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The atmosphere within the atelier was not merely an absence of sound. It was heavy.
It pressed against the walls, settled into the floorboards, and clung to the very air they breathed. The silence was the sound of a countdown. A ticking clock that no one could stop.
When the front door finally groaned open, the apprentices didn’t look up with their usual curiosity. They didn’t have to. The air following Coco and Qifrey was brittle and cold.
Coco did not offer a greeting. Her face was a ghost of itself, eyes blown wide and glassy, skin as pale as the parchment of an unfinished, failed spell.
She brushed past Agott, her shoulder barely grazing the other girl’s, and fled toward their shared room. The slam of the door echoed through the hallway like a wall breaker spell being used, letting her escape and sealing her away from the rest of the world.
Everyone turned to Qifrey. He stood in the entryway, his hand still gripping his staff, his knuckles white against the dark wood. He looked older than he had that morning.
“Master…?” Tetia whispered, her voice trembling, clutching her hands to her chest. “What happened? Where is she going? Why does she look like... like that?”
Qifrey didn't answer at first. He walked to the center of the room, his movements stiff, as if he were holding his very skeleton together by sheer force of will.
He looked around at the faces of his students and his watchful eye. His expression was a mix of exhaustion and profound, irreparable grief.
“She has her answer,” he said, his voice devoid of its usual warmth, hollow and echoing. “The book that she searched for in the tower confirmed it. A spell of restoration, powerful enough to return her mother…”
Qifrey sees the hope light up in his students' eyes. “But it is forbidden. The Knights Moralis have agreed to oversee it, to ensure the balance is kept."
He paused, his eyes landing on the closed door to the room Coco ran to. The wood seemed to vibrate with the sheer misery radiating from within.
“In five days,” Qifrey continued, “Coco will cast the spell. And to pay the price for bringing back a soul that was lost to magic using forbidden magic, the Knights will erase her memory. All of it. The atelier, her life here, and... all of us.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Agott felt a cold spike of dread drive through her chest.
It was a physical, stabbing pain. She had spent months building walls. Tall, thick, impenetrable walls, only for Coco to be the one who meticulously dismantled them, one brick at a time. She gripped her robe, her knuckles whitening.
‘No,’ she thought, a desperate, irrational anger bubbling up beneath the grief. ‘You don't get to leave. You don't get to forget me.’
Dinner that evening was a mockery of a meal. The bowls of stew remained untouched, the steam curling into nothingness, cooling as the minutes ticked by. Coco did not emerge.
Agott couldn't stand the sight of the untouched food. Driven by a cocktail of concern and a fierce, terrified irritation, she grabbed the bowl.
“Agott?” Olruggio called out.
“I'm giving this to Coco,” She hastily replies, before disappearing.
“Wait-”
Qifrey places a hand on Olruggio’s shoulder before he finishes. “Let her be, Olly”
Olruggio sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Agott marched to the door, and then she knocked, sharp, insistent, and demanding.
“Coco. Open the door.”
Silence.
“I know you're in there. Don't act like a child.” Agott says out of frustration. “You think avoiding us makes this easier? You think hiding makes the world stop spinning? You think your silence is a mercy?”
"Go away, Agott," a muffled voice croaked from behind the wood. It was broken, ragged, as if every word cost her a piece of her soul.
Agott’s breath hitched. She opened her mouth to snap something sharp, something that would cut through that wall, but the words died in her throat.
She looked down at the tray of food in her hands, her shoulders slumping. She set the tray on the floor outside the door, her hands trembling.
“Just eat,” she whispered, her voice failing to maintain its usual cold and sharp facade. “Please. Don't make us watch you starve on top of everything else.”
She walked back upstairs to their shared room, but she didn't hear a sound until she was halfway down the hall, the sound of sharp, rhythmic sobbing coming from behind the closed door.
It was the sound of a girl saying goodbye to a life she hadn't yet finished living. It was a sound that haunted the very foundation of the atelier.
Day 1
I don't even use journals anymore, but I feel like I need to get this off my chest.
Coco came home, and she looked devastated. I don't know what happened at the Tower. She wouldn't look at me. She didn't look at anyone. Qifrey told us the stupid deal. A full on erasure of her memories.
I want to cry, but crying is for the weak. I will not cry. I am not a child.
I guess after that, I guess I lost track of time and stood outside her door for hours. I could hear her breathing on the other side, and every breath felt like her life was wasted.
