The restraints had already rubbed the skin raw beneath her wrists. Aiva twisted against them again, feeling the rough material bite deeper as the chair held her shoulders against its high carved back, and the ornate arms remained perfectly still beneath her hands.
Her breathing came hard through her nose, each attempt at movement pulling the red skirt tighter around her thighs where it had twisted during the struggle.
Sweat had soaked through the white shirt between her shoulder blades, and the red blazer trapped the heat against her chest. She pulled again anyway. The chair didn't move.
She couldn't see where the floor ended. It existed beneath the chair, dark and solid beneath the soles of her school shoes, but beyond a few feet there was only blackness without walls or corners.
Everything around her was visible despite the absence of any lamp, window, ceiling, or source of light, as if the space itself had decided what she was allowed to see. The gold embroidery on her blazer remained sharp enough to count the individual threads. Her long blonde hair clung damply to her cheeks.
Then footsteps sounded somewhere behind her.
Aiva stopped struggling for half a second. The sound came from no direction she could identify, each step landing with a clean, measured tap against the unseen floor before the next one followed.
She turned as far as the restraints allowed, her wrists pulling painfully against the bindings, and waited for whoever was walking toward her to appear.
She knew the face before she understood what she was seeing.
The woman stepping into view had her face, her height, her bones, the same hazel eyes and the same shape around the mouth. But her hair fell straighter and darker around her shoulders, deliberately arranged instead of left in the loose shag Aiva knew from the mirror.
Dark makeup sharpened her eyes, and when she looked directly at Aiva, a brief orange glow burned inside her pupils before settling again.
Her clothes were close-fitting and black, cut to move with her body while leaving nothing uncertain about the confidence with which she occupied it. Her hands were bruised across the backs, with split skin over several knuckles and dried blood caught in the creases.
She walked without hesitation, placing each foot precisely before the next and never once checking where she was going. Her shoulders were relaxed. Her chin stayed level. She didn't enter the space like someone arriving somewhere unfamiliar.
She moved through it as though every part of it belonged to her, and Aiva's stomach tightened when she realized the person wearing her face looked more comfortable here than she did.
"No," Aiva whispered.
The other woman smiled.
"How does it feel?"
Her voice was hers.
That was worse.
The woman walked past her chair, close enough that Aiva caught the faint scent of perfume and something metallic beneath it, then continued around the back. Aiva turned her head as far as she could, tracking the footsteps whenever they disappeared from view.
"To be tied up. Locked away like trash. Kept somewhere you can't even be bothered to remember." Her footsteps stopped behind Aiva's left shoulder. "Do you think you can keep me here forever?"
"I don't want to keep you anywhere."
The answer came immediately. Tears were already running down Aiva's face, slipping beneath her chin and darkening the collar of her shirt. She pulled against the restraints again, not to escape this time, but because the other Aiva was close and she wanted to reach her.
The footsteps resumed.
"You don't even know what it's like in here." The other Aiva's voice remained quiet as she walked. "Every day, I watch you."
Aiva's breathing caught.
"I watch you smile at everyone. I watch you play the sunshine version. The lovable one. The angel." She stopped somewhere behind Aiva again. "They adore you for it."
"Because I care about them."
"Because you perform for them."
Aiva shook her head.
"Adam. Chloe. That human ex of yours." The other Aiva came back into view, her eyes settling on Aiva's face. "They don't love you. They love what you let them see."
"That's not true."
"They should be worshipping you."
The words came without excitement. There was no raised voice, no theatrical anger. She said them as though they were an obvious correction to a fact Aiva had misunderstood.
"We're a powerful sorceress. The most powerful in the world, and what do you do with all the gifts you've been given?" Her bruised fingers lifted slightly as she counted. "You teach party tricks to so-called friends. You pretend to be a measly schoolgirl. You spend your days worrying about whether people like you when you have enough power to make an entire nation kneel."
Aiva's tears kept coming. She shook her head harder.
"You're wrong."
"Am I?"
"Yes."
The other Aiva tilted her head.
"You don't have to hate them."
"I don't."
"You don't have to hate me."
The orange flicker returned to her pupils.
