But for the first time since the mirror appeared, I'm not afraid of what I'll see when I look into one.
Because the Forty-Eighth may have the completed crown…
…but I have eight thousand years of grandmothers who chose love over power living inside my chest.
And that's a piece she will never steal.
Junior year isn't a countdown anymore.
It's a forge.
And I just figured out what kind of queen I'm going to be when I come out the other side.
**Remy:**
"Then we make sure she never gets close enough again."
His phone buzzes (Seras).
He answers without letting go of me.
**Remy:**
"Yeah, I've got her. Skatepark. Bring the truck and the others.
We're going downstairs."
Ten minutes later Seras's mom's SUV screeches into the lot.
Seras, Kayo, Aki, and Riku pile out like it's a SWAT raid.
Seras takes one look at me and her eyes go full orange.
**Seras:**
"Who do I need to burn?"
**Celeste (hoarse laugh):**
"Myself, apparently."
Kayo's tails flicker visible for half a second.
**Kayo (soft, dangerous):**
"The Forty-Eighth made contact."
Not a question.
We don't go home.
We go downstairs.
The Ohio Club basement is packed even at 2 a.m.
Ghosts part like water when they see my face.
Al Capone is behind the bar, polishing a glass that doesn't exist.
Holly is on stage mid-song, copper dress glowing, but she stops the second she sees me.
She's off the stage and in front of me before the piano note finishes dying.
**Holly (quiet):**
"You met her."
I nod.
Holly hugs me so hard my ribs creak.
**Holly:**
"Then we're closing the mirrors."
She turns to the room.
**Holly (voice carrying like she owns the afterlife):**
"Listen up, boys. Every reflective surface in Hot Springs just became enemy territory.
We're shutting them down."
Al sets down the glass.
**Al:**
"Whatever the kid needs."
Frankie Yale cracks his knuckles.
**Frankie:**
"Consider it done, Red."
By sunrise every mirror, window, puddle, and phone screen in the valley is covered, painted, or shattered.
Rowan Vale texts me one line at 6:07 a.m.
**Rowan:**
Smart. Temporary. I'll bring better wards tonight.
I'm sitting on the hood of Seras's mom's SUV, watching the sun rise over a city that just went blind to protect me.
Remy hasn't let go of my hand once.
Seras is leaning against my other side, flames low and steady.
Kayo is perched on the roof like a gargoyle.
Aki and Riku are arguing over who gets to break the next mirror.
Eleven pieces.
Twenty percent of the language.
One city full of people willing to blind itself so I don't have to look at what I might become.
I rest my head on Remy's shoulder.
**Celeste (whisper):**
"She said every piece I claim makes her stronger too."
**Remy (fierce):**
"Then we claim them smarter.
We claim them together."
Holly's voice drifts up from the basement, faint but clear, singing something old and defiant.
The valley is dark, mirrorless, and ours.
For now, that's enough.
Junior year is five days old.
And the war just went underground.