Chapter 137 Do We Return Part 1
The mist’s edge was sharp as a knife. One second, Daisy waded through a memory swamp of failure and blood, the next she stumbled onto solid rock, air crisp and empty. For a heartbeat, hope thudded inside her: let this be a place where the past can't reach me. She blinked, waiting for the world to stabilize.
“Over here!” Delia’s voice called, impossibly clear. Daisy followed, boots crunching on ground that felt too clean, too untouched.
The valley was... wrong. No, not wrong—just different. The air shimmered with heat and life, thick with the scent of green things, flowers she’d never seen growing side by side: blue poppies, red-spined lilies, pale mosses that glowed in the half-shade. There were bees, but they moved in perfect lines, as if summoned and set in their course. The sun was filtered through a ceiling of interwoven branches so dense it might have been a second sky. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Daisy remembered old stories whispered about places like this—valleys hidden from the world, said to have been knotted together by witches fleeing the first fire, their magic lingering in every root and petal. Maybe those were only legends, but here, every strange detail seemed to echo those half-remembered tales, making her wonder just how much truth hid beneath them. And under all the bloom and brightness, Daisy caught a hint of something sour—like sap left too long in the cut—clinging at the back of her tongue, warning her that beauty here hid its own poison.
Mira waited at the head of the path, backlit and serene. She wore her usual robe, but it looked newer, the gray a shade lighter, the lines at her eyes softened or erased. She smiled—full, unguarded, and not a trace of sarcasm or distance.
Daisy’s locket pulsed hot. She pressed it to her chest, watching as Mira stepped forward.
“You made it,” Mira said, arms open as if to embrace them all. “I wasn’t sure the mist would let you through, Daisy.”
Something in the words scratched at Daisy. She hesitated, jaw tightening, as if about to speak but catching herself. "You—you knew what it did?" The last word hung sharp, suspicion tucked in the spaces she left unspoken.
Mira shrugged, a gesture so perfectly measured it could have been rehearsed. "It's a filter. A test. Only the ones who can face themselves get to the other side." She looked at each of them, gaze pausing on Daisy's hands, on the raw new scabs on Oliver's wrists, on the black still threading through Xeris's veins. "The mist doesn't let you pass if you can't face what you've done. Those who turn away are lost between here and the world they came from. Some never come back."
Cornelius grunted, rubbing at a bruise on his cheek. “This is the famous haven?”
“Yes,” Mira said. “It’s always been here, for those who knew how to look.”
She turned, leading them down the path. The others followed, their footsteps gathering in a tight cluster, boots and shoes rustling in shared confidence. Daisy hung back, letting the space between her and the group stretch wide, the hush of her own steps more hesitant and isolated. Her shadow lagged behind the others, smudged by distance, as her fingers laced through the chain of the locket, every nerve prickling.
Xeris moved to her left, close enough to smell the woodsmoke on his shirt. “She’s different,” he murmured, voice barely audible.
“Yeah,” Daisy said, “but I don’t know if it’s the place or her.”
Oliver drifted in on her right, brushing her shoulder with his own. “Maybe it’s us that changed,” he whispered, lips at her ear.
Daisy shoved him, but lightly. “Don’t get sentimental.”
He smiled, but his eyes tracked every movement ahead, as sharp as she’d ever seen them.
The path wound deeper into the valley. At every turn, the world grew more improbable. Trees that should have belonged to different continents grew side by side, roots knotted together like a promise; ferns the size of dinner plates, thorns as long as knives. A sweetness hung above the ground—something floral and lush—that sparked a memory in Daisy. For a second, she was back in her grandmother’s garden, crouched in damp grass, breathing in the spring lilacs and the dusty scent of tomato vines. She remembered sticky juice running down her chin and bees humming in the hollyhocks, though here, the air burned with a wildness that made her skin prickle. At one point, they passed a pool where tiny white eels spiraled in endless circles; their eyes glittered like gems, and their mouths gaped with too many teeth.
Delia slowed at the sight, her hand over her mouth. “That’s not normal,” she said.
“Nothing here is,” Mira answered, never breaking stride.
At a break in the canopy, the path opened onto a meadow so green it hurt to look at. In the center, a ring of standing stones, each carved with a daisy at the top and a spiral at the base. Beyond, set into the far cliff wall, a scatter of houses—old, stone-built, but so perfectly kept they looked painted on.
Mira stopped at the first stone and rested her hand on it. "This is the heart. The valley’s magic keeps it alive, even when the world outside wants it dead." For just a moment, something flared in her eyes—an old pride fighting with fresh regret. Her fingers traced the carvings with a tenderness that edged toward possessive, as if she was daring anything or anyone to threaten what belonged to her. "Nothing touches it unless it’s allowed. The valley chooses who stays, who remembers, who is changed. Sometimes I wonder if that's mercy or punishment." Mira’s voice barely trembled, but Daisy heard it: the echo of warning tucked inside each syllable.
Daisy studied Mira’s fingers. They didn’t tremble. There were no scars, no calluses. Even her voice was… brighter. Not just calm, but practiced. “How long have you known about this place?” Daisy asked.
“All my life,” Mira replied, eyes never leaving the stone. “It’s where people like us come to end the cycle.”
Daisy felt an ache deep inside, a reminder of what the cycle had already taken from her—each turn threatened her memories, her name, the edges of who she was. If she failed here, it wouldn't just mean more running or scars; it would mean losing the last of herself, forgotten and hollowed out, until she was nothing but a shadow in someone else’s story.