Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It takes seven loops, to realize that the trick to resetting is her death.

 ࣪ ˖ 𓆩✾𓆪 ˖ ࣪

The first time Odessa remembers meeting Estelle, it’s three weeks before the borders come down and the Puppeteer releases their strings.

This is the part that stays the same—a crew of thirteen led by a man named Janus, all there to study Stormhold in some way or another. Odessa, travelling with Mikkel (who she wishes desperately had stayed back with their other siblings), showing up in mid-December so she can compare the manuscripts from the Library to the history left behind. Estelle, another historian, looking to speak on old curses at the next conference in Reine, arriving two days later.

Odessa is doomed from the first day she meets Estelle—when the other woman comes stumbling through the trees, cursing the thickly woven brambles that block one of the paths to the gazebo that Odessa will die in at least five times, before stopping dead in her tracks when she spots Odessa perched on a rock, watching with a faint amusement.

She plays it off poorly, introduces herself with a sunny smile and an outstretched hand—“I’m Estelle,” she says, and her voice is jaunty and failing to be composed.

Odessa grins and shakes her hand. “Odessa,” she returns. “Did you arrive today?”

“Technically, yeah,” Estelle says, grimacing. “At about two in the morning. I came in with Wren and Tyr. Have you met them yet?”

“Nah. I left pretty early this morning to get research done. I’m happy to have met you first, though.” A faint blush rises to Estelle’s cheeks, and Odessa’s heart flutters lightly. Gods save her from gorgeous women.

They’re still holding hands. Estelle either doesn’t realize or doesn’t mind, and she gestures to Odessa’s scattered papers with her other hand.

“What are you researching?”

Odessa grins, and reaches for the largest folder. “The curses and magic, mainly. There’s one complete record from when the town was originally cursed…”

𓆩✾𓆪

They start heading back with the sun begins to set, chatting excitedly about new discoveries. They both have commandeered houses along the southern border, and she bids Estelle a goodbye when they head in opposite directions—she’s settled to the west, with Clio, Mikkel, and Calliope, and Estelle is to the east with Wren, Max, and Tyr.

“So we’re neighbors,” Odessa says, and Estelle grins.

There’s a bright feeling in her chest that doesn’t go away as she walks back, her magic making the plants along the path perk up and brighten.

“Dess!” Mikkel calls when she opens the door. He’s lounging on the couch, feet propped up on the table. “Have you met the new people? You were gone, like, all day.”

“Yeah, I met Estelle,” she says, plopping down on the couch next to him. “She’s a history professor at Cirrus University—fresh out of uni herself, actually. Kinda crazy. She’s really into mythology, which—you know, is my area of expertise at the Library. We spent the day looking through some of the manuscripts I have, comparing the magic concentrations around the gazebo. There’s a real big bloodstain on part of it, and there’s so much hostile magic, it’s insane.”

He squints at her, then grins. “You have a crush on her.”

She blushes immediately. “I do not . She’s just. Cool. Oh my gods.”

“You’re literally so red right now. This is hilarious. I haven’t seen you with a crush since third year and you liked—oh, what was her name, Penelope? The ‘really cool’ architecture major?”

“Shut up!”

Calliope pokes her head around the door, bionic eye clicking. “What’s this? Odessa has a crush on someone?” 

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Clio, Odie’s got a crush on one of the new people!”

“Oh my gods, shut up! ”

𓆩✾𓆪

Despite her protesting, Odessa very much has a crush on Estelle. She’s witty and clever, and—well, gorgeous . Her eyes are a warm, dark brown, like the earth of the forest after a storm, and Odessa feels something in her settle every time she meets Estelle’s gaze.

They spend the next week roaming Stormhold, and Odessa notes the areas with the greatest concentrations of magic while Estelle compares them to the journal of the woman they’ve deemed the Survivor. It’s the only complete record, listlessly detailing the final days until her lover jumps off the cliff where they got married, ending the curse.

“It’s such a strange coincidence,” Estelle notes one morning, as they’re sitting by the gazebo again. “The Survivor says that in the original commune, there were thirteen of them—there’s thirteen of us now.”

Odessa frowns, counts on her fingers—“You’re right,” she says, surprised. “That’s… huh. Very interesting. D’you think Janus knew something? He said he needed thirteen specifically…”

“Maybe. Weird.” Estelle’s lips curl into a playful smile. “Maybe he’s trying to activate the curse again.”

Silence. Then they both snort—“Oh, for sure ,” Odessa scoffs, and Estelle laughs—and after a few more giggles, they return to the Survivor’s manuscripts.

“It’s probably dead, anyways,” Odessa says when they head back at sunset. “The curse would have fizzled out at least fifty years after the ending, unless there was something to keep it tethered—and from the dating of the journal, it’s been over two hundred.”

“You don’t think that the magic-saturated areas would be enough?”

“No, those places were just”—she shivers, though the night is unusually warm—“really violent. But I couldn’t feel anything that felt like a curse. Just… violent ends. The magic sort of explodes out as they die, but they don’t link to anything."

Estelle links their fingers together and squeezes gently. “Well, we don’t have to worry about that. We’ll be fine.”

“Obviously.”

Chapter Text

When the borders come down the first time, Odessa wakes up to vision tinted green and a heartbeat that pulses to a mantra of survive, survive, survive. Nothing else seems amiss—Calliope is curled in her bed, copper curls splayed across her pillow, and Clio’s buzzing snores are a familiar drone.

