The playroom lights flickered.

Sweet Fluff and Sour Puff stood centre-stage beneath their painted galaxy, one pink and beaming, the other blue and drooping, both smiling with the wrong kind of patience.

Celeste could still feel the strings tied to her wrists.

Mezzo could too.

He kept glaring upward at them as if sheer Irish fury might saw them in half.

It did not.

The Candy Floss Twins clapped their stretchy little paws together.

Sweet Fluff’s pink candy-floss pigtails bounced like cheerful clouds.

Sour Puff’s blue ones sagged like rain-soaked bunting.

“Now, now, pets, it’s time to see,”
“what sort of heroes you can be.”

Sweet Fluff’s arms stretched across the stage and snapped her fingers. Two doors rose from the floor with a puff of glittering sugar.

One was painted pale gold and decorated with tiny porcelain teacups.

The other was deep red, framed in velvet curtains, with a glowing brass handle shaped like a theatre mask.

Celeste stared.

Mezzo’s ears pinned back.

“Oh no,” he said. “I know dramatic symbolism when I’m lookin’ at it, and I reject it.”

Sour Puff sighed miserably. “Puppy barks but puppy goes…”

Sweet Fluff grinned wider. “Every naughty stray soon knows.”

The strings yanked.

Celeste lurched toward the golden door.

Mezzo jerked toward the red one.

“Celeste!” he shouted.

“Mezzo!”

They reached for one another, but their puppet strings pulled in opposite directions. Celeste’s fingers brushed his sleeve for one desperate second before the doors opened behind them.

Sweet Fluff and Sour Puff sang in perfect unison.

“One for kitty, soft and sweet,
one for puppy, loud on feet.
Win your game and learn a truth,
lose and serve the dragon’s tooth.”

Mezzo twisted against his strings. “Ah, fantastic. Rhyming doom. My favourite breakfast.”

Celeste looked up, just once.

High in the rafters, hidden among fake stars and dangling planets, Bonbon crouched silently in the shadows.

Their eyes met.

Bonbon’s little paws were clamped over her mouth.

Celeste’s heart kicked hard.

But she did not look again.

She could not.

Instead, she let the fear show on her face and stumbled as if the strings were the only things holding her upright.

The twins didn’t notice Bonbon.

Good.

The doors swallowed Celeste and Mezzo at the same time.

The world spun.

Then Celeste fell.

Not far.

Not hard.

Just enough to make her gasp as her feet landed on polished white tiles.

The golden door vanished behind her.

For a moment, she stood alone in silence.

Then the room bloomed around her.

Mana holographic tech shimmered to life overhead, painting the ceiling into a galaxy sky. Stars drifted slowly between pale moons and floating teacups. Tiny holographic comets looped lazily around chandeliers made of crystal spoons. The floor beneath Celeste’s feet dissolved into a floating platform, suspended in the middle of a vast painted cosmos.

A tea parlour.

A beautiful one.

A terrible one.

A long table stretched through the centre of the room, covered in lace, silverware, sugar bowls, and porcelain cups so delicate they looked like they might break if someone breathed too loudly. Dolls sat in every chair. Rabbits, cats, foxes, moths, bears, mice. All dressed in stiff little formal outfits. All with blank painted eyes.

Celeste tried to summon Starlight.

Nothing happened.

She tried again.

A faint ache pinched through her core, but no blade came.

“No,” she whispered.

Candy floss erupted from the floor.

Celeste gasped as pink and blue strands whipped around her, not binding this time, but unravelling. They tore away the catbug onesie in soft, violent ribbons, stripping it apart into fluff before spinning around her again.

When the floss pulled back, she was dressed in a frilly gothic-lolita tea dress.

Black lace. Cream ruffles. Silk gloves. Ribboned shoes. A high collar with a little bow at her throat.

Her hair had been styled into neat curls, pinned with tiny porcelain flowers.

She looked like a doll.

The thought made her stomach turn.

A teapot appeared in her hands.

Heavy.

White porcelain.

Gold trim.

A voice spoke from nowhere and everywhere at once, sing-song and sweet.

“Soft paws tremble, soft hearts pour,
spill one drop and crack some more.
Kindness pretty, kindness weak,
pour the tea and do not speak.”

The dolls’ heads turned toward her.

All at once.

Celeste swallowed.

A placard rose at the end of the table.

POUR THE TEA PERFECTLY.
DO NOT SPILL.
DO NOT CRACK.

“Oh,” Celeste whispered. “That seems… unfair.”

The first doll’s cup slid toward her.

Celeste stepped closer, gripping the teapot with both gloved hands.

The room was silent.

Too silent.

She tipped the pot carefully.

A thin stream of tea flowed into the cup.

Perfect.

The doll’s painted mouth opened.

“Too slow.”

A hairline crack shot across Celeste’s wrist.

She gasped.

The teapot wobbled, but she caught herself.

The crack glimmered through her glove like porcelain beneath fur.

Another cup slid forward.

Celeste’s ears lowered.

She poured again.

“Too nervous,” said the second doll.

Another crack split up her forearm.

Pain lanced through her, sharp and brittle.

She bit back a cry.

The third cup.

“You always apologise after failing.”

Crack.

The fourth.

“You call it kindness because weakness sounds uglier.”

Crack.

The fifth.

“Your father must be so disappointed.”

Celeste froze.

The tea stream nearly spilled over the rim.

She jerked the pot upright just in time.

A crack spread across her cheek.

Her breath hitched.

The tea parlour blurred.

For one awful second, she wasn’t standing under a painted galaxy anymore.

