Liora joined me the instant I appeared inside my Domain. He’d been perched atop one of the crystalline protrusions that had grown from my soul core, looking like half a guardian, half a lounging cat. When he noticed me, he stretched languidly, his sleek body rippling like liquid metal as he rose onto all fours. Then, with a slow, deliberate grace, he drifted through the air toward me, the low, rumbling purr of his shadowlight vibrations filling the space like a living melody.

  “I’d like you to know that I appreciate those shows of affection, my man. Keep them coming,” I said, brushing my hand along the ridge of his back, fingers combing through his colorful mane. The texture was strange, partially warmth and light alike. “I’m going to the Ideworld now. You can tag along if you’d like.”

  I’d decided this was the right order of things. First, test access to the other side of my room. Only after that would I consider the twin Noxies meeting, something that would either result in something spectacularly magical or in a big, disappointing nothing. The first outcome could consume too much time; the second would sour my mood enough to derail my focus entirely.

  Liora circled around me once, his form flowing like a ribbon of water and light, before settling behind me. His long body hung weightlessly in the air like an elegant scarf, his chin resting comfortably on my shoulder. That was a clear “yes”.

  With a subtle flick of will, I parted the veil between my Domain and the outside world. A door materialized in the air before me, the same unremarkable one that led to my room on Earth. Its handle shimmered faintly, then clicked open to reveal the shared apartment’s common room beyond.

  We stepped through the door in silence, but we weren’t alone. Sophie was there. Her shadowed self. She sat by the window with her knees drawn to her chest, a steaming mug of coffee cradled in her hands as she watched the snow drift lazily outside. The scene was so peaceful it almost felt sacred.

  I lifted a hand to Liora, signaling him to stay behind so his presence wouldn’t cause alarm, and walked closer with quiet steps.

  “Hey, Sophie. What’s up, girl?” I asked softly, not wanting to startle her.

  When she turned toward me, a small shock rippled through my spine. Her face, so much younger and lighter almost mirrored the real Sophie’s. She looked better.

  “Ali!” she exclaimed, pure joy lighting up her features. That single moment felt like sunlight breaking through clouds.

  I pulled a stool closer and sat beside her. “You decided to move out and didn’t tell me?” she teased.

  “No, girl. It’s… more complicated than that.” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. I wanted to see her, to really see her. Even as a reflection of another world, she was still a person. Still Sophie. And that meant she deserved more than to be treated like a shadow.

  “Try me,” she said, smiling with curiosity.

  “You’re not running away this time?” I asked.

  “Oh, you mean last time?” She laughed, a little embarrassed. “You caught me off guard, and all those other people were here, and you were in that weird suit, and I wasn’t exactly looking presentable. I think… I think I was in the middle of the change.”

  “I think so too. But you seem better now.”

  “Yes. The effects are fading, somehow. I saw a doctor, but they didn’t know what to make of it. She said sometimes it just… happens. No one really knows why the change starts or why it stops. I was kind of hoping I’d get some cool powers out of it.”

  Her casual awareness startled me, though it made sense. If it was common enough, they’d talk about it. I wondered what that meant for the people here, for how they lived with the impossible made normal.

  “You’re great just the way you are, Sophie,” I said sincerely.

  She smiled wide, interrupting me mid-thought. “—Well, thank you! It’s good to have you back.”

  “That’s actually something I wanted to tell you,” I began carefully. “It’s not really me. Not the me you know.”

  Her smile faltered, confusion clouding her features. “What? I don’t understand.”

  “There are two worlds, Sophie,” I began, my voice gentle but steady. “Parallel worlds. And both you and me and pretty much everyone else have copies of themselves in each. I’m the copy of your Ali, from the other side.”

  She stood up slowly, her expression tightening. “Like an evil twin?”

