Chapter 26:
Let Me Prepare You Interlude — Lennard
He stood in the doorway, frozen. Not breathing. Not speaking. Just staring. She stood in the hallway, framed by the glow of the stairwell. Blonde curls. Pale skin. Taller. Sharper. Sculpted like someone had remade her from memory and obsession.
And her eyes. Pink. Not contacts. Not a trick of the light. Constant. Unblinking.
This wasn’t the girl he remembered. Not DarkGirl112. Not the girl he’d called Darki in late-night voice chats and DMs. Not the one with muddy brown eyes and awkward bangs, oversized hoodies and broken meme chains at 2 a.m. That girl had vanished on stream in a burst of static. This one smiled like she’d never left.
“Hi, Lennard.”
He didn’t move.
She tilted her head. “Still broken?”
Then, without waiting, she stepped forward, pressed her palm to his chest, and gently pushed him back. Entered his apartment like it was her room and he was the guest. The door shut behind her.
She moved through the space like she owned it. Opened the fridge. Fished out a soda and a box of noodles. Ate with her fingers.
“Still living like this?” she muttered. “Jesus, you really are hopeless.”
Then she turned, scanned the room once, and headed straight for his desk.
His desk.
The one, no one else ever touched. The one, where he still kept her photo. The one, where he’d watched her die.
She dropped into the chair and spun once before letting it stop.
Lennard still hadn’t moved.
“You…” he finally managed, barely a whisper. “You died.”
“I know,” she cut in, calm as breath. Her eyes locked onto him, clear, pink, endless.
“That’s why I’m here.”
He stared. At her shape. Her voice. Her eyes.
“Four days ago. You—”
“I remember.”
She didn’t look at him when she said it. Just stared at the monitors, like she was waiting for them to light up.
“You’re not her.”
“I’m Grace,” she replied. “I was Grace. I am Grace. I always will be Grace.”
She stretched, lazy, deliberate. “But I’m not the girl you knew either. That one died. On stream. Like a good digital ghost.”
She looked at him then. Her eyes glowed faintly. “I’m just a better version now.”
She tapped the desk twice, fingers light. “But you still miss her, Darki I mean, don’t you?”
Lennard opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
“Cute little thing. Messy hair. Big hoodie. Dead eyes.” She tilted her head. “The girl who whispered secrets into your DMs. What were you, thirty?”
Her smile sharpened. “I’m eighteen now. In case you’re counting. Legal in three countries.”
He flinched. “I never—”
“No?” She leaned forward. “But you called me your dark-princess.”
His breath caught.
“Relax,” she said. “I’m not mad. I’m just better.”
He stood there, stunned. Trying to understand.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I stopped being the girl you remember. I grew into the one I was always meant to be.”
She stood again. Stepped toward him, slower this time. Measured.
“But there’s still a problem...”
He didn’t speak.
“There’s another version of me,” she said. “The weak one. The one who’ll try to reject what she becomes. Who might erase me. Her future.”
She stopped in front of him. “I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Lennard’s lips parted, but nothing came out. Then her gaze sharpened, lips curling slightly.
“What’s the matter?” she said sweetly. “Cat got your tongue? Or is it the hair?”
He stared, off-balance.
“I mean—” her voice dropped to a whisper, soft and sharp, “—I’m maybe too old for you now. Probably ruined your whole thing, huh?”
He went pale. “Darki…”
“No?” She stepped even closer, her breath brushing his cheek. “You supported me since I was, what… fourteen? Fifteen? Always so gentle. So loyal. So eager.”
She leaned in. “I’m not judging. I just like watching you squirm.”
Then she stepped away, as if none of it mattered.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“You always wanted to protect me,” she said, brushing her fingers along a dusty shelf.
“Well… congratulations.”
She turned back. “You finally can.”
He swallowed hard. “From what?”
Her smile faded. “From loose ends.”
She walked back to the desk. Tapped the surface once. Flicked a photo frame face-down.
“We’re going to clean it all up.”
He hesitated. “And after that?”
“We start rewriting history.”
He tried to speak. She cut him off.
“But we don’t have all the time in the world,” she added, her voice tightening, not with fear, but with irritation. “This place isn’t as safe as it looks.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes flicked toward the window. “There are some kinds of… Well, old things. Lesser things. They sniff at cracks like rats at blood.”
She exhaled, annoyed. “They’re not dangerous. Just... inconvenient.”
He shivered. “They’re following you?”
“They will,” she said with a shrug. “Eventually. I’m not hiding.”
She met his eyes again. “They can’t hurt me. But they could ruin my plans. And I hate interruptions.”
Silence.
Then she smiled again, bright, sweet, perfect.
“I know you, Lennard. You always wanted to be useful to me…”
Her pink eyes glowed softly, like coals.
“Well… congratulations.”
A pause.
“You finally can.”
He blinked. Still stunned. “…what do I have to do?”
She tilted her head. Amused.
“First? As I said, you help me to eliminate loose ends” she said.
A beat.
“After… I need to prepare you.”
His stomach turned.
“Prepare me for what?”
She met his eyes again. This time, completely calm.
“For you to die, of course.”
He froze.
She giggled, bright, delighted, like she was complimenting his haircut.
“Oh, don’t look like that,” she said, brushing past him again. “It’s not like I’m asking you to jump in front of a truck today.”
She turned. Smiled like sunrise wrapped in a knife.
“But if it comes to it…” she purred, “wouldn’t you want it to mean something?”
He stared at her like she was a dream bleeding into nightmare.
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“I know,” she said. She leaned against his desk, like a teacher beginning a very patient lecture. “But that’s fine. You don’t need to understand yet.”