I don't know how I’m supposed to exist in a reality where she doesn't know my name.
I left her stew, but I know she won't touch it. I’m so angry at her for giving up, and I’m so terrified that she’s right to be scared.
I have to be strong for her the others, but I feel like I’m dissolving.
Agott pauses her writing.
Coco was like a specter, refusing to leave her room. She pushed everyone away with a coldness that felt entirely foreign to her gentle, inquisitive nature.
Eventually, she dropped her pen and left her own room.
Agott found Olruggio and Qifrey in the workshop, her temper frayed to the point of snapping. She paced the length of the room.
"We're just going to let her sit there?" she demanded, gesturing wildly toward the corridor. “She’s dying in there, and you’re acting like it’s just another Tuesday! We have to do something! We have to find another way, a different spell, a loophole- a-anything!”
“Agott,” Olruggio said gently, his eyes weary, and his hands stained with permanent ink. “There is nothing to be done. The choice was hers, and the price is set. The Knights are already watching. We have to wait for her to come to us.”
“And what if she doesn't?” Agott spat, tears stinging her eyes, hot and angry.
“What if she just... fades away in there? What if she never comes out, and then she’s just gone? How are we supposed to look at her knowing she’s already leaving us? It feels like we're waiting for a funeral that hasn't happened yet.”
“We hold on,” Qifrey said, his voice quiet, his gaze fixed on a blank page of parchment. “For as long as we can. We give her the space she thinks she needs, until she realizes that she doesn't have to face this silence alone.”
Agott stared at them, her chest heaving. She felt so small, so powerless. She absolutely hates this feeling.
The same feeling that made her cry when she was abandoned. The same feelings that made her angry whenever Coco surpassed her. The same feeling when she saw the scar on Coco's face.
She looked toward the hallway again, toward that cursed, shut door of their shared room. She wanted to kick it down.
She wanted to shake Coco until she woke up from this nightmare. But she knew that for now, the only thing she could do was wait in the crushing, suffocating silence.
She didn't realize she was sobbing until Olruggio pulled her into a hug. She accepts it, gripping on his robe as she cries loudly against his chest.
In a silent room, Coco continued to sob loudly against her pillow.
The second day dawned with an unforgiving light that bled through the atelier’s skylights, casting long, skeletal shadows across the floorboards. The house felt hollow, a ribcage stripped of its heart.
No one slept well. Mostly Agott, who had spent most of the night sitting against the wall of the corridor, just outside Coco’s door. She had listened to the silence.
It was absolutely terrifying, having to hear absolute stillness that suggested Coco wasn't even moving, perhaps not even breathing.
Every time the floorboards creaked under someone else’s weight, Agott flinched, expecting Coco to emerge, or worse, expecting to find the room empty.
By mid-morning, the collective tension in the atelier snapped.
Tetia was the first to give up on the pretense of “giving her space.” She marched into the common room, her eyes red-rimmed but her jaw set in a line of stubborn resolve.
“This is enough,” she declared, her voice ringing out like a bell. “We are not sitting here waiting for her to wither away. If she won't come out, we are going in.”
Richeh nodded, clutching a small music box. “She needs to know we’re here. She needs... normalcy. Even if it’s a lie.”
Agott blinks, wiping the grit of the hallway floor from her robes. She didn't say a word, but her presence was a silent vow of support. They walked to the door as a unit, a blockade against the encroaching grief.
Tetia didn't knock. She opened the door.
The room smelled of stale air and unshed tears.
Coco was curled into a tight ball on her bed, facing the wall, her hair a tangled mess against the pillow. She didn't turn around when they entered, but her shoulders hitched. A tiny, involuntary movement.
“Coco,” Tetia said softly, moving to the bedside and sitting down. “We’re not leaving you alone today.”
Coco moves away slightly.
“Please,” Coco whispered, her voice so thin it was almost impossible to hear. “I don’t want to see you. I don't want to... I don't want to hurt you more.”
“You're already hurting us by shutting us out,” Agott said, her voice sharp, though it lacked its usual sharpness. She stood by the door, arms crossed, trying to hide the way her hands were shaking.
“You think you’re protecting us? You’re just making the goodbye longer.”
Coco turned then. Her eyes were sunken, dark circles bruised beneath them. The sight of her, so fragile, so diminished, sent a fresh wave of agony through Agott. She had to swallow hard to keep from breaking down right there.