  I shook my head, raising my hands slightly in reassurance. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I love you like I love my Sophie. And no, not an evil twin. More like… a reflection. An expression of duality. We’re almost the same, with only small differences. We often make the same choices, like the people we live with, but our worlds aren’t the same. In mine, we don’t have the ‘change.’ Instead, we have something called the awakening, or the creation of a Domain.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, curiosity softening the tension in her face as she sat back down across from me.

  “I went through it,” I explained. “That’s why there’s no Ali here anymore. When we awaken, we sort of become the one version capable of existing in both worlds. Your Ali… she didn’t disappear, not really. She became part of me.”

  Sophie tilted her head, searching my eyes. “So you’re my Ali too?”

  That caught me off guard. I hadn’t thought about it that way until she said it. “I think I am,” I admitted after a moment. “As far as I understand it—and I’m no expert—when I awakened, your Ali crystallized into what we call a soul core. It’s a kind of living crystal that embodies who I am, my traits, my passion for art, and it became part of my Domain. Part of me.”

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  But even as I said it, doubt crept in. If she was truly part of me, wouldn’t my crystal carry more of her darkness? Her cracks? I wasn’t a good person, not really… and yet my core never felt cruel, only heavy.

  “My Sophie touched the crystal once,” I continued softly. “She even carries a fragment of it with her. She told me it was beautiful: cracked and dark, but still beautiful, and that I shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”

  Sophie’s lips parted slightly. “Why would you be?”

  I hesitated. “Because of this darkness within me, maybe?”

  “Darkness?” she echoed, frowning faintly. “I forgot for a second as you look so much like her. My Ali felt alone sometimes. Like she was the only one who could see the world as it really was. She thought that made her cracked, broken… just like you said.”

  Her voice softened, eyes shimmering with something between nostalgia and grief. “But she wasn’t. She was a good person, Ali. A kind soul. Just… sad in ways she couldn’t explain.”

  “Kind?” I asked, startled. My voice cracked a little from how foreign that word felt in my mouth. “Did she… ever tell you about a man named Penrose?”

  “Yes!” Sophie said instantly, eyes lighting up with recognition. “She told me there was this weird guy who used to visit her orphanage when she was little. He wanted to teach her… some bad things, I think? But then death happened to him—some kind of accident—and he never came back for her. She figured he probably just forgot about her.”

  What?

  The room tilted. My chest hollowed out like someone had scooped the air right from my lungs. The other Alexa, my shadow, was never a thief? Never a liar molded by Penrose’s lessons?

  Sophie’s face softened when she noticed my hands shaking. She reached out and wrapped hers around mine, steady and warm. “Everything okay?”

  No. It wasn’t. Not even close.

  I wanted to tell her everything, to tell her what Penrose had done to me, how he’d broken me down and rebuilt me in his image, how every wrong choice since then had felt inevitable. I wanted to confess that I was bad, that I had blood and lies and manipulation etched into the shape of my soul.

  But I didn’t.

  Instead, I swallowed the storm and asked, barely above a whisper, “Tell me about your Ali, okay?”

  Sophie hesitated, studying my face as if to make sure I wanted to hear it. Then she smiled faintly, her voice soft and full of old affection.

  “Sure. She looked just like you. She was always cheerful and kind, even when she had those little… lonely spells. But she had this way of looking at people. One glance, and she just knew you. Understood things most people missed. She said that’s what made her a good artist.”

  Her words cut deep, warm and cruel at once.

  “She worked night shifts at a retirement home,” Sophie continued. “She loved it. Said it was her ‘night life,’ helping the elders. She made them laugh, painted with them sometimes. It was her favorite thing.”

  Tears hit my hands before I realized I was crying.

  “Please don’t cry,” Sophie said quickly, leaning forward. “You said she still lives inside you, right?”

  I nodded, but my throat burned too much to answer.

  I sobbed, really sobbed for the first time in what felt like forever. Because I could have been her. I was her once, before Penrose found me, before he taught me how to twist the world to survive it.