The sun is barely over the horizon when Odessa pads over to the kitchen and looks out the window to a view that is decidedly not familiar. The barbed-wire fence now stretches up to the sky, and its edges are wreathed in magic, crimson and chanting trapped, trapped, trapped.

She texts Janus, their director—there’s something wrong with the border. have you seen it?

The response is immediate—Yes. Moments later, there’s a text in the group chat—Come to the gazebo at 8, we need to discuss our next steps.

When she tries to text her siblings back home, the message doesn’t go through. Fear curdles in her stomach, and she clutches her phone in a white-knuckled grip.

From the bedroom, she hears the familiar rustle of leathery wings as Clio wakes and stretches, and Calliope’s disgruntled noises as she rolls over to check her phone. The door creaks open, and Calliope pokes her head out, brows furrowed. The light shining through the panels of her bionic eye is a soft green—wasn’t it usually white?

“Odie, did you see Janus’s text?”

“Yeah,” she says. Her hands are shaking.

“Do you know what he’s talking about?”

Odessa tips her head at the window. “Look at the border.”

Calliope barely has time to gasp at the sight before a panicked yell comes from the bedroom. Odessa’s breath catches in her throat, and she sprints for the door.

“Clio?”

The other woman looks up, devastated. “My wings,” she says. “They don’t—” And she raises them up, half their size and glowing faintly with binding magic.

Calliope raises a hand to her mouth in shock. Her eye clicks rapidly, and she looks at Odessa, fearful. “Do you think it’s something to do with Janus’s text and whatever’s going on with the border?”

Odessa tries to reach out with her magic, and is stopped—a burst of red smothers the usual teal—her magic is being dampened. Her pulse quickens, and she looks at her friends. Personal magic being suppressed. Hybrid traits that could be an advantage, bound by the curse. Trapped like lions in a coliseum by magic that burned at the touch. Sloping script on weathered pages, detailing the need to survive. To kill.

“I don’t wanna cause a panic,” she says slowly, “but in the main journal I’ve been studying with Estelle, Stormhold’s original curse started like this.”

Clio pulls her now-useless wings tight around her. “Do you think we activated it in some way?”

“I dunno.” She picks up her car keys. “We should find out.”

𓆩✾𓆪

Janus confirms it, something manic in his eyes. “The curse forces us into a game. You get three chances, and then you’re out.”

“Out,” Odessa repeats. The word tastes like blood, sharp iron and sticky crimson on her teeth. “We’re released from it?”

A flash of sharp teeth, an uncanny grin. “In a sense.”

“We die,” Estelle says. Her eyes are dark, spotted with flecks of green that weren’t there yesterday. “Just like the manuscript we’ve been looking at, Odie. From the Survivor. You start off peaceful, and once you ‘die’ twice—”

“It’s time to start killing,” Odessa finishes. She reaches for Estelle’s hand, linking their fingers together. Estelle squeezes her hand, thumb rubbing soothing circles.

“So what do we do?” Mikkel asks. His eyes are wide, scared and excited at the same time.

“Well, we play, don’t we?” Wren says. They let out a sharp little laugh. “What else can we do? Surely we have all seen the borders. There is no way for us to leave.”

“Excited to kill us all?” Zephyr snipes lightly. “I know the confinement has been driving you insane, Wrenny, but there’s no need to lose it right away.”

Wren rolls their eyes—or eye, rather, the one that isn’t simply a scarred pit. “I’m just being practical, honey.”

Janus coughs. “Well. You all know the rules, now. You know what you have to do.” Even past the dampening of her magic, Odessa spots the brief sparks of red in Janus’s hair, almost blending in with the auburn. “Good luck, everyone.”

Driven by some unknown force, they all scatter.

𓆩✾𓆪

The first loop goes something like this: Odessa meets up with her housemates and her brother immediately. Estelle links up with Wren and Tyr, with a promise to see Odessa later. Through the knot of fear in her chest, she can’t help but mourn what a terrible time it is to fall in love—but it’s all they have. They just have to survive, now.

In the mad scramble to prepare, they don’t notice how the landscape shifts. New caves and pitfalls open in areas saturated with magic, vines and roots twist and grab at unsuspecting feet—within the first hour, Mikkel and Calliope trip into the same cave, plummeting with a sick snap of bones to accompany their impact. It spits them back out moments later, twin scars racing up their legs.

Odessa’s blood runs cold when she sees their eyes—Mikkel’s right eye and Calliope’s bionic one have the same dandelion-yellow shine. So this is how the game goes, she thinks. Green is good, green like life. Yellow like deca.

Clio loses her first two lives in the first week, a few days apart. When she slips back to the house after losing her second life, her skin is a pallid grey and her horns are cracked and seeping crimson. Her eyes are dark, the same color as freshly-spilled blood.

“Odie, something’s wrong,” she says, and her hands are shaking. “I want—I want to hurt things. But I don’t. I wouldn’t, I swear—”

“I know, I know, it’s okay,” Odessa says quickly, pulling her into a tight hug. “It’s just the curse. You’re still in there, it’s just the curse influencing you. I know. It’s okay.”