The group didn't ask her permission. They simply occupied the space. They brought books, they brought snacks, they brought the quiet, mundane clutter of their lives into her sanctuary of sorrow.
For hours, they tried. They spoke of the upcoming lessons, of the silly mistakes Richeh had made in her transcription, of the way the light played on the garden outside.
They tried to act as if it were any other day, but the air was thick with the dragon in the room: The countdown.
Coco was a ghost in her own room. She was silent, her gaze wandering to the ceiling, to the walls, to anything but their faces.
When they tried to involve her, she gave monosyllabic answers, her voice distant, as if she were already standing on the other side of a vast, uncrossable sea.
Agott watched her with a mounting, desperate frustration. She wanted to scream, to grab Coco by the shoulders and demand she look at her. ‘See me,’ Agott wanted to say. ‘See what you’re about to lose. See what I’m about to lose.’
“Try this tea, Coco,” Richeh said, holding out a cup. “It’s the one from the market you liked.”
Coco took the cup, her fingers brushing Richeh’s. She stared at the liquid for a long moment before setting it down, untouched. “I'm sorry,” she whispered again.
It pulled something in Agott.
“Stop apologizing!” Agott snapped, stepping forward, her patience finally faltering. “Stop saying sorry for things you haven't done yet! You're still here! You're still Coco!”
“Agott-!” Tetia stood up, trying to calm the other girl.
“For how long?” Coco retorted, her voice finally cracking. She looked at Agott then, and the raw, unfiltered pain in her eyes made Agott stumble back.
“How long, Agott? Three days? Two? I am a walking ghost. I am a memory that hasn't realized it's forgotten yet. Why are you clinging to me when I’m already gone?”
The room went dead silent. Tetia lets out a sigh, looking down at the floor.
Agott couldn't answer. She couldn't find the words to explain that the pain of her presence was worth a thousand times more than the hollow ache of her absence.
She turned on her heel and fled the room, heading straight to the kitchen. She didn't look back once. Not even when they yelled for her name.
She found Qifrey there, as she knew she would. She didn't bother with pleasantries. She slammed her hands onto the table, scattering a stack of loose sketches.
“She’s given up,” Agott said, her voice shaking with rage and despair. “She’s already gone, and we’re just watching the shell rot.”
She looks up sharply. “How can you stand this? How can you just sit here and 'wait' for her to come to us when she clearly never will?”
Qifrey looked up from his work, his face, as usual, controlled. But something in him also broke. “And what would you have us do, Agott?” He asks his apprentice. “Force her to pretend? Force her to smile for our sake while she prepares to sacrifice her entire existence?”
“I don't know!” Agott yelled. “But what if she never comes to us? What if she spends her last days in that room, and we never get to say... anything?”
“Then we will be at the door,” Qifrey said, his voice softening. He walks up to Agott, placing a hand on her shoulder. “We will be there until the end. That is all we can do.”
Agott turned away, clenching her fists until her nails bit into her palms.
She felt the second day slipping away, another twenty-four hours closer to the end. Another day where the gap between them had only grown wider.
Day 2
Absolutely unbelievable. It's an outrage to myself and to the others.
She’s a dead girl walking at this point. We tried to pull her into the common room today, but she was a hollow shell.
Every time she looked at me, there was this dumb distance like she was already watching us from the other side of a grave. I tried to make her laugh, but it just made her look more pained.
Master Qifrey says to wait, but wait for what? For the inevitable? For the moment she becomes a stranger?
I’m exhausted. My hands won’t stop shaking. I’m writing this because if I don’t, I’m afraid I’ll forget what she looks like right now. That heartbr expression. I need to remember. Even if it hurts, I need to remember.
The third day brought with it a suffocating, heavy heat that seemed to press against the atelier’s stone walls, trapping the sorrow inside like a chamber.
Coco had retreated into her room once more. The door was not just closed. It was actually locked, barred, and silent. The air in the hallway felt thin, depleted of hope.
Agott paced the corridor, her boots clicking rhythmically against the stone. Her head was pounding.
She felt like a trapped animal, her emotions oscillating between a fierce, protective love and a stinging, jagged frustration. She couldn't understand why Coco would choose this.
Why would she spend the precious, finite hours left of her consciousness in the dark, staring at a blank wall?
She stopped in front of the door, her hands trembling as she reached out. She didn't knock. She just leaned her forehead against the wood, closing her eyes.
“You're wasting it, Coco,” Agott said, her voice low, vibrating through the doorframe. “You’re wasting the time. We all are.”