"You've locked me away. I hate you in particular"
"Because I'm scared."
That answer made the other Aiva pause.
Aiva swallowed against the tightness in her throat. "I'm scared of what could happen, but that doesn't mean I want you to suffer. I don't want you trapped here. I don't want you hurting anyone. I just want us to find another way."
"You still think there's another way."
"I do."
"Even now?"
"Especially now."
The other Aiva stared at her for several seconds. Aiva couldn't look away. The face in front of her was her face, but the expression wasn't one she'd ever allowed herself to wear for long. It was too certain. Too comfortable with what it wanted.
Then the other Aiva stepped closer, "Then you're naiver than i thought."
Aiva's back pressed harder against the chair.
The bruised hand reached toward her slowly, fingers sliding through the blonde hair near her temple before closing around a fistful at the back of her head. The grip wasn't immediately painful. That made Aiva hold her breath.
The other woman was letting her feel how easily she could turn that hand into something worse.
"When I get out," she said quietly, "and I will get out sooner than you think, I'm going through everything you love."
Aiva's eyes widened.
"Adam first."
"Don't."
"Then Chloe."
"Please."
"That mundane you let yourself date."
Aiva's face tightened.
"What did you think would come from that?" The other Aiva's fingers tightened slightly. "Letting a human play boyfriend and girlfriend with a god. Then he leaves you, and instead of punishing his treasonous mistake with the only befitting punishment, death, you cry."
"Bryce didn't..."
"You cried for a mundane."
Aiva's voice broke. "He mattered to me."
"A mundane you could control with the flick of a finger."
"That's not how I see people."
"I know."
The other Aiva smiled, and there was something almost tender in it.
"That's why I hate you."
Aiva closed her eyes for a moment, tears squeezing through anyway.
"Please don't hurt them."
"You still don't understand." The grip loosened. "I'm going to make sure he suffers in particular. Slowly. I'll make sure every filthy tear you cried for him is paid back to you. TO ME."
Aiva opened her eyes.
"You don't have to do this."
The words came through a trembling breath. "Whatever happened to you, whatever they did, whatever you think I've done to you, we can fix it. I don't know how yet, but I'll find a way."
"You always say that."
"Because I mean it."
The other Aiva released her hair.
Aiva's head fell forward slightly before she caught herself. She felt the sudden absence of the hand almost as sharply as its presence. The other woman stepped backward, restoring several feet between them, and Aiva's eyes followed her immediately.
The distance made her look more dangerous.
"So kind, honest and naive. You really think you have a choice."
"I do."
"You don't."
The other Aiva folded her bruised hands loosely in front of herself.
"You're part of something much larger than this little life you've built. You can accept it, or you can deny it." Her gaze remained fixed on Aiva. "If you deny it, everyone you've named will suffer. Adam. Chloe. Bryce. Your entire class, Everyone."
"There has to be another option."
"There isn't."
"I'll find one."
The other Aiva watched her for a long moment.
Then she smiled.
"Then prepare to watch everything burn."
Aiva jerked awake.
The ceiling appeared first, pale and unfamiliar for half a second before the dorm room assembled around it. The walls came next, then the dark outline of the wardrobe, the narrow window, the faint strip of moonless night beneath the curtains, and finally the nearly silent building around her.
Her silk nightdress clung coldly to her skin, damp from sweat, and she sucked in a breath so sharply that her chest hurt.
She was shivering.
Her hands pressed into the sheets as she tried to force her breathing slower. Cotton dragged beneath her palms, rougher than the fabric in the dream, and she held onto that difference as each breath came a little deeper. The restraints were gone. Her wrists were untouched. Her hair was loose against the pillow.
She stared into the darkness.
She couldn't keep her trapped forever.
The thought arrived without the dream's voice attached to it.
She needed more time.
She wasn't ready.
Life was good like this. Her friends were here. Bryce and Adam were here. Chloe was here. She had spent so long building this version of herself, protecting it, choosing it every day that the idea of losing it made her stomach twist.
More time.
She pulled the blanket closer around herself and looked toward the bedside table.
The digital clock read 3:00 AM.
Aiva stared at the numbers without blinking.
Three in the morning.
The devil's hour.