I don't have much time, so I don't waste any.

I carve over the city of Tall Titan, a falling star against the night sky, a comet that hurtles toward our hole in the wall. I expand Gaia's power so that I blow through the gap like a bullet, so that I am not slowed by stone and bark and memories.

I'm a gust through the gardens, all light and wind. I sweep past the training pit and the work tents and flurry toward the main chancel of the temple, the temple bordered in by monsters.

Though the doorway is the size of an aircraft tunnel, the three monsters there nearly plug its entirety, and they see me coming – me a roar of flame, an arrow of light. I do not slow. I do not stop. I'm aiming for that singular gap above their heads.

When the monsters raise their claws for me, I corkscrew a hole through their claws. I come out on the other side, shaking off oil and blood, and take in the scene inside the chancel.

The acolytes are all knelt on the floor, hands bound behind their backs. The whistlers are bound in another group, facing the acolytes.

Esp strides between them, tall, dark. Her hair is sleek and long and like starlight, and her lips have been painted indigo. She's wearing no mask, because she no longer needs to. She is done with hiding.

Stationed all around the chancel are men and women – Omens who have not yet turned – with guns in their hands.

Roaz is on his anchor, and he is about to leap into the titan's eye.

I was right.

Esp is going to use the racers – someone she can coerce, threaten, someone that could survive the portal regardless if they won the previous stages or not – and then take the wish they capture, take it for herself, for her own gain.

Roaz sees me. They all do.

I see Rama, and Sister Ena. I do not see Yashi or Frea. Esp turns to me and watches me, and I see for the first time in a long time, the shape of her scar.

Like someone's taken a hook and sunk it into the corner of her lips and tugged, her omen is a lumpy path of congested flesh. It's got the red rawness of a burn-scar that worms over her cheek and up into her hair, and for the first time in all my life, I realize—

Esp has never been beautiful.

Not because of her scar. Not because of her omen.

Because of her eyes.

She takes out a gun, cocks it, and she's aiming it toward an acolyte knelt by her feet – Rama, blotchy skinned and smeared in tears – because she is telling me that she will shoot if I come any closer, and I do what Gaia did at the end of the first race.

Lights warp and bend around me.

I blink.

I reappear.

I've charged through and snapped past Esp, knocking her gun aside, but I do not stop. I do not go for the others, not the acolytes or the whistlers, or the men and women that are now raising their guns at me, or the monsters that are now screeching and rumbling and crowding close.

I blink again, toward the wishing well.

Roaz, eyes wide and wild, jerks out of the way and, with a snarl, dives into the portal.

I do not close my eyes.

I want to see everything, the sands, the dark, the storm that follows.

I let Gaia sing through my bones and my veins. I dive into the eye.

-

Silence, roars.

Ancient cathedrals of cloud.

Mighty pillars of lightning.

Absolute power rolls by me and by me, around me like the thick robes of a god, of gods, and I am but a speck in the titan's eye, caught in the folds of its royal curtains, curtains stitched from nebulae. I've entered the belly of a beast.

So this is what myths are made of.

Sound crashes back over me.

Thunder roars, then cracks. Lightning flashes.

I'm teetering on my anchor, crouched low against its body. I'm flowing along a current of wind – the breath of sirens – even though wind here is an impossibility. Through the curtain of the storm, I can see the vast beyond of outer space, of the universe, of every star within it.

I can still breathe, and am still alive; it must be Gaia's doing.

Far before me, like a wind-tossed bird in a storm, Roaz struggles and glides.

I go to him.

I ride the impossible current and through the storm, and with static electricity prickling over my skin, and with a howling around me like women in mourning, I reach him.

Here the wind is much stronger. I open my mouth and shout into it, "Roaz, Roaz!"

He twists toward me and bares his teeth, and he shouts words at me that the wind takes away, but in flashes like lightning, I hear all his thoughts. I hear him the way stars are heard.

Get away, you monster.

This is all your fault.

It's your fault so many people have died, guardians, Suns. It's your fault we're so scared. Your fault Rama is so scared. Did you see her? How tearful she was? If she dies, I will never forgive you. If she dies, I will kill you myself.

I understand, then. This is how Esp twisted Roaz's arm. This is why he is here, in the storm, seeking out a wishing star for the sake of Esp. No. Not for her sake.

For Rama's sake.

The wind lashes out.

The howling of women twists into giggling, cackling, layered and malicious, and then Roaz and I are tossed from each other and hurled from the current.

I spin and tumble and batter through the flesh of the storm, through its clouds full of static, and—

There's solid ground beneath me.