‘Go away,’ Coco’s voice came from the other side. It was brittle, like parchment left too long in the sun.
“No,” Agott said, her voice sharpening. “I’m done with the 'go away's. I’m done with the shut downs. Do you have any idea what this is like for us?” She asks, anger rising in her voice.
“To know that every time you close your eyes, you’re one step closer to not knowing us? To not knowing me?” She scowls.
“That’s exactly why!” Coco shouted, a sudden, violent burst of emotion. Agott almost never heard Coco yell violently. Especially when it comes to her friends. “That’s why I have to stay in here! Because if I’m out there with you, if I’m looking at your face, if I’m hearing your voice, it makes it even more real. It makes the forgetting a tragedy instead of just a necessity!”
“It is a tragedy!” Agott slammed her palm against the door, her composure shattering. “You think you’re being noble by locking yourself away? You’re just being cruel! To yourself, and to everyone who loves you!”
“I don't deserve it!” Coco sobbed, the sound muffled by the door. “I don't deserve to be loved when I’m about to erase myself from your memories! I’m going to be a stranger, Agott. A stranger who looks like me but has none of these moments. Don't you see? Every memory we make now is just more pain for you to carry once I’m gone!”
Agott’s breath hitched, a sob catching in her throat. She gripped the door handle, twisting it fruitlessly. “I would rather have the pain of losing you a thousand times over than have these five days be empty! I don't care if it hurts, Coco! I want to know you!”
“I can't,” Coco whispered. “I just... I can't.”
Agott stood there for a long moment, the silence stretching between them, thick with the weight of things unsaid and time running out.
She felt a profound, hollow exhaustion settle over her.
“Fine,” Agott whispered, her voice barely audible. “If you want to be alone, be alone. But don't you dare pretend this is for our sake.”
She turned and walked away, her footsteps heavy. She didn't head to the workshop. She didn't want to see Qifrey’s sad eyes or Olruggio’s forced calm.
She retreated to the library, sinking into a corner chair, pulling her knees to her chest.
She didn't hear Qifrey approach the door to their room a few minutes later.
She didn't see him stand there, his hand hovering over the wood, his face a portrait of a mentor mourning a child who was still breathing.
Qifrey didn't yell. He didn't argue. He simply knocked twice, a soft, rhythmic sound that Coco knows too well.
"Coco," he said, his voice as calm as a placid lake. "It’s me."
There was a pause, then the sound of the lock clicking.
The door opened just a crack. Coco stood there, her eyes swollen, her face red from the sobbing.
She looked at Qifrey, and for the first time, she didn't look angry or defensive. She looked tired.
"Master," she choked out.
Qifrey stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He didn't sit on the bed. He sat on the floor, and he beckoned her down with him.
They sat together, the silence different now. Not cold, but heavy and moving.
"I’m terrified, Master," Coco admitted, her voice trembling. "I’m terrified that if I leave this room, I’ll see how much you all care for me, and then the forgetting will feel like a death."
“It is a death, in a way,” Qifrey said softly. He reached out, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, a gesture so paternal and gentle it made Coco’s tears flow freely again.
“But Coco, the people who love you... we are not afraid of the pain of losing the memory. We are afraid of the pain of losing the now.” Qifrey comforts, his voice soft as he can despite the internal struggle inside him.
“You are here. You are ours. For these few days, you are the girl who changed everything for us. Is that not worth more than the grief that follows?”
Coco looked at him, her gaze searching his face. “Will it be easier if I go out?”
“It will be honest,” Qifrey answered. “And it will be a kindness to those who want to hold you one last time.”
Coco leaned her head against Qifrey’s shoulder, a long, ragged sigh escaping her. “I think I’m ready, Master.”
“Good.” Qifrey stood and offered her a hand. “The sun is setting, but the air is clear. Everyone is waiting.”
When they emerged from the room, the atmosphere in the common room shifted instantly.
The apprentices, who had been huddled in miserable silence, looked up. Agott stood from her chair in the library, her breath catching in her throat as she saw them.
Coco looked frayed, but she was here. She was out.
For the first time in three days, the heavy, suffocating air seemed to lift, replaced by a desperate, fragile sort of peace.
The group didn't overwhelm her. They simply moved closer. They sat on the floor, they dragged chairs into a circle, and they began to simply be.
As the light of the third day faded into twilight, they played games. Simple, childish things that made them laugh despite the tears. Coco’s laughter was rare and thin, but it was there.