When Wren drowns a day later, sent to their final life, Estelle shows up in a panic. “They’ve gone insane, Dess.” Her eyes are speckled with gold, having lost her first life a few hours after Mikkel and Calliope on that first day. “They’ve lost their mind—I don’t trust them not to turn on me. Even after all their promises.”

“Then stay with us,” Odessa says, squeezing her hands. “Clio’s basically buried the impulse, so she’s safe. We have room, and supplies.” 

She looks torn. “I can’t leave Max and Tyr. Who knows what Wren might do to them if I’m not around—especially since they’re still on their first lives. Like you.”

“All three of you have a safe place here,” Odessa swears. She brushes a light kiss across the back of Estelle’s hand. “I promise. If you need it, all three of you have an ally in us.”

“Thank you,” Estelle says, voice cracking. She pulls away, regret clear on her face. “I need to get back. I’ll see you later?”

“Of course.” Odessa catches her hand as she turns. “I love you.”

Estelle’s eyes light up, a shaky smile splitting her face. “I love you too. A really bad time for it, since we’ll probably die soon, but—” She exhales, a sharp huff of breath, and kisses Odessa.

The old, dusty pages that she studies talk about love and first kisses like something exhilarating. Like fireworks bursting in the sky, an all-consuming ball of light in their chests, the adrenaline of a freefall, heady and thrilling. Like the world righting itself, and everything falling into place.

Kissing Estelle is desperation and metallic fear on her tongue. Her lips are slightly chapped, and she tastes like apples—one of the few things that grow in Stormhold. A thousand different declarations of love, and a thousand more apologies for an attachment that can only end in heartbreak. All in the brief press of their chapped lips, chaste and rushed before Estelle pulls back. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are bright, and Odessa feels like the world is about to fall out from under her feet.

“I—I’ll see you soon,” Estelle says. “Stay safe, okay?”

“Yeah,” Odessa says, rough. “You too.”

Two days later, Wren blows up the townhouse they were sharing with Estelle, Max, and Tyr. Estelle and Max lose a life each, sending Estelle to her final chance and Max into murky yellow. Tyr survives unscathed, but shows up at Odessa’s door with a pale face and all of their bags packed.

In the second week, a little less than half of their group is on their final life. A fact that changes quickly after lightning splits open the sky, announcing Wren’s permanent end. Odessa finds their body, burns littered across the front of their body—both eyes are missing now, the other side of their face entirely blown off.

Tiny yellow feathers surround their head in a thin, scattered halo, and a chill runs through Odessa. She texts Estelle, and together they bury their fallen friend.

After that, they start dropping like flies.

By the end of the second week, over half of them are dead—all that remain are Odessa herself, Mikkel, Estelle, Clio, Max, and Zephyr. All of them are on their final life, and there is a constant dread in the pit of Odessa’s stomach.

She’s mapping out the tunnel system in the west when thunder booms again, dust falling from the ceiling. Her heart sinks, and she prays it’s Zephyr—her connection to xem is much more surface level, compared to the other four.

The gods have abandoned Stormhold, though. Her phone buzzes with a message—from Max—and something in her cracks as she reads it. And then reads it again.

And again.

And again.

The words don’t change, damning in their little grey bubble. 

Mikkel just killed Estelle.

Her brother. Her twin had just killed the other half of her heart.

He had killed someone.

Her phone slips from trembling fingers, clattering to the ground with a distant thmp. She stares at the space where it was, watching her fingers shake with blank eyes. There’s a pit in her stomach, blood rushing in her ears.

It feels real, now.

Her phone buzzes again, the newly-cracked screen lighting up.

I’m with Clio, in the northwest caves, reads the new text from Max. We’re trying to figure out what to do, where are you?

omw now, she answers, and then she’s running.

When she comes out of the tunnels into one of the caverns that Clio has turned hospitable, it’s to her and Max sitting around a small fire, sharpening the old steel swords they had found during that first week. Max’s eyes are dark with rage, and Clio’s wings stand stiffly at her back. Wordlessly, they greet her, and she sees the plan in their eyes.

As the sun rises, they set out to hunt.

𓆩✾𓆪

Zephyr’s body is crumpled at the bottom of a cliff. Max and Clio lay, broken and bloody, in front of their house. The southwestern one, with Calliope’s crocheted sunflower blanket draped over the couch, Clio’s watercolors taped on the walls, and Odessa’s papers scattered on every surface.

It’s in front of this house that she faces her brother, looking every inch like twins—except for their eyes.

Odessa’s are red like the apples she split with Estelle in the dead of night. She’s not sure she really feels the bloodlust—there’s a prickle, of course, a whisper in her head that sounds suspiciously like Kit, chanting, begging, pleading for her to maim and kill and to just spill blood—but it’s quiet.

Mikkel’s right eye is a bloody scarlet, gleaming with barely-contained madness. His left eye is its original teal, though it shines with the same frenzy. It had consumed him like Wren and Zephyr, leaving behind any trace of the mischievous brother Odessa had known before. He had permanently killed four of the original thirteen—Sabine on the day he reached his last life, then Estelle, and Max, and finally Clio.

Odessa knows that he’ll kill her, too, before the sun sets. He’s always been the better sibling, and now with the edge of the red curse—well. Despite his blathering about how he wanted her to win, how he had manipulated the game to get them here, she knows it can only end one way.

The ghosts are whispering in her ears, to turn her blade on him, take him by surprise while he talks—

“What will you do after this?” she asks, cutting him off.