Then she glanced toward the window again. Her tone shifted. Slower. Heavier.
“There’s a world, Lennard. A real one. Not this decaying digital patchwork, not the illusion you call Earth. A world that matters.”
Her eyes gleamed as she turned back to him.
“I need you to go there.”
He blinked. “Go where?”
“Nyras,” she said. “You’ll like it. There’s magic. Castles. Monsters. Tragedy.”
She grinned. “It’s adorable.”
He felt dizzy. “You want me to… shift realities?”
“I’ll help, obviously,” she said. “You’re not exactly equipped for planar movement. But you’re marked, Lennard. Tethered to me. That’s rare.”
He swallowed. “Why me?”
She tilted her head. “Because you’re the only one I trust to carry a piece of me.”
His skin crawled. “And why can’t you go?”
Grace’s smile thinned. “Because Nyras is protected,” she said. “By Iras.”
There was weight in the name. He didn’t understand it, but it settled over him like a cold hand on the neck.
“Iras?”
“The Goddess of Light. Patron of the world’s divine order yada yada yada… She’s… annoying.” Grace’s tone soured. “She doesn’t allow what I am anymore. Her domain is sealed to me.”
She leaned forward. Her voice dropped, gentle and persuasive.
“But you can still enter. You’re clean. You’re small. You can get in without setting off alarms.”
Lennard backed up a step. “And do what, exactly?”
“Nothing too complex,” she said, eyes sparkling. “A word to the right person. A whisper here, a touch there. Small nudges…”
Then, softer: “And protect her. The one still there. The version of me that might ruin everything if she tries to crawl away from what I’ve become.”
His mouth went dry. “You want me to manipulate… yourself?”
“I want you to keep her on the right path,” Grace said. “And if that means killing someone…” She shrugged. “Well. That’s what knights are for. You always wanted this, you wanted to be my knight Marlex, didn't you?”
He took a step back, as if distance would soften the madness of it all. “But you said I have to die.”
“You do,” she said, lightly. “But I’ll make it easy.”
She stood again, walking back toward him, not threatening, not forceful. Just inevitable.
“I’m going to send you to Nyras. But not just across space — across time.”
His breath caught. “What?”
“Twenty years before I ever arrive,” she said. “Before the Darki you know was even born. You’ll have time to build something. A name. A network. A role.”
She circled him slowly. “You’ll sow the seeds. Shape the landscape. Clear the obstacles. You know, all this poetic stuff knights normally do."
She stopped behind him, whispered: “You’ll kill my brothers before they ever become a threat.”
He turned. “What?”
“Alaric. Cedric. Ronan.” She said their names like they were items on a list. “All of them. Remove them before they can steal my inheritance. Before they become shields for the weak version of me.”
His hands were shaking. “That’s insane—”
“It’s efficient.” Her voice turned cold. “They’re nothing. Pawns of the King. Tools. I’ve seen what they become, Lennard. I won’t let them get in the way again.”
He stared at her, but she kept going.
“You’ll do more than kill,” she said. “You’ll spark unrest. Fuel resentment. Push borders until war seems necessary. You’ll make Ashford bleed early, and watch who survives.”
She tilted her head. “You’ll be the architect of what I need.”
“And what do you need?” he whispered.
Her voice dropped into something almost reverent.
“A world where I can embrace the gift the gods despise. The void that chose me. Help me to let loose, help me to see what I truly am.”
She smiled, pink eyes burning.
“So, you’re going to help me love what they tried to seal away.”
Lennard felt like his brain had slipped out the back of his skull. Nothing made sense.
“Spirits, gods, war, brothers, what the hell are you even talking about?”
She looked at him with something like amusement. “You don’t have to understand, Marlex. You just have to prepare.”
He tried again, grasping at some thread of logic.
“If this place — Nyras — has gods, and you’re not allowed there… what makes you think they won’t stop me?”
Grace’s gaze cooled slightly.
“They won’t see you. Not at first. But eventually… yes, they might come.”
She stepped closer; voice lower.
“The spirits. Old stupid things. Bound to their own concepts of idioticy. They’re slightly cleverer than gods, in some ways. And pettier.”
Her tone twisted at the edge.
“They’ll meddle. Whisper. Push back. Some might try to tempt you. Others might just watch and wait. They hate the void even more than the gods do. Just stay away from the 'veil'."
Lennard blinked slowly. The room tilted around him.
“This feels like a fever dream.”
“It should,” she said lightly. “But it’s real.”
He stared at her, this impossibly older, sharper — DarkGirl112, Darki, Grace — and the question burst out of him.
“Then how the hell are you here? If I’m supposed to help you be born into that world… how do you exist now?”
That got her to pause.
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing just slightly, like she was deciding how much of the truth to allow him.
“In the In-Between,” she said slowly, “there is no time. No past. No future. No sequence. No law.”
Her voice softened into something strange, not human, not mechanical, something outside.
“There is everything. And nothing. And me.”
Her smile widened, eyes glowing faintly pink.
“When I crossed it, I understood.”
She reached out and tapped his chest with two fingers.
“And that’s why I’m here.”
She reached out again, slower this time, and tapped two fingers lightly against his forehead.
A thin wisp of pink mist curled from her fingertips, and slipped beneath his skin. It vanished into him without resistance.
He didn’t feel pain. Didn’t feel wrong.
Just… hollow. For a moment.
His mouth opened. A question forming.
But Grace was already smiling.
“Let’s begin,” she said sweetly. “We’ll start with the loose ends in this world.”
She stepped past him, graceful and casual as ever.
“And then…” she added, without looking back, “I’ll prepare you for your death.”