Half a month later.
Warm water stread down from a silver showerhead.
The droplets were sized just right—hitting every inch of skin with precisely the right pressure, that comfortable mild sting of hot water on bare skin, leaving a faint flush wherever it landed.
The bathroom was thick with white steam. Drifting through it was the clean, faintly herbal scent of the hotel’s provided shower gel.
Pandora stood in the shower with her eyes closed, letting the water run over her.
The past two weeks at the Rust Greenhouse Hotel had been attended to in every particular—als, clothing, safety. No running. No fighting. No calculating survival margins.
She had, by any honest asure, been living a life of comfort that edged into genuine indulgence.
But today, that chapter was ending.
After this shower, the next ti she’d be able to exist sowhere this soft, this completely without her guard up—she had no idea when that would be.
Then again, if things went the way she intended today...
Pandora opened her eyes slowly.
Through the haze of steam, her own blurred reflection looked back at her from the tile wall across from her.
That might actually be a good thing. For her specifically.
The steam rose and diffused, blurring the edges of everything. Her thoughts followed, loosening at the edges.
Half a month ago, she had killed Wilbur.
That fight had been brutal. Both she and Elsa had co out of it badly hurt.
But they both healed faster than was normal. Considerably faster.
The Witch bloodline carried a vitality that made ordinary injury durations irrelevant. What had looked like serious damage at the ti had nded completely, without so much as a scar to show for it.
Beyond that...
Pandora turned her attention inward for a mont, feeling the deep, quiet strength that resided there.
That fight—the kind that wrung every last drop of latent potential from a person and didn’t apologize for it—had stirred sothing in the Witch bloodline.
The power had already been accumulating steadily at the Second Rank, building and building. That fight had pushed it forward another significant step.
She could feel the ceiling approaching.
It seed like...
All she needed was a trigger. A single catalyst. And the breakthrough to the Third Rank would follow naturally.
Not that the Witch bloodline was sothing she worried about much. She still didn’t fully understand where it had co from, or why it worked the way it did. But its growth had never demanded special resources. It had always found its own way.
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This ti would likely be no different. The breakthrough should co when it ca, without requiring any particular preparation on her part.
What was not so smooth—not remotely in the sa category—was her Wizard path.
That sa fight had also pushed her spiritual power forward. It was the Wizard’s core, and it had been quietly stacking up under the Witch bloodline’s suppression for a long ti. This growth spurt had actually been slightly larger than what the bloodline had gained.
But even so, the Third Rank threshold for a Wizard was still so distance away.
The most pressing issue, though—
Pandora pressed her fingers lightly against her own temple.
The biggest problem remained unsolved.
A Wizard’s ditation thod.
Still.
This ti, she was fairly confident she had a way forward.
“As long as I can get the ditation thod today...”
The words were barely a whisper inside the shower, half-swallowed by the sound of falling water.
“...A period of focused cultivation after that, and I should be able to break through to the Third Rank.”
Quiet words. But the certainty in them was solid.
Shortly after, the water stopped.
Pandora wrapped a wide, soft white towel around herself and stepped out of the shower on bare feet, the warm mist still curling through the air around her.
She pushed open the bathroom door by a crack.
Her first look landed on the figure waiting not far outside—back turned toward the bathroom, standing with the kind of exact, upright posture that didn’t vary by a milliter regardless of circumstance.
Aurora heard the movent and turned imdiately.
Her expression was complicated in a way she wasn’t fully concealing. Her brows had drawn slightly together. Those eyes of hers—usually so steady—were carrying sothing clearly visible.
Worry.
“Ha, stop making that face.”
Pandora smiled, working a dry towel through her damp hair with her other hand.
“Nothing’s going to go wrong with this one.”
Aurora didn’t answer.
She stepped forward without a word and held out the neatly folded bundle of clothing she had been holding in both arms.
It was a new set. Completely new.
The colors were black and deep red, interwoven. The cut was clean and unfussy, but the details were finished with dark gold trim that caught the light in quiet, precise ways.
Aurora had spent Contribution Points on it. A custom commission, placed specifically for Pandora.
Better fabric than standard issue. More comfortable and breathable, but also more resilient—carrying a degree of physical protection without sacrificing freedom of movent.
“I told you not to bother...”
Pandora looked at the clearly expensive clothing and let out a small sigh.
But she looked at Aurora’s expression—fixed, unwilling to hear a refusal—and took it anyway.
“Fine.”
“Give a minute.”
She took the clothes and retreated back into the inner room.
Aurora withdrew to the outer room on her own initiative and drew the bedroom door closed behind her, leaving the space to Pandora without being asked.
Pandora changed quickly.
The fabric felt exactly as good as it looked. Soft and flexible, fitting close without constricting. The kind of quality that took real craft to produce—she could tell imdiately that Aurora had put genuine thought and real cost into this.
Once dressed, she moved to the full-length mirror set into the wardrobe door.
The girl reflected there was still slender. Still slight in build, with the kind of fra that ca from a body not quite done growing.
But the black-and-red outfit, cut to her precisely, did sothing to that image. The lines of it traced her silhouette in a way that worked. The dark gold detailing caught the light with a restrained, low-key gleam, and the effect was sothing that her outwardly young face didn’t quite seem to warrant.
A face that looked approximately fourteen, carrying a quality of elegance and composure that belonged to soone considerably older.
It was, she had to admit, a little...strange.
In a not entirely unpleasant way.
“Ready.”
She made one final adjustnt to her collar, turned, and walked toward the door.
“They've probably run out of patience by now.”
Aurora fell into step imdiately, her pace even and settled—the movent of soone who had made a decision and was no longer second-guessing it.
The two of them walked in single file down the corridor, the thick carpet muffling their footsteps, until they reached the elevator bay.
The doors slid open without sound.
They stepped in. Pandora pressed the button marked “1.”
The elevator began its smooth descent.
The tal cabin was quiet. Just the faint chanical hum of the cable system doing its work.
The floor numbers ticked down on the display.
28... 20... 10...
Until the number read “1.”
In the mont just before the doors slid open again—
Aurora spoke. Low, pressed close to silence, but completely clear.
“My Lady. Be careful.”
Pandora let out a quiet laugh and shook her head.
“It’ll be fine.”
“Don’t worry so much.”
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