He stops, confused. “What d’you mean?”

“After you kill me. After you break the curse. What’ll you do?”

“Odie,” he says. His voice is pained. “Did you not just hear everything I just said? I double-crossed everyone, just for you to win. I’m not gonna kill you.”

She smiles sadly. “You won’t go out without a fight, and you won’t hold back, Mik. I think we both know who’ll win that exchange.”

He tries one last time, desperation coloring his voice. “Can’t we just—leave it until the morning? The sun is setting, nighttime is never a good time to die. We can stay here, just for a little while.”

The ghosts’ chanting is a rush in her ears, a cacophony.

“They won’t let us,” she says, and she sees the defeat in his mismatched eyes. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

The fight is brutally quick—Mikkel’s swipes are deadly and precise, while her own swing wildly, too detached to care much. She’ll see Estelle soon, and Clio and Calliope and Max and Tyr—and it’s this that lets her die with a smile on her face, as Mikkel’s sword bites deep into her chest.

Well, that was disappointing, a voice sighs in her head. Is that all you have, my dear? No, that simply won’t do, not at all. Try again.

 ࣪ ˖ 𓆩✾𓆪 ˖ ࣪

Odessa opens her eyes, and her chest doesn’t hurt.

Clio snores beside her, wings splayed out across her bed, gleaming silver and fully sized. From the kitchen, she hears Calliope humming to herself, and she wonders— is this my afterlife?

She lies there for a few minutes more, before Calliope pokes her head in.

“Good morning, sleepyheads!” she chirps, and the light of her bionic eye is white. “Rise and shine, I hear the last of our little study group has arrived!”

Odessa’s heart stops.

Chapter Text

Estelle greets her without a hint of recognition. Both of Mikkel’s eyes are teal, and he still sticks to her side, unsure of everybody else. The barbed-wire fences only come to her waist, and her magic hums in her veins, free and unbound.

Nothing is the same, and yet—somehow, everything is the same.

Clio flies freely around the village. Zephyr is snarky and sharp, but apologizes if xe strikes a nerve. Before he died, he would’ve just laughed. 

Odessa stares at the manuscripts she’s studied a million times, thoughts swirling in her head. She remembers every death vividly, the tang of copper in her mouth when she dropped to her final life, and her twin brother’s sword splitting open her chest. She remembers every roar of thunder as friends turned on friends—eleven of them, until it was her and Mikkel standing before a charred house, surrounded by decay and blood.

But nobody else remembers. Nobody else knows—it’s the middle of December, and Estelle arrived with Wren and Tyr two days ago.

She starts to wonder if she dreamed the whole thing—but it felt so real.

Try again, whispers a phantom voice.

Two weeks later, Odessa wakes to the thrumming of her pulse in her ears, a familiar mantra of survive, survive, survive. The borders stretch to the sky, a crimson cage surrounding them. Clio’s wings are half their size, and she can’t feel her magic anymore.

The texts to her other siblings don’t go through. Numbly, she texts Janus—there’s something wrong with the border. have you seen it?

Yes. And moments later, a text in the group chat—Come to the gazebo at 8, we need to discuss our next steps.

Her breath quickens, blood roaring in her ears.

Not again.

𓆩✾𓆪

Janus’s eyes linger on her as he speaks. “The curse forces us into a game. You get three chances, and then you’re out.”

“Out,” Odessa says, almost mechanical. “We die, don’t we.”

Janus dips his head in a nod, narrowing his eyes. 

“So what do we do?” Mikkel asks, and his voice shakes.

“Well, we play, don’t we?” Wren says, and Odessa stills. “What else can we do? Surely we have all seen the borders. There is no way for us to leave.”

“Excited to kill us all?” Zephyr snipes. “I know the confinement has been driving you insane, Wrenny, but there’s no need to lose it right away.”

Wren rolls their eyes. “I’m just being practical, honey.”

It’s the same, Odessa thinks. She curls her hands into fists, nails cutting crescents into her palms. It’s the exact same.

Janus coughs. “Well. You all know the rules, now. You know what you have to do.” Wisps of red nestle in his hair like a crown. “Good luck, everyone.”

Once more, they scatter.

This time, Odessa convinces Mikkel and Estelle to stay with them. She’s paranoid and jumpy, looking for any clues as to what may have happened.

This time, it’s her and Estelle who fail to spot a pitfall. Estelle hits the ground first, bones splintering seconds before Odessa crumples.

On the fifth day, Wren and Janus reach their final life. They come to Odessa’s door, asking for Mikkel—her brother has been antagonizing them, apparently, and they’re itching for blood.

When she refuses, Wren simply shrugs and cuts her head from her shoulders.

Distantly, she hears Estelle’s shriek of rage as she comes down from the attic—and then scarlet magic stitches her body back together and everything is red, red, red.

“That was a bit disappointing,” Janus says. “Try harder next time, would you?”

Odessa bares her bloody teeth, and they flee.

This time, she feels the curse. Every sense is heightened, and she feels her fingers twitch toward the sword belted at her waist. Her heart races, and she wants—

She wants to kill. To hurt. To bury her sword deep into someone’s flesh, and watch the blood drain from their body and the life drain from their eyes.

“—dessa. Odessa.” Clio shakes her shoulder, and Odessa blinks. “You good?”

