They didn't sleep that night.
The Archive didn't let them.
Not with fear or noise
But with pages.
Pages that whispered.
That drifted under blankets.
That slid into dreams.
Elira blinked at the stars above.
She had moved her bedroll onto a soft bit of glowing moss.
Everyone else had gone quiet, scattered in small sleep-piles.
But Elira couldn't rest.
Not with the shard still glowing in her palm.
Not with the mirror's last words echoing like a forgotten song.
She forgot who she was. Remind her.
She turned the shard over again and again.
It was smooth on one side.
Shimmering on the other.
Like it wanted to reflect not her face, but her truth.
And then she heard it.
Soft footsteps.
Coming from the edge of camp.
She sat up quickly.
A figure stood just outside the light of the campfire.
Not a monster.
Not a soldier.
A girl.
She was about Elira's age.
Wearing faded clothes.
Hair tangled in ribbons of thread.
Eyes wide, like they didn't know whether to cry or run.
"Elira," the girl said.
And Elira froze.
The voice was hers.
Not just similar.
The same.
Like someone had reached into the past and pulled a version of her from before everything broke.
"Who are you?" Elira asked.
But her voice cracked.
She already knew.
The girl stepped closer.
"I'm the one who stopped dreaming. When she thought no one believed in her."
Elira stared.
"You're me."
The girl nodded.
"I'm the part that you left behind in that small, gray town. The one who wanted nothing to do with magic or monsters or pain. The one who wished for a normal life and hated being different."
Elira's chest tightened.
She remembered.
The day Kara got sick.
The day the sky turned black and no one listened.
She had screamed at the stars.
Begged to be left alone.
Begged to be forgotten.
And someone had answered.
"I left you," Elira whispered.
"I didn't want to be me anymore."
The girl's eyes filled with tears.
"But I didn't leave you. I waited. Hoping you'd come back."
Behind Elira, someone stirred.
Solin.
Flick.
Sera.
But none of them saw the girl.
Only Elira could.
Because only Elira had the missing piece.
She held out the mirror shard.
"Come back," Elira said. "I need you."
The girl hesitated.
Then stepped forward—
And walked into her.
It didn't hurt.
It didn't even feel strange.
It felt like taking a deep breath after crying.
Like remembering the ending of a song you used to love.
Elira stood still for a moment.
Then opened her eyes.
And they were clearer.
She remembered the streets.
The smells.
The laughter.
The loneliness.
She remembered being her.
And now she had her back.
A quiet hum rippled through the camp.
Elira looked up.
The stars above shifted.
Just a little.
Like they noticed.
The fire crackled.
The moss pulsed.
And Elira smiled.
Not because everything was fixed.
But because she wasn't broken anymore.
Far off, deep in the forest beyond the Archive, something watched.
And turned away.
Not in defeat.
But in thought.
Because the story had taken a turn it didn't plan for.
And now…
It would write faster.