Agott found herself sitting near the edge of the circle. As the evening deepened, she felt a shift.
She caught Coco’s eye across the room. There was no argument, no wall. Just a look of profound, aching recognition.
After the others had begun to settle down, Coco stood up and drifted toward where Agott sat. She sat down, keeping a small distance, her eyes fixed on her own hands.
“Agott,” Coco said. Her voice was quiet, barely a whisper. “I... I was wrong. I’m sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you away.”
Agott looked at her. She wanted to be angry, she wanted to hold onto her frustration, but as she looked at Coco’s tired, beautiful face, her heart simply melted.
She reached out, her fingers trembling slightly as she touched the back of Coco’s hand.
“Don't do it again,” Agott said, her voice thick with emotion as she squeezed her hand tightly. “I don't have much time left with you. I don't want to spend it fighting.”
Coco nodded, a single tear escaping and tracking down her cheek. She didn't pull her hand away.
They sat there in the dim light of the atelier, the silence of the third night descending, finally, with a sense of reconciliation.
But beneath it all, the clock still kept ticking. The third day was gone, and with it, a piece of their world that could never be reclaimed.
Day 3
I yelled at her through the door today. I said things I regret, but I meant them. I can’t stand the silence. I can’t stand the way she’s already mourning her own existence.
She's stubborn. Of course she is. I always l hated how she's always looking up and thinking that everything is fine when it isn't. Its sickening to see her always standing tall. But now, now she's a coward. Always hiding from us. Pushing everyone away. Im starting to miss her.
But then she opened her door. Master Qifrey got through to her dense head.
She’s finally out, and we’re sitting in the common room together. It’s a temporary peace.
She apologized to me tonight, and I… I couldn't hold the anger anymore.
When she looked at me, I didn't see the ghost anymore. I saw my Coco. I’m so scared for tomorrow. I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight. I’m going to watch the door, just in case. I don't want her to leave. I am no better than a scalewolf.
The fourth day arrived not with the gentle tap of morning light, but with the relentless, drumming percussion of a storm.
Rain lashed against the atelier’s stained-glass windows, turning the world outside into a blurred landscape of charcoal and slate.
The weather, cruel in its timing, seemed to isolate them further, sealing them into the only world they had left. The sanctuary of their home.
Inside, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of damp earth and woodsmoke. It was a day of forced interiority.
Because the storm made it impossible to go outside, the group retreated into the common room, turning it into a fortress of blankets, cushions, and half-remembered stories.
It was a strange, suspended reality. There was no mention of the Tower of Tomes, no talk of the Knights, no Brimmed caps, and no discussion of the spell that hung over their heads like a blade.
It was as if they had collectively decided to treat the day as an infinite loop, a pocket of time where the inevitable could be held at bay by sheer force of will.
Coco moved through the house with quiet grace. She was no longer hiding, but she was different. More normal, more present, as if she were trying to imprint every texture and sound into her skin.
Agott found her in the library, tracing the spines of books with a slow, methodical touch. The rain roared overhead, a constant, static hum that filled the gaps in their conversation.
“You like that one?” Agott asked, leaning against the doorframe. Her voice was steady, carefully curated to remain light.
Coco turned, a faint smile gracing her lips. “I was just remembering the first time I read it. You were sitting across from me, and you were so annoyed because I kept asking you questions about the terminology.”
Agott felt a sharp pang in her chest, but she laughed, a real, genuine sound. She hoped that it haunted Coco. “You were relentless. I thought you were trying to drive me mad.”
“I was,” Coco said, her eyes twinkling for a fleeting second. “It was the only way to get you to talk to me back then.”
Agott stepped into the room, coming to stand beside her. The intimacy of the moment was heavy.
For the first time, the sorrow, the desperate, clawing need to fix or change things, had given way to a profound, hollowed-out comfort.
It was the comfort of two people sitting in the wreckage, finally realizing there was nothing left to salvage but the memory of the light.
Throughout the day, the others joined them. They didn't do anything grand.
They sat on the floor, sorting through old ink bottles, mending torn cloaks, and sharing tea that had gone lukewarm.
Tetia told stories that made them chuckle, and Richeh tried, and failed, to teach them a complicated new spell she was working on.
Every time someone laughed, Agott watched Coco. She watched the way Coco would pause, her expression soft and unguarded, as if she were trying to capture the sound of their voices.