Her mouth is dry. “Yeah. Just—I didn’t expect it to be that strong.”

Mikkel comes out from the back garden and stops dead in his tracks. “Woah! Odie, you’re red now!”

Her answering smile feels more like a grimace. “Wren and Janus came by looking for you.”

“Oh, shoot. Is that how you died?”

“I’d never give up my baby brother,” she says lightly, ignoring the way her chest throbs.

He punches her in the shoulder. “I’m four minutes younger, asshole. But thanks.” Both his eyes are gleaming red this time, and they meet hers with a frenzied excitement. “Wanna get revenge?”

She grins, feral. “Yes.”

𓆩✾𓆪

They manage to kill Janus, before Zephyr and Wren overpower them. They die fighting back-to-back, and Zephyr’s axe slices neatly through her jugular.

No, no, too fast, the voice complains. And with the wrong person—try again.

Odessa wakes with a gasp, staring at a familiar ceiling. Clio’s snores are a low drone beside her.

 ࣪ ˖ 𓆩✾𓆪 ˖ ࣪

The third time, the borders rise after a week.

There’s a pattern to their deaths—the first two are always to falling. The third and fourth loops, she makes it to the final five. An arrow to the throat, a harsh shove off a cliff.

The fifth loop starts, and Odessa’s pulse is rabbit-quick.

Survive.

The Game has already started. She sends herself to red almost immediately, and hunts .

It’s Clio who stops her, devastated and utterly confused.

“Why, Odie?” she pleads. “What are you doing?”

Odessa laughs, hysterical. “I just want to make it stop, Clio. It’ll reset again, after this, and it’ll just keep going—I just want it to stop!”

“What—”

“It’s a loop, Clio! You don’t remember, but we keep doing this and I’m tired of it.” She stands, sword held loosely in her hand—she’s put Sabine and Earl to their red lives (four times—four times she’d cut them down), and she’d managed to take Zephyr by surprise, sending him to a permanent end. Until it loops again.

She sees Janus coming down the hill, something both panicked and intrigued in his eyes.

“This one’s a mess. I’m done,” she says, and turns her sword on herself.

“Odie, no—” Clio shouts, reaching out for her—

A poor showing, the Voice says disapprovingly. Try to make it last a little longer, yes? It’s a performance, a production—not a single monologue.

She wakes to green eyes and red borders.

 ࣪ ˖ 𓆩✾𓆪 ˖ ࣪

She dies, again and again and again. Sometimes she makes it to the end, the victor standing alone. The Voice still doesn’t like it—something about the wrong circumstances. She doesn’t remember how many loops there have been, now.

One of them, she had stayed in the tunnels, hiding away from everyone. Cave-ins and traps had been her downfall, and she’d never heard the Voice so angry—she doesn’t try it again. She thinks she’s going crazy when Janus’s next speech starts with a “let’s try this again,” and nobody else thinks it’s strange.

She’s died to Mikkel, Janus, Wren, Zephyr, Tyr—she’s killed almost everyone, at some point or another. But never Estelle, or Clio, or Calliope. She can’t—and won’t—kill them.

Estelle notices something wrong in many of the loops, and remains a steady presence at her side. They fall in love, over and over again, and it’s these loops that the Voice seems to like the most.

“Why?” Odessa whispers one night, sitting on the roof. “I mean, you barely know me. We only met a few days ago.” They don’t get a peace period anymore. Since the fifth loop, the Game has always begun with Odessa’s waking.

“I know,” Estelle says. “But I feel like I’ve known you forever.” She taps her chest. “In here. You’re familiar, somehow. And—” Her face is pensive. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“I won’t.”

Estelle looks up at the stars. “Sometimes, I swear I remember things that haven’t happened. In dreams. I see Mikkel killing me, and Earl telling me to kill him, and I remember burying Wren with you—” Odessa’s blood runs cold.

Mikkel had, admittedly, killed her a lot. The eighth loop, it had been the two of them and Earl, thick as thieves, until the final three. And Wren—she had only buried them with Estelle once. All the other times Estelle had teamed with them, she had buried them alone. Never again with Odessa.

“—Mostly, though,” Estelle continues, “I remember you. Promising to keep me safe, that I’ll always have a place with you. No matter what.”

“Well,” Odessa says, around a lump in her throat. “You will.” She doesn’t know if she should breach the topic of the loops—as far as she knows, she’s the only one who remembers them in their entirety. For now, she leans her head on Estelle’s shoulder, and they just breathe.

That loop, she, Estelle, and Mikkel end up as the final three again.

Mikkel squints at her with mismatched eyes, looking between the two of them. He’d been somewhat distant this loop, mostly going off on his own but always coming back to the house most nights. She always dreads finales where he’s one of the last ones—he may have killed her at least twenty times, but he’s still her brother.

Now, he’s looking between them and she swears she can see a bit of their magic, bright and teal, looping around his head in playful swirls.

“Before we do this,” he says slowly, “I have a weird question.”

“Shoot,” Odessa sighs.

“Do you ever get the feeling that we’ve done this all before?”

Odessa freezes and Estelle says, “Yes.” She glances at Odessa. “I get these—memories, I think, but they haven’t happened. Not that I know of. But they must have happened.”

“Oh, good,” Mikkel says, looking immensely relieved. “I thought I was going crazy when nobody else seemed to know what I was talking about. And sometimes when I do certain things, I swear I feel—”

“Like things are repeating?”

