Chapter 9 · Looping Allies

Twentieth morning.

Kael woke to Dorian shaking him.

"You slept through the bell," Dorian said. "That's new."

Kael sat up. His ledger showed day twenty. The gala had happened—iteration nineteen had ended in fire he half-remembered like a dream.

"Did we stop it?"

Dorian's silence answered.

"We died at midnight," Liora said from the window. She hadn't slept in their room before. Now she looked like she belonged to the war. "Massacre in the great hall. Sigils under the dance floor. I sang two measures wrong."

Kael rubbed his face. "How many iterations have you tried the gala?"

Liora turned. "Twelve."

"Tell me everything."

They sat—Kael, Liora, Dorian, Vesper smuggled in with pastries as cover. Tamsin watched the door.

Liora talked.

She'd woken on iteration one like Kael—disoriented, alone. Found Miren on day three. Learned the cage rules by day five. Tried telling Renn on day six; watched him break anyway.

"I thought if someone else knew, the loop would fracture," she said. "It doesn't. It punishes outreach. Grief echoes into the next iteration—even if they don't remember, you feel their trust curdle."

"Who else have you told?" Kael asked.

"Dorian. On his iteration eight.