The first flicker wasn't a person. It was a pencil.
It rolled across the floor of Ms. Trent's third-period class, slow and deliberate—its shadow bending the wrong direction. Ivy didn't touch it. She watched it spiral near her shoe, pause, and then vanish completely, not into air but into a shimmer of ripple-light.
It left behind a faint sound: whispering, just for her.
"Not this version."
She froze.
No one else reacted.
Around her, the class was focused on formulas projected on the board. Normal pencils, normal lighting, normal sounds.
But not her.
Not anymore.
Ivy clenched her fingers and tucked them under her desk. The fourth mark on her side—just below the ribs—had started to itch again. Not burn. Not yet. Just a phantom warning, like a hand pressing gently against her skin, reminding her it existed.
She turned her head slowly toward the window.
That's when she saw the girl.
Third row from the front. Hair in twin braids. Eyes that were… too wide. Too still. The girl was facing the whiteboard, but her gaze was locked on Ivy. Not looking at her. Through her.
Ivy blinked.
The girl mouthed something.
Ivy's stomach flipped.
She mouthed it again:
"You're not supposed to remember."
Then her face shimmered.
Her entire desk blinked like a glitched file, fuzzing in and out of resolution—until nothing was left. Not her chair. Not her body. Not even the sound she made when she vanished.
Ivy stood up.
"Miss Calen?" Ms. Trent blinked. "Is there a problem?"
Ivy stared at the empty third row.
"No," she said, hoarsely. "Just… the light."
---
She left class early with a pass and moved fast down the empty corridor toward the old west wing. The ripple felt strongest here—familiar now. Like an exposed nerve.
The light buzzed above her, then went completely silent.
Ivy paused in front of the janitor's stairwell. The door creaked slightly open.
She pulled it wider.
No ripple-door.
But something else.
A pencil, just like the one from class, lay on the first stair.
She reached out to pick it up.
Before her fingers could touch it—
—a voice behind her, low and tense:
"Don't."
She turned sharply.
Arlo stood at the edge of the corridor, his uniform shirt untucked, his eyes darker than usual.
"Don't touch ripple remnants," he said. "Not now."
Ivy didn't move her hand.
"You saw it too?"
He nodded once. "She's been looping all day."
"Who?"
"The girl who vanished." He looked at the stairwell. "She's from a version that never converged properly. You shouldn't be seeing her."
"But I am."
"Yes." He stepped closer. "That's the problem."
---
The hallway pulsed around them—soft light filtering from windows that didn't used to exist. Ivy leaned her back against the cold wall beside the stairwell door, steadying her breath.
Arlo crouched in front of her, his eyes scanning her face like he was checking for fractures no one else could see.
"You're unstable," he said quietly. "Not in your head. In your reflection."
Ivy tried to smile. "Well, that's a relief."
He didn't return it.
"The glyph," she said. "It's completing, isn't it?"
He didn't answer.
"You wouldn't be here otherwise."
Arlo looked away.
She followed his gaze—to her own reflection in the narrow, dust-covered glass cabinet across the hall. The Ivy in the mirror looked the same. But the ripple light behind her wasn't bending around her like it should—it was clinging.
"Say it," Ivy said. "I deserve to hear it."
Arlo folded his arms, not like he was closing off—but like he was holding something back.
"The Council met last night," he said. "You weren't supposed to know yet."
Her throat went tight.
"They've decided," he continued. "If the fourth mark blooms completely, you'll be sealed."
"Sealed?" she echoed.
"In ripple stasis," Arlo clarified. "A time anchor. You'll be conscious but non-reactive. You won't age. You won't feel."
Ivy's breath hitched. "Like a memory."
"Yes."
She stared at him. "And you're just here to warn me?"
"I argued against it."
"And lost."
His jaw tightened.
"You can't let it form fully," he said. "Even if you're tempted. Even if the magic calls to you."
"It already is," Ivy whispered. "I don't even have to say anything anymore. It's finishing itself."
"I know."
She stepped closer to him.
"So what now? You report me? Walk me into the Veil yourself?"
Arlo met her gaze.
"I would never take you anywhere you didn't walk willingly."
"But you already did," she said. "Didn't you?"
His silence was answer enough.
Ivy's voice broke, just slightly. "You were the one who erased me."
"It was supposed to protect you."
"It destroyed me."
He closed his eyes.
"I didn't know you'd come back like this," he said softly.
Ivy reached out—almost—then let her hand drop.
"This version isn't safer," she said. "You know that, right?"
"I do."
"Then help me," she said. "Don't tell them. Don't stop it. Just help me figure out who I was before the glyph decides for me."