“Because they are,” Odessa says through numb lips. “It’s a loop. Every time I die, it resets.”

Estelle pauses. “What?”

“It’s a loop,” she repeats. “This must be the twenty-something time, by now. It always resets to December 18th, and always when I die. And if I win, it just sends me back because it wasn’t ‘the right win.’”

“So you’ve—” Mikkel starts, and then stops. He blinks. “How many times have you died?”

She shrugs helplessly. “I lost count after the fifteenth or so. They all start to blend together.” She picks up her sword. “We should just—get it over with.”

“Odie—”

“No, no, it’ll be fine,” she says, a touch hysterical. “You won’t—you’ve never remembered the full sessions before, only flashes that you don’t think are even real. And we can’t just stay , because no matter how long we put it off for, we will be forced to kill each other, and it’s just—it’s better for us to get it over with.” When neither of the other two move, she sighs. “Please?"

They exchange looks, before slowly unsheathing their swords.

“If you’re sure,” Estelle says uncertainly. She reaches for Odessa’s hand, and presses a soft kiss to the back of it. “I guess I’ll see you in the next loop.”

Mikkel stands a bit awkwardly—he was never one for physical contact. But he meets her eyes with a familiar grimace, shared over countless loops and twenty years before they came to Stormhold, and something in her lightens.

“What if we just… don’t give them a final showdown?” Estelle asks suddenly. “There’s a perfectly good cliff somewhere around here. You’ll die to reset it, and you don’t have to remember killing us again—at least, this time.”

Odessa blinks. They’ve never actually tried that before. And it sounds kind of nice. Mikkel is already nodding, so she shrugs.

“Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

She drops her sword, holds her hand out to Mikkel.

Together, they all walk to the cliff. Together, they jump.

An interesting end, the Voice muses. You were so close to ending everything, though. A pity. Try again.

Chapter Text

Odessa almost cries, hearing Calliope and Clio’s soft breathing beside her. They died so quickly, that last round—they’d barely had any time together.

Even with the curse pressing in on her, she lets herself lay in bed for a little while longer, listening to them just… be alive.

Her phone buzzes, and she rolls over to check—and her breath catches in her throat.

I remember all of them, Mikkel’s text says. I don’t know what’s different about this one, but I remember everything. Sorry for killing you all those times 😭

She snorts quietly. you’re forgiven lol, she answers. not like you can really control it.

Yeah but I still feel bad.

no srsly don’t worry abt it. u wanna come over?

Check your front door. lmao

wtf????

She slips out of bed, opens the front door just a crack, and snorts. Mikkel grins a bit sheepishly, and—oh. His eyes aren’t entirely green, like they have been for the past couple of rounds. They’re the same old teal, the barest flecks of emerald shining through.

She tries not to cry, and he can clearly see it in her face.

“Oh, no,” he says frantically. “Are you good? I mean, clearly not because this is the however many loops it’s been by now, but—”

She lets out a hiccuping laugh. “No, no, I’m good. Kinda. It’s just—I haven’t. I haven’t seen your real eyes in so long.”

“Oh. Um. Yay?”

She realizes belatedly she still hasn’t let him in, and opens the door wider, stepping back so he can enter. “So. You remember everything?”

“Yeah. All the loops. Everything.”

“Sheesh. How’re you feeling?”

“Confused,” he says dryly. “But mostly, I kinda wanna get revenge on everyone. Especially Janus and Zephyr.”

“Strange. They’re usually the ones you gravitate to.”

“I know. And they’re why I betray you. So I wanna kill them.”

Odessa laughs. “Well, I certainly won’t argue with that.”

𓆩✾𓆪

They don’t intentionally send themselves to red, not like Odessa did in one of the first loops. But they don’t try particularly hard to keep themselves off of red, and by the end of the first week, Odessa is on her second life and Mikkel is on his last.

They’re joined by a very bemused Estelle and Calliope, both on their last lives and bloodthirsty.

“Is he always like this?” Estelle whispers playfully, as they watch him rig up some wires to explosives set underneath Janus’s front door.

Odessa’s heart twinges—of course, only one of them would be able to remember. But she whispers back, “Yeah, it’s the little miscreant in him. A flair for the dramatic, too.”

They’re all standing back, wary of the bomb that he’s setting up—for good reason.

One moment he’s fiddling with the wires, and the next—

Odessa is flat on her back, watching lightning split open the sky with ringing ears. Even as her hearing returns slowly and the other two push themselves up, she can only lay on the damp grass in shock.

Mikkel has never died first. In all the loops so far, he’s never gone out first. That honor most commonly belongs to Wren, or Sabine, or Decima. They’ve all done it at some point, except for Mikkel.

And of course, it’s the loop where he remembers everything.

In the back of her head, she hears the Voice chuckling to itself. This time, she swears it’s Janus—the same laugh he has when he goes on a rampage.

𓆩✾𓆪

Estelle curls up under her arm that night, their breath mingling in the cold air.

“That felt wrong,” she murmurs. “It shouldn’t have been him. He shouldn’t have been out first—something felt very wrong.”

“I know,” Odessa whispers. She feels colder than usual, even with the extra heat from Estelle.

She still hears the Voice in her head, bouncing around the confines of her skull. So close to ending everything. It had never told her that before.