She was back in a training room from months ago.

Kenaz stood several paces away, arms folded, watching her with that unreadable expression that made her feel tiny.

“Again,” he had said.

Celeste had held out her paws, trying to call mana she could not reach. Her rune had burned at the back of her neck, locking everything down, choking the magic before it could become anything.

“I’m trying,” she had whispered.

Kenaz’s face had not changed.

“In a real fight, trying is not enough.”

The memory snapped.

Celeste was back in the tea parlour, hands shaking around the teapot.

The dolls watched.

Waiting.

A new voice entered the room.

Her own.

Only colder.

“Are you going to cry already?”

Celeste turned.

At the opposite end of the table stood another Celeste.

A perfect one.

A flawless porcelain version of her, sculpted from white china and gold seams. Her fur was smooth. Her dress immaculate. Her posture elegant. Not a crack anywhere. Her blue eyes were painted glass, calm and untroubled.

She smiled.

It was not kind.

“You always do this,” the porcelain Celeste said. “Shake. Apologise. Hope someone forgives you for being useless.”

Celeste clutched the teapot closer. “You’re not real.”

“No,” the doppelganger said. “I’m better.”

The cups began sliding toward Celeste faster.

One after another.

She stumbled down the table, pouring as carefully as she could.

“Too soft,” said a doll.

Crack.

“Too slow.”

Crack.

“Too kind.”

Crack.

“Too scared.”

Crack.

“Too Celeste.”

A larger split opened across her shoulder.

Celeste cried out.

The porcelain doppelganger walked beside her, hands folded neatly, every step graceful.

“Kindness will shatter you,” she said. “That is what everyone knows. Ray knows it. Hughes knows it. Bracer knows it.” Her smile sharpened. “Even Kenaz knew it.”

Celeste’s eyes stung.

“That isn’t true.”

“Isn’t it?”

Another cup.

Celeste poured.

Her wrist trembled.

A single drop splashed onto the saucer.

The room gasped.

Every doll’s head snapped toward the spill.

A crack tore across Celeste’s chest.

She nearly dropped the pot.

The doppelganger leaned closer.

“You see? Fragile.”

Celeste pressed one paw to the crack, breathing hard.

She could not use mana.

She could not summon her swords.

She could not heal the fractures splitting through her like fault lines in porcelain.

All she could do was pour.

So she poured.

Cup after cup.

Insult after insult.

“You will get your friends killed.”

Crack.

“You are not strong enough to protect Bonbon.”

Crack.

“You freeze when people need you.”

Crack.

“Mezzo makes jokes because he knows you are hopeless.”

Crack.

“Ray trained you and saw the truth.”

Crack.

“Your father gave you a legacy and you gave him tears.”

Crack.

By the time Celeste reached the final place setting, her body felt as though it might come apart if she breathed too deeply. Cracks webbed over her arms, shoulders, throat, cheeks. Her silk gloves were torn where porcelain lines shone through.

The final chair was empty.

Then the doll there twitched.

Its blank face softened, reshaped, grew taller.

The porcelain body stretched.

The little formal outfit became a commander’s coat.

The painted eyes became familiar.

Kenaz Astallan sat at the head of the table.

Celeste stopped breathing.

The false Kenaz looked at her with quiet disappointment.

“No wonder I do not want to see you.”

The teapot shook violently in Celeste’s hands.

The cup in front of him remained empty.

“You will never live up to my legacy,” he said.

Celeste’s vision blurred.

A sob caught in her throat.

The doppelganger stood beside him, flawless and cold.

“Pour,” she said. “Perfectly. Just once. Be what he needed you to be.”

Celeste lifted the teapot.

Her arms trembled so badly the spout clinked against the cup.

Tea gathered at the lip.

She thought of Kenaz watching her fail to summon mana.

She thought of Ray calling her an overgrown child.

She thought of Hughes saying he treated her with caution.

She thought of herself, always trying to be good enough for whoever was standing in front of her.

The tea tipped.

Almost spilled.

Celeste squeezed her eyes shut.

Then she stopped.

“No,” she whispered.

The room went silent.

The doppelganger’s smile faded.

“What?”

Celeste opened her eyes. Tears slid down her cracked cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the false Kenaz.

Her voice shook.

But it did not break.

“I’m sorry I’m not what you wanted.”

The false Kenaz stared at her.

Celeste looked at the porcelain version of herself.

The perfect version.

The uncracked version.

The version who would never cry, never stumble, never apologise for silly things, never want to pet giant moths, never feel too much.

“But I want to be myself,” Celeste whispered, “not you.”

She poured.

The stream was not perfectly steady.

Her hands trembled.

Her tears fell.

But not one drop of tea spilled.

The cup filled to the brim.

The false Kenaz cracked down the middle.

The doppelganger took one step back.

“No,” she said.

A crack appeared across her flawless face.

Then another.

Celeste lowered the teapot.

“I can be kind and still be strong.”

The table split.

The dolls shattered.

The painted galaxy above her burst into falling stars.

The porcelain Celeste opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her perfect body fractured all at once, collapsing into a heap of white china and gold dust.

A bell chimed.

Soft.

Final.

The cracks across Celeste’s body glowed with warm light.

Then slowly, painfully, they sealed.

The golden door appeared at the far end of the ruined tea parlour.

Celeste wiped her face with her sleeve and walked through it.

She stepped into a narrow observation room.

A wall of glowing monitors floated in the dark.

On one screen, she saw Mezzo.

“Mezzo,” she breathed.

He was alone on a stage.

And he looked terrified.