It was a heartbreaking sight. It was the look of a person standing at the edge of a precipice, trying to memorize the view of the sky before jumping into the dark.
By the afternoon, the rain had settled into a steady, rhythmic drizzle. The atelier was bathed in the warm, amber glow of magical lanterns.
They ended up huddled together near the hearth. Qifrey was there, his usual mantle of responsibility replaced by a quiet, watchful tenderness. He watched his students, his children at this point, with eyes that held a lifetime of regret, yet he didn't pull them apart. He let them cling to one another.
Coco leaned against Agott’s shoulder, and Agott didn't move. She couldn't, even if she wanted to. She rested her head against Coco’s, their hair tangling together.
“I’m scared,” Coco whispered, so low that only Agott could hear. “I'm scared of leaving you,”
Agott reached down, interlacing her fingers with Coco’s. Her grip was tight, but gentle.
“There won't be fear," she lied, her voice softer than usual. “We’ll be right here. We’ll be with you, even if... even if you don't know who we are. We’ll be the people who tell you stories until you remember, or until we’re just another part of the scenery you love.”
Coco squeezed her hand back, her thumb stroking the back of Agott’s knuckles.
“Promise?”
“I promise,” Agott said.
It was a day of light sadness, a rare day where the grief was a dull, persistent ache rather than a sharp, stabbing wound.
It was a day where they focused on the small things, the warmth of the fire, the taste of the tea, the weight of a friend’s head on their shoulder.
As the evening wore on, the storm outside began to die down, leaving behind a world slick with rain and heavy with the impending arrival of the fifth day.
They didn't move to sleep. They stayed by the fire until the embers died, creating a circle of protection around the girl who was slipping through their fingers.
Agott lay awake long after the others had drifted off, watching the shadows dance on the ceiling.
She watched Coco’s rhythmic breathing, the rise and fall of her chest, and she counted every single breath, terrified that if she stopped counting, the day would end too quickly.
The fourth day was closing. They had seized it.
But as Agott stared into the darkness, she knew that when she opened her eyes next, the world would never be the same again.
She looks at Coco again, and a sniffle comes out of her.
Agott starts to think. She thinks about the past. The present. But she couldn't think about the future.
Back then, she could flawlessly imagine what her future would be. A successful and powerful witch, who had her family, the same family that abandoned her, on a chokehold.
But now all she thinks about is nothing.
A shaky sigh escapes her, as she closes her eyes.
“I'll miss you” She wanted to say. But she closed her eyes and pulled the blanket over her and Coco.
Day 4
The rain won't stop. The sound always sickens my ears because of how annoying it is
We spent the whole day inside, huddled together like the old days, trying to pretend that the next day doesn't exist.
It was quiet. It was the most beautiful, agonizing day of my life. Because Coco was finally with us. Finally with me. She didn't refuse. She didn't deny. She actually went along with us.
I just woke up.
She was so close to me. We were sitting by the fire, and she was leaning on my shoulder, and I’m memorizing the way her hair smells like the grass outside and the ink that she always used.
If I could burn this day into my memory, I would. I would live in this rainy afternoon for the rest of my life if it meant keeping her here.
The Knights will come the day after tomorrow. I feel sick.
I need to go
The fifth day did not arrive with a sunrise. It arrived with a ringing silence that Agott normally found comfort in. But this time, it was too deafening.
When Agott opened her eyes, the air in the atelier felt thin, as if the oxygen itself were being pulled away, consumed by the sheer gravity of the date.
She sat up, her heart hammering against her ribs. Every corner of the room, every shadow, every mote of dust dancing in the morning light felt precious. It was a museum of a life that was about to be empty.
She found the others already gathered in the common room. The atmosphere was brittle, like ice over a deep, dark river.
No one was crying anymore. The tears had run dry overnight, leaving behind a grim, focused determination.
They weren't mourning yet. They were still clinging to the idea of making this last day a testament to everything Coco meant to them.
Coco was sitting on the sofa, her posture remarkably upright. She was pale, and there was a strange, glassy quality to her eyes, but she was smiling. A fragile thing that made Agott’s chest ache with a physical, crushing weight.
The morning was a blur of frantic affection.
Tetia was the first to approach, pressing a hand-carved wooden charm into Coco’s palm. It was a simple thing, an intricate bird meant to represent freedom.
“Take this,” Tetia whispered, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. “It’s a reminder. Even if you don't know who gave it to you, keep it. Just... please, keep it.”
