Page 118 of Molt

“I found you every time.”

“You didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” He pulls back. “Sarah.”

I touch his face. “Listen to me.”

His one good eye finds mine.

“You don’t get to turn this into another cycle where you decide the best way to save me is destroying yourself.”

His lips tremble.

“No more martyr bullshit, remember?”

A broken laugh. “Right.”

“We know what it is now.”

“Part of it.”

“Enough.”

“For what?”

I look at the layer of skin on the floor.

VESSEL 09. At the black writing on the wall. At August disappearing in front of me.

Then at my reflection.

Three people. One body. A machine in the middle of completing its work.

“For me to make a choice.”

His face changes. “What choice?”

I look at him.

The final truth settles quietly.

If the transfer finishes, Sarah disappears. Lenora returns. August is consumed. And whatever created this gets exactly what August asked for in 1897.

She always comes back. No matter how many people it takes to build her.

I wipe August’s tears with a hand containing one of his fingers. “This time...” My voice shakes. “...we don’t let her come back.”

Chapter 8- August

This is the first time Lenora has ever chosen not to come back.

No. Sarah. Her name is Sarah.

I force myself to hold onto that because names matter now. Names are the difference between a person and a vessel. Between love and possession. Between remembering someone and replacing them.

Sarah stands in front of me with half my face trying to grow beneath hers. One of her eyes is mine. One of her fingers is mine. Pieces of my ribs cage her heart. My tooth sits inside her mouth. My heartbeat stutters beneath her own. And somewhere underneath all of that, the first Lenora is still trying to claw her way through. Sarah looks like a haunted house built out of people. And she is still the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.