CELESTE
"You're walking back into the dragon's mouth."
Nina's voice was barely a whisper, but it cut through the morning noise of the café like a knife. Her hands trembled around her coffee cup, and her eyes—those warm, kind eyes that had never asked too many questions—were wet with fear.
I sat across from her at our usual table by the window, the one where Luna and I had shared countless croissants and chocolate smiles. But Luna wasn't here now. She was back at the apartment with Madame Laurent from upstairs, blissfully unaware that her mother was about to destroy everything we'd built.
"I know," I said, my own cup untouched and growing cold between my palms.
"Celeste." Nina reached across the table and grabbed my hand, her grip desperate. "You don't have to do this. There must be another way. Another trial. Another—"
"There isn't." I met her eyes, and I watched her face crumble when she saw the truth there. "This is the only way. She's dying, Nina."
The words tasted like poison.
Nina's tears spilled over, running down her cheeks in streams she didn't bother to wipe away. "Then let me come with you. Let me help. You can't face him alone."
"I have to." I squeezed her hand, memorizing the warmth of it. "If something goes wrong, if I don't—if we don't come back—I need you here. I need someone who knows. Someone who can tell her story."
"Don't." Nina shook her head violently. "Don't talk like that. Don't you dare talk like that."
"Promise me." My voice cracked, and I hated myself for it. "Promise me you'll remember her. Remember us."
Nina sobbed, pulling my hand to her chest. "I promise. God, Celeste, I promise. But you come back. You hear me? You bring that baby home."
I nodded, but we both knew I was lying.
I left the café without looking back. If I looked back, I would break.
– – –
The apartment felt different as I packed. Smaller. Like it was already becoming a memory.
One suitcase. That's all I allowed myself. Luna's stuffed rabbit—the gray one with the missing eye that she'd named Monsieur Hopps. My father's research journal, the leather cover worn soft from years of his hands, my hands, hands that had killed for what was written inside. A change of clothes for me. Two for Luna.
Everything else—the life we'd built, the mornings and nights and small precious moments—I had to leave behind.
I stood at the kitchen sink and pulled out the documents. Clara Dupont's passport. Her birth certificate. Her entire fabricated existence on crisp official paper. I'd paid a fortune for these three years ago, and they'd kept us safe.
Now they were just kindling.
I lit a match and watched Clara burn. The paper curled and blackened, and smoke rose toward the ceiling like a departing soul. The ashes fell into the sink, and I washed them down the drain with cold water.
Clara was gone.
Only Celeste remained.
Luna appeared in the doorway, dragging Monsieur Hopps by one ear. "Maman, why are you crying?"
I hadn't realized I was. I wiped my face quickly and smiled. "I'm not crying, mon cœur. Just… thinking."
"About our trip?" She bounced on her toes, excited. I'd told her we were going on an adventure. A special trip to help her feel better. She didn't know what waited for us. She couldn't know.
"Yes. About our trip." I knelt down and pulled her close, breathing in the smell of her hair—strawberry shampoo and sunshine. "Are you excited?"
"So excited! Will there be airplanes?"
"A very big airplane."
"Will there be new foods?"
"So many new foods."
"Will you stay with me the whole time?" Her voice got smaller, and she looked up at me with those eyes that saw too much.
My heart shattered. "Every single second. I promise."
– – –
The flight from Paris to Seoul was thirteen hours of torture.
Luna slept against the window, her cheek pressed to the glass, Monsieur Hopps clutched tight in her arms. I watched her breathe and tried not to think about what I was doing. Tried not to imagine his face when he saw me. Tried not to remember the last time we'd been in the same room—his hands around my throat, his voice in my ear promising things worse than death.
"You can't run from me, Celeste. I will always find you."
I'd proved him wrong for three years.
Now I was walking straight back to him.
The plane hummed around us, filled with strangers living normal lives. A businessman typed on his laptop. A woman read a magazine. A child whined for snacks. They had no idea that the woman in seat 27B was carrying research that could change everything. That she was flying toward the man who would kill for it.
That she was trading her life for her daughter's.
I pulled out my father's journal and opened it to a random page. His handwriting stared back at me—cramped and precise, every letter formed with the same obsessive care he'd given to his work.
"The VX series shows unprecedented neural regeneration in test subjects. But the cost… God, the cost."
I knew the cost. I'd paid it. I was still paying it.
The lights of Paris had vanished hours ago, swallowed by darkness and distance. I pressed my forehead against the seat in front of me and felt everything I'd been slough away like dead skin.
Clara Dupont, the quiet bookshop clerk who baked star-shaped pancakes and never caused trouble—she was gone.
The woman who would step off this plane into Incheon Airport was someone else entirely.
Someone harder.
Someone colder.
Someone who had survived Jae-won Choi once and would do it again.
I was Celeste Moreau.
Daughter of a dead genius.
Mother of a dying child.
And I was returning to the battlefield.
The plane began its descent, and through the window, I saw the lights of Seoul spreading below us like a glittering web. Somewhere down there, in a glass tower that scraped the sky, he was waiting.
Luna stirred beside me, her eyes fluttering open. "Maman? Are we there?"
I took her hand and held it tight.
"Yes, baby," I whispered. "We're here."