Richeh followed, offering a collection of her own pressed flowers, dried and preserved between layers of enchanted vellum. “These are from the garden,” she said, her smile watery. “They smell like home. Whenever you find them, just take a breath. That’s us.”
Qifrey and Olruggio offered their tokens. Small, insignificant items that carried the weight of an entire shared history.
Agott hung back, her hands tucked deep into her pockets. Her throat felt clogged with stones. She felt a frantic, spiraling guilt.
She had nothing to give.
Every object in the atelier felt inadequate, and the words she wanted to say felt too small for the magnitude of the loss.
She watched the others surround Coco, creating a living wall of love, and she felt like a ghost, an observer to the final act of a play she wasn't ready to finish.
Coco noticed. Even in the middle of the deluge of gifts, her eyes found Agott.
But Agott walked away before Coco could call out for her.
Day 5
I’m sitting in the library. I have nothing to give her. Everyone else has charms, letters, pressed flowers and I’m just me. I feel like a failure. How can I love her this much and have absolutely nothing to offer her before the knights take her???
I feel like I’m going to shatter into a thousand pieces. I’ve been staring at the shelf for an hour, waiting for the courage to go find her. I don’t want to say goodbye. Not that.
I don’t want to watch her walk out that door. I want to run away with her. Run away from everything. I want to hide her somewhere the Knights can’t find her. But she’s so ready to do this for her mother. She’s so selfless, even in her destruction. And I love her for it.
I have to go find her. I have to make this last night mean something.
If this is all I have left of her, I’m going to make sure she knows she was loved by me even if she forgets the feeling by morning.
I’m going to take her to the hill. I’m going to tell her everything. I’m done hiding.
I need my Coco.
As the afternoon light began to wane, casting long, bruised shadows across the floorboards, Coco managed to slip away from the group. She found Agott standing in the quiet of the library, staring blankly at an open book.
“Agott?”
Agott didn't turn. She couldn't. “I don't have anything for you,” she said, her voice sounding dead to her own ears.
“I-I tried to think of something, s-something meaningful, something that would last!” She frets. “But everything feels like trash compared to what I’m actually losing.”
She felt Coco’s presence behind her, the warmth radiating from her friend’s body. “You don't have to give me anything,” Coco reassured softly.
“I do!” Agott turned, her eyes fierce and wet with sudden, hot tears. “Because when you’re out there, and you’re back in your own world, and you’re just... you... you need to know that you were loved.”
She says, gripping on her hair in frustration. The feeling of her fingers tightly gripping on her curls sent pain to her scalp, but she did not move them away.
“You need to know that you weren't just a memory. I feel like I’m failing you by standing here empty-handed.”
Coco stepped closer, reaching out to take Agott’s hands off of her hair. Her skin was warm, vibrant, and infuriatingly real.
“You've given me everything,” Coco said, her gaze steady.
“You taught me how to stand up for myself. You taught me that it’s okay to be imperfect. You taught me how to hope.” Coco explains, her tone soft and gentle. The tone that Agott knows was meant for her.
“That stays, Agott. Even if the 'how' and the 'when' disappear, the 'who' of me, the person I am, is shaped by you. That doesn't go away just because my memory does.”
Agott let out a choked sound, a sob that she tried to swallow back. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against Coco’s shoulder. “Fool, you fool-” She hiccuped.
They stood like that for a long time, the only sound the muffled chatter of the others in the distance.
The guilt didn't vanish. It morphed, turning into a desperate, sharp-edged resolve. Agott pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
She looked at Coco, memorizing the healed scar on her cheek, the specific shade of her eyes, the way her hair fell over her brow.
"I'm not done," Agott whispered, more to herself than to Coco. "I'm not done yet."
She felt a surge of energy. A frantic, rebellious need to reclaim the day for Coco. She grabbed Coco’s hand, her grip firm and demanding.
"Come with me," Agott said.
"Where?" Coco asked, startled by the sudden shift in Agott’s demeanor.
"I have something," Agott said, her voice hardening. "It’s not a gift. It’s... it’s a promise. But I can't give it to you here."
She didn't wait for a response. She pulled Coco outside of the library and ran toward the atelier’s secondary exit, the one that led out toward the jagged, rolling hills behind their home.
The sky was darkening, shifting from an indigo to the deep, black of the coming night, but Agott didn't care.
She felt the heavy weight of the fifth day’s final act pressing down on them, but for these few hours, she was going to carve out a space that belonged to nobody but them.