So what had changed? It had been her, Mikkel, and Estelle. A final grouping she was used to—usually, though, they weren’t all allied.

Was that the key to it all? A betrayal?

Her stomach turns at the thought. Not this loop. She can’t betray Estelle this time—not her rock, not after losing her brother first. Following previous patterns, it will be Clio who dies next, out of their team. Then Calliope or Estelle. And then her. Always her, always last.

Or maybe—maybe finally, she’ll die before all of them. Maybe she won’t have to watch everyone she loves be murdered by people who have all been her friends at some point.

But she’s never been that lucky, in any of these loops.

Janus holds her gaze as he drives his sword through Clio, holding her there so she loses her last life right as the magic brings her back.

Decima pushes Estelle off a cliff, before Janus tackles her off right after—the following fight between Calliope and Odessa is short and bloody, both of them exhausted from running. Odessa dies accepting Calliope’s teary apology, and the Voice sighs.

Another turn, then.

 ࣪ ˖ 𓆩✾𓆪 ˖ ࣪

Two more loops pass, and nobody but Odessa remembers a thing. They’re starting to feel more and more like repeats—people dying in the same order, to the same things, on the same days. The only difference now, are the eyes—sometimes, it’s just flecks of color, representing which life everyone is on, and sometimes it’s the whole iris. She doesn’t know which one she prefers—the humanity of eyes that look almost normal, or the detachment of eyes that are too monochromatic to be human.

She’s never seen her own eyes until this loop—when Sabine cuts one from her face and brings her to her last life, and waits for her to come back before stomping on it with a feral smile. The iris is sunflower yellow, so close to the color her eyes were before the Games. She stares, and the almost-whole mass stares back with a blown-out pupil.

She tries not to gag, reaches to feel out the scar on her face where Sabine’s knife had cut. One of her more gory deaths, for sure.

When it ends, Wren’s foot against her back and wind rushing in her ears as she falls, she wonders if it’s time to shake things up.

 ࣪ ˖ 𓆩✾𓆪 ˖ ࣪

Estelle changes her plans just an hour after she wakes, showing up at her door with a filled notebook and ink-stained fingers.

“I remember,” she says, her voice shaking. “I remember all the loops.” She holds up the notebook, and Odessa realizes it must be filled with her memories. “How do we stop it?”

“I don’t know.”

Their phones buzz, Estelle’s from her pocket and Odessa’s on the coffee table. They don’t look at the text—it’s the same one Janus always sends. Estelle’s eyes are a bright green, sharp and unwavering. Something like hope burns in Odessa’s chest, and she takes a rose out of the vase on the table. Holding it out to Estelle, she says, “It won’t be easy.”

“I know,” Estelle says, taking the rose and slipping it into the pocket of her overalls. “But what else is there to do?”

𓆩✾𓆪

After Janus’s gazebo speech and the usual first day prep, they lock themselves in the attic and write down everything they can think of.

“I know it has to end with the two of us,” Odessa says. “And it’s not one where we fight, or where we die together. But that’s all there’s been.”

“Well, you have to be the one to win,” Estelle reasons. “Since it’s your death that resets the loops and not mine, it’s definitely more connected to you.”

They’re quiet for a bit.

“We’ll figure it out,” Estelle says softly. “We have time. And if we fail in this one, you can try again, as many times as it takes.”

Odessa snorts. “I’ve been doing that. I’ve lived at least two years of loops, at this point. If not more—I’ve lost count, honestly.”

“Over fifty, I think. Think we can keep it under a hundred?”

“Maybe.”

Estelle furrows her brow, picks up the Survivor’s journal. “Maybe there’s a hint in here. I mean, she broke the original curse. Somehow.”

“Her wife sacrificed herself,” Odessa says dryly. “We’ve tried that before.”

Estelle chews at her lip, thoughtful. “I haven’t done the sacrificing yet.”

“I don’t like it.”

“It’s all we have left.”

Neither of them like it, but Odessa concedes the point. There’s one other thing they haven’t tried, but Odessa refuses to think about it. So they finalize that plan, and prepare to play the Game once more.

𓆩✾𓆪

It is truly terrible luck that Estelle is out first, that loop. Wren—as always—goes a bit mad when they reach their last life, and they blow up the townhouse with Estelle and Max still inside. But Odessa keeps the information they’ve compiled close to her chest, and she leaves roses at her grave every day, as their numbers dwindle.

It ends in a dance that Odessa knows well—brother and sister, matching crimson eyes, apologies for betrayals.

“I feel like we’ve done this before,” Mikkel says while they struggle against each other, locked in a grapple. “It feels very weirdly familiar.”

Odessa lets out a strained laugh. “We have. You’ve only remembered it about six times, but we’ve done this before. Many times.”

“What does that even mean?!”

He kills her again. The Voice is quiet, displeased.

 ࣪ ˖ 𓆩✾𓆪 ˖ ࣪

The earth is angrier, for the next few loops. Thunderstorms come more frequently, the rain making paths almost untraversable. The cliffs are steeper, and the forest takes more lives than anyone.

Odessa watches as everyone dies, helpless to do anything. Janus’s face is set in an almost permanent snarl, and he kills Estelle with a mindless vengeance—Odessa’s blood runs cold when another loop ends, his sword through her chest and his voice snapping, Try again.

His eyes are a poisonous green at the gazebo, dagger-sharp and pinning her in place.