I open my eyes, and see my own reflection – pale and strained, mouth open on breaths. The stone is black tourmaline, polished to be like a mirror, and it's just like the inner sanctum of the kori tower. How is this possible?

I push to my feet slowly, slowly. All my movements echo.

I see the kori tower. There are no stars in any of the sirens' hands.

A girl steps out from behind the tower, a little girl, a girl with bright blue eyes.

I know her. She's the one I let die by that white white wall.

She does not blink. Her eyes, like the eyes of a corpse, are rigid and open. The top of her forehead is caved in, though the skin there is unbroken, unmarred. She opens her mouth and says, Your lie killed me.

So now I will kill you.

She lurches for me.

Bare feet flash against stone. White nails carve through air. The girl pummels into me and sinks her teeth into me, and I'm twice her size – I've grown and aged while she's stayed a dead girl – but I have no strength in me to fight this, to fight her.

I topple to the ground and shove at her, but her grip is inhuman. I twist about to scrabble to my feet, but then her fingers are in my hair, and she is yanking, and then she is looming over me.

In her hand is a boltgun.

I can't die here.

I elbow her, hard, in the gut. I knock her off her feet and step on her wrist, and wrench the gun out of her hand. I take aim against her dead blue eyes, and hook my finger around the trigger.

I do not pull it.

I can't. I won't.

I've already killed her once. I will not kill her again.

As much as she rightfully hates me and rightfully rails against me, I will not hate and rail in return.

I toss the gun aside.

And then I fall, I'm falling.

I'm back on my anchor. Gaia is shining within her engine-lock. I'm hovering again between the folds of the storm, bumping against static and riding the current, and there is no black stone or tower in sight. There is no little girl.

There was never any little girl.

Brother Marat had said the titan's eye would test my very soul.

There, darting like a hummingbird, is a star.

Gold drips from its nebulous form like honey. Every move and twitch and dance rings out like a chime and like the giggling of children. It bounces through the air like over the surface of water. It swims through the cosmic clouds like a koi.

It's a wishing star.

That's the star Roaz came here for.

That's the star I came here for.

I charge ahead.

The chase begins.

Wind roars over me like fire. Unseen sirens laugh and howl. I hunt after the wishing star as it skips down a path, one of rolling storms, then another of jagged lightning, and I dip and dive and drive after it, around curves and bends and impossibilities.

It looks to me to be galloping, sometimes. A golden deer. A mythical creature, unfurling for the thrill of the chase.

I see Roaz. He's slumped against his anchor, though his eyes still flash. He sees the same wishing star as me, but he's falling behind. He can't quite keep up, not against the braying of the storm or of the heat of lightning that strikes around us.

I can taste the star's tail.

The stardust is a spice on my tongue.

I stretch out my hand, and strain forward my fingers, and the tip of my nail scrapes through the edge of its liquid body—

I'm somewhere else again.

I'm in the garden of the Temple of Celestial Ichor, at the foot of my ancient tree, our ancient tree.

The wall is white, like the bark, like the grass, like the sky above.

The tree is dead; its branches are bare. Nothing else stands in the garden around the tree, only the blinding stretch of eternity. When I move again, everything echoes.

Rama and Esp are here. They are on either side of me.

Esp says, Everything you do is selfish.

It's clear from the things you've done that you think only of yourself, of what you can get out of others – Lumi is an accessory you used then disposed. I am an accessory you used then disposed. You followed me until it no longer suited you.

And Rama says, You tried to use me, too. Tried to get me to feel sorry for you, to let you go, to free you from your cage. That's all you've ever done all your life. Lie and manipulate and abuse. I thought we were friends – but all you thought was how you could get away with it.

Naqi is here. He's here, too. I can't. I can't do this.

He's sitting up in the tree. His legs swing from the branches. He looks down at me and smiles and says, For my kindness, you paid me lies. For my softness, you paid me hurts. I will never see again. I will never see again because of you.

All I wanted in return was kindness, softness, truth.

But a viper can't know these things.

Why, why?

Why didn't I die at birth?

Why did my knees receive me?

Everything they're saying – it's true. It's true. All of it.

It doesn't matter what my reasons were. I killed Lumi, and used her name and veil. I betrayed Esp, even though she had spent so much of her efforts on me. I used Rama, I did – I had wanted in her a friend who would sympathize, and I didn't think about her, how she would feel, how she would hurt.

I am what Naqi says I am – a viper.

Something in me pulses.

Gaia. Gaia.

Hrah, she pulses. Sha, she beats. Sav, Sahd, Tahv, Rahv.

She's pulsing out the Nine Ahs in me, to me. But why? What does it matter now? What does any of it matter?

