Just hard work. Just herself.
Without it... who was she?
And yet—
Hadn’t she wished for something like this? In the bookstore, when Kian bled and her hands trembled—she’d wished the cost could fall on her instead.
And now in all the universes, in all the possibilities of the multiverse,sheended up being the Riya who would have to give up Caltech.
Her voice wavered. “What are the odds?”
Sirah khala let out a slow breath. “Oh, Riya.”
“I guess that’s why they say to be careful what you wish for, huh...?” Her voice broke. “But Caltech... it’s the only thing I’ve ever trusted. It’s—it’severything.”
“I know,” Sirah khala said gently. “I’m so sorry. I wish...I wish I’d done a better job teaching you about the risks of our magic. I should have—”
“You did everything you could,” Riya cut in. “I’mthe one who didn’t take it seriously.” She paused. Bit her lip. “So then what? I give up Caltech, and the curse will be broken for good? Guaranteed?”
“Yes. Peri magic is... difficult, but it doesn’t play tricks.”
“But Kian will still lose his memories, right? Of everything that happened between us. Like it—like it never happened.”
“...Yes. That’s right.”
She remembered the passage she and Kian had read earlier this week. She’d thought she’d understood it, clinically, detached, the way she understood formulas, a line in a textbook. Now, though, it felt like watching someone slip through her fingers in slow motion.
And in the end, she would lose everything. Caltech. Her future. And—
There was a faint sniffle on the other line.
“I’m taking the first flight out as soon as I can,” Sirah khala whispered. “I don’t want you going through this alone. We’ll talk... logistics then. Okay?”
“...Okay.”
“I love you.”
Riya clutched the phone tighter, knuckles white. The words caught in her throat, but she made herself say them.
“Love you, too.”
Chapter 26
The AV room smelled like warm plastic and burnt coffee. A half-eaten muffin sat precariously on the control board, despite someone having scribbledNo Food or Drinkon a piece of cardboard taped to a dead monitor.
Riya sat rigid in her chair, script balanced on her knees, trying to breathe like a normal person.
Quin slid into the chair beside Riya, not bothering to hide their grimace.
“Good God, you’re so tense. Do you perhaps have a metal pipe for a spine?”
“I have good posture,” said Riya flatly. She didn’t look up from her script.
“Hmm.” Quin’s usual smirk wavered. “You know,I’dprobably have a metal pipe for a spine right now, if you hadn’t stopped Kian.”
Riya didn’t answer right away. It was bad enough that her khala’s voice still echoed in the back of her mind, clinical and final—a reminder that the path forward had narrowed to a single impossible choice. And every day she hesitated, Kian slipped farther away.
“The next time you tease Kian like that,” she said, “I can’t promise I’ll step in.”
