The seven days before Eirlys's unbinding attempt were—they were final preparations that felt less like strategy and more like funeral planning. Saying goodbye without saying goodbye. Making peace with outcomes we couldn't control.
Hope spent final week completing imprisoned consciousness construct—the magical entity that would serve as pressure anchor if everything else failed. She'd designed it to be as human-like as possible given it would exist forever in dimensional space experiencing time differently, given it would never consent to its own existence, given it would be nightmare of Fae-level monstrosity.
"It's ready." Her voice was hollow on day six as she put final touches. "The construct. It's—it's conscious. It understands what it is. It understands where it will be placed. It understands it might experience that environment for eternity. And it—" She stopped. "It accepted its purpose anyway. It volunteered."