Anvah. Enkrah.

Ahavah.

I see.

So that's it. So that's why.

I never knew. I never understood. But now I do. Now my eyes are opened.

"You're right," I say, to no one, to everyone. "Everything I've done is selfish."

"You're right," I say, "that I've lied, and abused, and nothing excuses what I've done. I'm ashamed and am sorry, and even if my back is unblemished, nothing will ever change the fact that I'm an Omen. You're right. Thank you. Thank you. For breaking me down, breaking me open, allowing me to see—"

I must be going mad; I'm laughing. Through my tears, my laughter crackles. A great weight has been unchained around me, from me, and I am unshackled.

I am free.

I lift my head and say, "Naqi never wanted anything for the things he did. He gave me kindness, he gave me softness, because of Ahavah."

Ahavah – to seek someone's well being without expecting anything in return.

His trading with me was his Ahavah.

His ya'tuv mi-eh is his Ahavah.

I may be an Omen, but I am loved.

I was looking for someone who stayed, and he did.

He did.

The world falls away. Esp and Rama and the tree fades away, and Naqi, smiling, shimmers into mist.

I am standing before a great horizon.

There are mountains of ice in the distance. A plane stretches before me, of cloud, or of snow, swirling, shining. In the center of it all is a mighty torrent of fire-water, of ice-flame, pouring in waterfalls from a star like a moon, the size of a moon, set high in the night sky.

The wishing star is there.

It bobs before the torrent. Its light quivers like a candle's.

Gaia is gone. So is my anchor. So, I walk.

I tread through the plane of snow and of cloud and move forward, forward. It is not cold. I do not tire. The wishing star does not flee from me.

And then the star wobbles into a shape. The closer I step, the crisper the shape.

The star has taken the form of a girl.

The star has taken the form of Lumi.

"Hello," she says, and her voice resounds.

I watch her, and watch her, and can say nothing at all.

She laughs.

Lumi is wearing no mask, no veil. She is just a girl, a girl with eyes that twinkle and hair that curls. She looks like how a siren would look, if they were nothing but kind.

"It's real good to see you again."

"—How?"

"Well, for starters," Lumi laughs again, "none of this is exactly real."

I quiet. I'm reminded of Lumi's mother, then, of that lonesome woman weeping on the booth. I'm reminded of Lumi's friend, who tore at my falsehoods and wept.

"I'm sorry," I breathe.

"I know," she says.

"I can never atone."

"I know," she says.

Then she stretches out her hand, palm up, and waits for me to take it. I don't. I don't take it. I say instead, "The wish Esp and I had wanted to make, in the beginning—it was an evil wish. We had wanted to turn anyone who wasn't an Omen into monsters."

Lumi says nothing.

I continue and say, "Then I changed my mind, and changed my wish to the thing I know best: hiding, lying. I wanted to wish our stain away, so that no one would ever be able to tell who had done wrong."

Lumi smiles, then.

"But now," she says, "you've sorted things out."

"I want to stop Esp."

"But you want more than just that."

Yes. I do. My want resounds.

Living liquid light bubbles out of the seat of Lumi's palm, and this time, this time – with a sun cresting over the horizon and the star-moon above us rumbling, cracking open, giving birth to light, more light – I take Lumi's hand.

I claim my wish.

-

I understand the world in patches. The light of my wish dazes.

I've reemerged out of the titan's eye and am hovering on the power of my wishing star.

I see Roaz. He's on the floor of the chancel with his anchor beside him, and Rama is knelt over him, and he is alive, breathing, well.

I see the monsters in the chancel, and many of their hides are sloughing off and away to reveal women and men, girls and boys. Some tear instead at themselves with claw and teeth until there is nothing left to tear at, until they are dead, unmoving.

I see Esp. She tosses her arm over her eyes at the light of it all and fires blindly, blindly, at me and at me until she is out of bullets. The light swallows them up, burns them all to dust. And then she turns her nails on herself. She screeches. She writhes. The scar on her face is bursting open like a fly-filled corpse, popping open at the seams. She rakes at her hair and yanks it off.

Her hair underneath the wig is patchy, wispy, like weeds.

The omen stains there are bubbled and frothy, like scum.

She stumbles away. She knocks into Roaz's anchor and paws at it, and then she reaches for the star inside the engine-lock. It's another weapon that she could use. An ichor blast. A sling of metal.

She grips the star in her hand.

With a ping like vibrating glass, the whole of her bursts into flames.

If she screams, I do not hear it; starfire is gurgling out of her mouth.

When she dies, her flesh charring black, I do not look away.