Arlo opened his mouth—then stopped.
Behind him, the ripple shimmered.
And from the mirror in the stairwell glass—someone else watched.
---
The ripple shimmered down the hallway behind Arlo like a curtain of breath, vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared. Ivy blinked hard, heart pounding, the words sealed and non-reactive echoing through her.
She didn't notice Arlo had already stepped back.
Didn't realize she was alone again until she heard it—
"You shouldn't let him near the mark."
She turned.
Eren stood in the threshold of the stairwell like he'd been there for hours, watching.
His coat was slightly unzipped, collar wind-ruffled, eyes unreadable in the dim gray light. He didn't blink. Didn't move. Just studied her like she was something half-remembered from a story he didn't believe in anymore.
Ivy swallowed. "You always show up when things fall apart."
"I only ever show up when you forget."
"What do you want?"
He tilted his head, like the question confused him.
"You're the one who pulled me here, Ivy. Or—her. The one before you."
He stepped toward her, slow.
"You called me with the second glyph. Not Eli. Not Arlo. Me."
"I don't remember doing that."
"I know."
Ivy pressed a palm to her ribs. The fourth mark—half-formed, soft with static heat—throbbed under her sweater.
Eren's voice dropped to a whisper. "Can I touch it?"
Her instinct said no.
Her silence said yes.
He lifted his hand—not gently, not forcefully, just… steady. And pressed two fingers right against her fourth mark.
The world shattered.
---
It wasn't a memory—it was a collapse.
Ivy saw herself—
—but not in this body.
A version of her. Dressed in white. Pale with blood. Dying. Lying in the grass of some other place, her head in Eren's lap, one arm curled over her stomach as if to hold herself together.
Her eyes were wide and wet and strange.
And her lips moved:
"You can't let me come back. If I come back, it'll all happen again."
Eren's other self—older, more scarred—shook his head. "You promised you'd stay."
She reached for him, fingers trembling.
"Don't remember me. Not this time."
Then she choked—on blood, on light, on memory—and her body faded, dissolving like a ripple closing.
---
Ivy snapped back with a gasp, stumbling hard against the wall.
Eren didn't move to catch her.
"You asked me not to remember you," she said, stunned.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because remembering you kills you."
Ivy looked at him, barely breathing.
"And you're still here?"
Eren's eyes didn't flinch.
"I don't care what it costs anymore."
---
The corridor felt colder now.
Eren's presence had shifted the ripple—left it unstable, humming against the metal pipes overhead, the tiled floor underfoot. Ivy stood completely still, one hand pressed to the wall, her breath uneven.
Eren said nothing more.
He just walked past her, disappearing down the dark stretch of hallway like he'd never been there. No goodbye. No explanation. Just that memory—echoing in her skull like a wound trying to close.
"Don't remember me…"
The mirror nearest her buzzed faintly.
Then shimmered.
Not the ripple this time.
Something else.
A figure surfaced—not a reflection of Ivy—but Calla.
Not Calla as she was now. Not the short-tempered, fiercely loyal, and beautifully guarded version Ivy knew from this world.
No.
This Calla was dressed in black.
Her hair was longer. Her eyes—sharp, lined in deep violet—burned not with hurt, but certainty.
She looked like someone who had already lost everything… and survived it.
"Finally," Mirror-Calla said. "You're ready to listen."
Ivy's chest tightened. "You're not real."
"I'm more real than the version of you walking around pretending not to shatter."
"What do you want?"
"Same thing I always wanted," Mirror-Calla said. "To keep you alive."
Ivy stepped closer to the mirror, her voice low. "You tried to kill me in the orchard."
"That wasn't me. That was a failed version of me. This one?" Calla tilted her head. "This one remembers what we were."
Ivy swallowed hard.
"You're breaking," Calla continued. "The glyph is forming whether you choose or not. The Council will come. You'll be sealed. Again."
"I'm trying to stop it."
"No," Calla said. "You're trying to delay it. That's not the same."
"What do you want from me?"
Calla's voice softened—just a little.
"Come through. Willingly. Let me take you into the ripple before they do."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because if you wait," Calla said gently, "you won't be sealed. You'll be overwritten. The next Ivy won't be you at all."
Ivy stared at her—at the cold, calm certainty in those mirrored eyes.
"Choose me," Calla said. "Or be erased."
The mirror fogged.
Calla vanished.
---
Ivy stood alone again, the hum of the ripple still vibrating beneath her ribs.
And the fourth mark?
It was glowing.
---
End of Chapter Twenty One