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Marinette’s hand still felt warm in hers.
She couldn’t bear to let go. It felt like Marinette would truly slip away if she did, despite knowing her friend was already gone. They had lost. Lost not only the miraculous, but she had lost her dearest friend as well.
She didn’t know what she would do; a world without Marinette was inconceivable. The kind girl who had offered her a place on her first day in a new school and a new city. The caring girl who had always been a shoulder to cry on, who had always been there for her.
But it was all gone now, Hawkmoth having claimed what he felt he was due, and then he left. Leaving her with the body of her best friend and tears streaming down her cheeks.
“What wish will make your soul gem shine?” came the bright, androgenous voice.
Alya Césaire looked up at the red unblinking eyes of the Incubator.
The kwami had warned her and Marinette both when they had spotted one roaming Paris one night. They were dangerous, she was warned. They could grant incredible wishes, for a terrible price. They were something different from the kwami, being not even a fraction as old or ancient, but they had preceded the incarnation of the kwami spirits.
Marinette had told her of her encounter with a magical girl — a girl empowered by the Incubators. Of her desperation and her unending battle with witches. She had caught a glimpse of the witch, before being warned that it was not her battle.
The incubator knew of the kwami, expressing considerable interest in them and their powers. Later, Tikki had explained the sort of truce agreed between them. Of how the incubators had been fearful of the kwami’s powers, of their fear that if they tried to seize it, that they might not succeed. Similarly, the kwamii were uncertain of their own power to win such a fight. So, the two groups ignored and did not impede the other.
Alya had wondered what sort of wish would make her make a contract with an incubator, despite the horror that Tikki scarcely described. And now Alya knew.
“I — I wish to go back to when I first met Marinette. Only this time, I would have the power to save her!”
The incubator did not reply, merely staring at her with its red, dead eyes.
Then she felt it, the excruciating pain that felt like her entire body was being ripped apart before it suddenly stopped, an ornate orange and gold jewel landing in her outstretch hands.
Taking it, Alya had a moment to stare at her soul before she felt like she was falling. She caught a glimpse of the brass workings of a mechanical clock and the falling sand of time, before straining upright in her bed in her room.
Breathing hard, Alya Césaire stared wide-eyed around her room; the half-empty moving boxes scattered about and the card on her desk containing the well-wishes from her schoolmates at her last school.