Callas P.O.V.
If you'd asked me a week ago who I was, I'd have said:
Junior. Quiet. Loves storms. Misses her dad.
Now?
Now I wasn't even sure which parts of me were mine.
Ash said I was still human. That choices defined reality more than design. I wanted to believe him.
But the Engine—the *thing* in the basement that had begun pulsing in time with my thoughts—had other ideas.
And when I held the iris-shaped device again that night, its glow pulsed like it recognized me.
Not as its wielder.
As its *creation*.
---
The dreams returned.
But this time, I didn't wake up alone.
I was standing in a black field of stars—no ground beneath me, no sky above, just endless starlight. A shape formed in the distance: a woman cloaked in colorless robes, her hair silver, her face ageless. Not young, not old. Just... *ancient.*
She didn't walk. She simply *was.*
"You've begun to remember," she said, her voice like wind over glass.
I stared at her. "Who are you?"
"A failed tether," she said. "Like Lila. Like the ones before her. But I severed myself. Broke from the Engine before it could fully claim me."
She stepped closer.
"They called me **Rowen.** You can call me what remains."
---
I tried to move, but my legs wouldn't obey. Not out of fear—but out of gravity. The space around her bent, like she was heavier than the universe.
Rowen studied me.
"You are something different," she said. "Born not from science or desire, but from *regret.* Your father didn't make you to fix the world. He made you to fix *himself.* A selfish wish, stitched into flesh."
"I'm not just a wish," I said, anger tightening my chest. "I have thoughts. Memories."
"Do you?" she said, tilting her head. "And how many of those memories were yours to begin with?"
The space dimmed.
Behind Rowen, fractured images spun like film reels:
—My father shouting.
—A young Lila staring at her hands as the world bent around her.
—An infant floating in light, wires pulsing like umbilical cords.
—A journal entry. My name. My purpose.
I tried to pull away.
But Rowen placed a hand against my chest.
And for the first time, I *felt* the Engine inside me—like a second pulse, like machinery curled around my ribs, sleeping.
"This is not evil," she said softly. "It is *potential.* But the Engine has no morals. It only has mirrors. It reflects what we feed it."
I looked into her eyes, trembling. "Can I control it?"
Her smile was sad. "That depends. Do you want to rewrite the world? Or understand it?"
---
I woke up gasping, back in my room.
But the iris device was glowing white-hot beside me, and etched into the glass of my window were five words that hadn't been there before:
> **"Meet me at the lake."**
---
I found Rowen just before sunrise, waiting at the far edge of Mirror Lake, where the trees thinned and fog clung low over the water.
She looked as she had in the dream—cloaked in shifting gray, her presence quiet but immense. She stood barefoot at the shoreline, the water unmoving around her toes, as if the lake recognized her too.
"Rowen," I said.
"You came," she replied, turning to face me.
She motioned to the rock beside her, and I sat.
Silence settled between us for a while—comfortable, like the space between breaths.
Finally, she said, "Tell me what you know."
So I did.
I told her everything. About the dance. The fractures. The photo in Lila's locker. The lab under the observatory. The Engine waking up. Jason's changed memories. My mother's tears.
When I finished, she nodded.
"I know what the next phase looks like," she said. "It ends with the world choosing between the *truth* and the *illusion they want most.* And right now, the Engine is strong enough to give them the illusion."
"But people are already changing," I said. "Memories are breaking. Time is unstable. How do we stop it?"
She looked at me.
"You don't stop it. You *steer* it."
---
Rowen led me to a clearing beyond the lake, hidden by bramble and broken trees. In the center: an abandoned stone circle covered in moss.
She held her hands over it, and slowly, the ground split open—revealing a staircase spiraling downward into firelight and mist.
"A sanctum," she said. "Built by the first architects of the Engine. Before your father. Before the math. When wishes were still shaped like prayers."
Inside, the chamber felt ancient—etched with symbols I didn't understand, pulsing softly as I passed.
At the center sat a mirror—not like any I'd seen before. It didn't reflect my image. Instead, it showed moments. Possible versions of me:
—A version who never met Ash.
—A version where Jason never looked my way.
—A version where I'd made the first wish.
—A version where I was never born.
Rowen gestured to it. "The Engine shows its tethers their *forks.* Choices not made. Realities not yet chosen."
I stepped back. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because the moment is coming, Calla. When the Engine will ask *you* for a decision. Not Lila. Not Ash. *You.* And you must know yourself before it does."
---
We emerged from the sanctum at dusk.
Before she left, Rowen placed a hand on my shoulder.
"You are not bound by the wish that made you," she said. "You are what you *choose* to become."
Then she vanished—no swirl of light, no sound. Just gone.
And I stood alone at the edge of the lake, holding a shard of something I couldn't name—truth, maybe. Or destiny.
---
When I got home, Mom was waiting.
"I know where your father's final logbook is," she said without preamble. "I was trying to protect you."
I nodded, quieter now. "I don't need protection anymore."
She looked at me—not afraid. Not even surprised.
Just... proud.
"I know," she said.