  This Sophie’s Ali had taken the darkness I threw at her and somehow turned it into light. She had carried my loneliness and darkness and made it gentle. She had chosen kindness where I had chosen control.

  Sophie wrapped her arms around me then, a real, warm, human hug. I melted into it, shaking, letting the tears run down freely.

  And through the blur of emotion, one quiet, terrifying thought bloomed in my chest:

  Maybe that’s why everything changed when I became a sourceress.

  Since she became my soul core, since her goodness was fused with my soul… maybe that’s why I started helping people. Why I couldn’t just walk away.

  Maybe all those so-called heroics Malik talked about weren’t mine after all.

  Maybe, just maybe, they were hers.

  Her trying, even now, to save me.

  It took me a while before I could look back at her, this other Sophie. She was kind, just like mine, letting me fall apart in my own time, giving me the space to pull myself back together without a single question or judgment. There was something grounding about that patience. Something familiar.

  In that moment, I decided I’d keep her in my life, somehow. Maybe I’d even let both Sophies meet one day, if they ever wanted that. But I’d have to make sure first. Make sure it wouldn’t shatter them, or me, or the delicate balance that existed between our worlds.

  “Soph,” I said softly, once the air settled again, “I came here to check something. I want to see if I can get into my room from here. Would you like to come with me?”

  She blinked, confused. “What do you mean? Of course you can go there. Why wouldn’t you?”

  “Whenever I open the door from here,” I explained, “I end up in my Domain instead. The place where my soul core is.”

  “Oh.” She tilted her head, frowning slightly. “I can open it normally.”

  “You can?” I asked, my voice rising in surprise. “Can you do it for me?”

  “Of course I can. What kind of question is that, girl?” she said with a little laugh, already walking toward the door.

  “Maybe it’s hard to believe,” I admitted, following close behind, “but I really can’t do it myself. So… if you don’t mind.”

  She shrugged and turned the handle.

  And just like that, the door opened, not to my Domain, but to my room.

  The normal, grounded, human version of it.

  There was my bed, slightly messy, my desk stacked with books and sketches, the old wardrobe I’d promised myself to repaint, the soft carpet that always warmed my feet on cold mornings. My things were here. My cards scattered across the floor, each one hand-painted into some odd tool or weapon of mine. Ella, my umbrella stood in the corner, proud and patient as ever. Even my spellbook rested neatly on the shelf, wedged between poetry and philosophy.

  I knelt down and picked up one of the cards that had fallen to the floor. It was an eye card, painted with both an eye and an ear on it. I turned it over in my hand, running my thumb along its edge, lost in thought.

  “What is it?” Sophie asked from behind me, right as Liora decided he’d had enough of hiding.

  The air shimmered faintly as he swooped into the room, his long, serpentine body gliding over the furniture. He bumped into the desk, sent a few papers fluttering, then coiled lazily on the bed, letting out a low, pleased rumble.

  Sophie screamed.

  I was on her in a second, covering her mouth before she could alert the whole building. “Don’t worry,” I whispered quickly. “He’s with me. He’s my Lóng, his name’s Liora. I told him to stay hidden so he wouldn’t scare you, but he’s an impatient beast.”

  Her eyes darted between me and the dragon sprawled across my blankets. I could feel the tension easing out of her just enough for me to move my hand away.

  “But… that’s a Lóng,” she breathed.

  “Like I said,” I replied, smiling faintly.

  “Don’t you worry about him biting you?”

  “He’s pretty chill,” I said, watching Liora yawn wide enough to show all his sharp teeth. “You can pet him if you want.”

  “No, thank you,” she said immediately, backing up a few steps. “I’d rather keep my distance.”

  She edged around me so I stood squarely between her and Liora. “Did you find what you were looking for in here?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, turning the card over once more in my palm. The painted eye seemed to glimmer for a split second and then it blinked.

  I gasped and dropped the card. It hit the floor softly, but the echo of that motion rippled through me like a jolt of lightning.