She gets the message. No more planning.

Time for a change, then.

𓆩✾𓆪

She goes with Max this time, the two of them going to meet up with Estelle, Wren, and Tyr. She promises to check in with Clio and Calliope as much as she can, and tells Mikkel to not do anything she wouldn’t.

It’s strange, not living in the cabin—this is the first time she’s actually stayed somewhere else. The townhouse is so much bigger and taller, and Odessa feels too small in it. But it’s worth it, curling up with Estelle at night and just—talking.

This loop, they’re inseparable. Estelle falls hard and fast, and Odessa—well, she’s always loved her, since that first day in that first loop. At the end of the week, they make their way up one of the eastern hills as the sun is peeking its head over the horizon, a crown of roses on their heads—soft yellow and red, matching their eyes (an unfortunate accident in the forest had led to the loss of their first lives, and Odessa is sick of the gazebo roof collapsing). In the quiet dawn, they whisper vows to each other, exchanging woven grass rings.

“I wish we had more time to enjoy this,” Odessa says wistfully.

Estelle hums in agreement, laying her head on Odessa’s shoulder. “A shame we’re stuck in a death game. Maybe in another life, eh?”

“Maybe.” She thinks of the other loops, biting her lip. “Hopefully it’s better than this one.”

Mikkel teases her relentlessly when she tells him about it, but digs around the cabin until he finds a pair of rings in one of the cabinets, delicate gold vines twisting around tiny emeralds. They fit strangely well, slotting perfectly on their fingers, and Odessa tries not to shiver when her magic purrs, content beneath her skin.

That night, she brings out the Survivor’s journals, searching for a mention of rings—she recalls that the Survivor was married, but she can’t recall reading anything about their wedding rings, even after the death of the Survivor’s wife.

There’s nothing, so Odessa forgets about it, and focuses on surviving.

When Estelle reaches her last life—betrayed by Wren again, a landmine triggered by the opening of their front door—they go hunting. Sabine and Earl are dead already, lost to the tunnels, and Odessa can’t bring herself to kill their allies yet.

So they take Wren down first, smarting from the betrayal. Then, when Zephyr kills Calliope and Janus kills Tyr, they meet up with Clio and Max. When Odessa buries her sword in Janus’s chest, there’s a gleam of excitement in his eyes, and he grins with bloody teeth before lightning heralds his last breath.

Mikkel dies, shot by Decima before her head is lopped cleanly off her shoulders by Max.

The curse is overwhelming, and Odessa sees the shift in the others’ bodies right before they all turn on each other. She fights back-to-back with Estelle, and when Clio’s body drops, tattered wings splaying out on the grass, she doesn’t know what to do.

It’s her and Estelle, now. She looks at her wife, and Estelle looks back, looking lost.

She hears Janus’s Voice in her head, an echo of a memory—so close to ending everything.

Is this how?

“Odie?” Estelle’s brows are furrowed. “Are you alright?”

Her pulse roars in her ears. “Yeah. I just—I’m not sure what to do.” Her fingers curl tighter around the hilt of her sword.

There’s a brush of cold against the back of her neck, and Janus’s voice whispers, do it. Red magic, a web stretching across the sky, flashes in her eyes.

“We can figure it out,” Estelle is saying, and Odessa’s grip firms.

This can’t be how it ends. But maybe—maybe it is.

They haven’t tried betrayal before. She couldn’t stomach the thought, but if it’s the only way to end it—

She swings, just barely missing Estelle’s neck as she stumbles back with a startled yell.

“I’m sorry,” Odessa says, choking back a sob, swinging again. “Stelle, I’m sorry—”

Estelle brings up her sword to parry, looking panicked. “Odie, what—why?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “You won’t—you won’t remember.”

Her next strike lands true, burying steel deep into Estelle’s side. Odessa catches her as she falls, crying now. Estelle stares up at her, scarlet eyes wide with betrayal. Blood bubbles at her lips as Odessa repeats her apologies, weeping.

“It’ll just loop again,” she sobs, more to herself than Estelle. “And you won’t remember, and we can just try again. I’m sorry.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, bowing her head. She can feel Estelle’s blood on her hands, seeping into the cracks of her skin and coating the ring on her finger.

Thunder roars, and there’s a flash of white, bright even through her eyelids.

When she opens them again, Janus stands before her, still ghostly and transparent, shining red. He looks delighted.

Bravo, bravo! I must admit, I didn’t expect you to do that! Oh, what a delicious surprise. He claps mockingly. Honestly, I don’t think I even want you to mirror the original—that was so much better. Wish granted, in a manner of speaking.

She stares at him, tears streaking down her cheeks. “What?”

You asked. Years ago. His voice is gleeful. I delivered. And now, so have you.

Behind them, the border shimmers—then vanishes. Her magic floods back into her body, thrumming in her veins.

“What do you mean, I asked?”

He smiles. You’ve read the manuscript. Your own journal. You’re wearing your ring—the only thing that let your magic back through, even briefly. Didn’t you connect the dots?

Her heart stops. Janus laughs, bone-chilling and darkly amused, before vanishing. 

Tucked away in a side pocket, her phone starts buzzing. Hundreds of messages, from over a month. She knows who they’re from—texts from friends and every sibling but Mikkel, surely concerned about their radio silence.

Estelle’s eyes are blank.