She dragged Coco toward the heights, toward the silence, and toward the truth she hadn't been able to say out loud until now.
The final hours of the fifth day were slipping away like sand, but Agott was determined to make them stand still.
She pauses on her tracks, her purple eyes staring at Coco's golden ones. Purple meets gold. Night meets day.
“I'll ask again, Coco,” Agott says, a determined look on her face. Coco missed that look. “Are you willing to come, or hide again?”
Coco was silent for a moment.
Then a small smile crept in her face. Genuine and real enough for Agott to feel.
“There you are, Agott.”
A chill travels down Agott's spine.
The climb was brutal. The terrain grew steep, jagged with rocks and tangled in thick, unruly brambles that tugged at their robes, but Agott moved with a feverish, tunnel-visioned intensity.
She didn't let go of Coco’s hand once. She couldn't. It felt like if she let go, the gravity of the world would simply pull Coco away, scattering her into the wind, never to be seen again.
They reached the summit. It was a solitary, windswept plateau that overlooked the entire valley.
Below them, the world was a collection of flickering, distant specks of light, but up here, it felt as though they were suspended in the vast, indifferent void of space.
Agott collapsed the moment they reached the center, her lungs burning, her legs trembling from the exertion.
She didn't stand up. She simply dropped to the cool, dew-dampened grass and pulled Coco down with her, who laughed at the sudden movement.
This is what her lungs burned for.
“Here,” Agott breathed, her voice ragged. “This is it.”
“It's beautiful,” Coco whispered, though her eyes weren't on the view. They were fixed entirely on Agott, who was currently fighting to regain her composure.
The silence that followed was different from the stifling, heavy silence of the atelier. This was a vast, cosmic silence.
Above them, the sky was an ocean of brilliant, uncaring stars. It was the same sky they had stargazed under a thousand times, but tonight, it felt like a final audience to a tragedy.
Agott sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. She looked out at the horizon, her jaw clenched. “This is my safe spot,” she said, her voice small, devoid of its usual prickly armor.
“Whenever things at the atelier got too loud, or when I couldn't handle the expectations, or when... when I just felt like I was failing, I came here. I’d yell at the sky until I felt empty enough to start over.” She admits.
Coco sat beside her, her shoulder brushing Agott’s. She didn't interrupt. She simply listened, her presence a steady, grounding anchor.
“I’m not going to yell tonight,” Agott said, a wet, jagged laugh escaping her lips. “I don't think my voice could even reach the stars.”
Then, the cracks finally formed.
The dam that Agott had been reinforcing for five days, the one she had fortified and strengthened with pride and stubbornness, finally shattered.
She covered her face with her hands, but she couldn't stop the sound. It started as a low, guttural vibration in her chest, a sound of pure, unadulterated devastation, and it erupted into a sob that tore through her entire frame.
“I-I can't,” she wailed, the words muffled against her palms. “I can't do it, Coco. I can't be here tomorrow. I can't wake up in a world where you don't know who I am.”
She felt a gentle, persistent pressure as Coco pulled her hands away from her face. Coco didn't offer platitudes.
She didn't tell her it would be okay, because they both knew it wouldn't. Instead, Coco took Agott’s face in her hands, her thumbs tracing the tracks of tears down her cheeks.
Agott’s hands were still pressed against her face, her shoulders shuddering with the force of her sobs, but when she felt Coco’s fingers, gentle, calloused, and trembling, peel her hands away, she didn't bother to protest. But Agott didn't want to look at her.
She didn't want Coco to see her this undone, this stripped of all her icy composure. But the feeling of Coco forcing her gaze upward, cupping Agott's cheeks with such tenderness that Agott felt her heart fracture all over again.
The wind on the hilltop had died down, leaving them in a silence so profound it felt as though the rest of the world had simply ceased to exist.
“Look at me, Agott,” Coco whispered. Her voice wasn't the voice of the girl who had been afraid these last few days.
It was steady, anchored by a terrifying, beautiful clarity.
Agott forced her eyes to focus. Through the blur of tears, she saw Coco’s face, illuminated by the starlight. Pale, resolved, and infinitely sad.
Agott felt like she was looking at the brightest star in the sky. She didn't deserve to look at the beauty of it.
“N-No, I-I can't do it,” Agott choked out, the words breaking apart as she spoke them. “I can't stand the thought of tomorrow. I can't be in a world where I see you, and you look at me like I’m... like I’m just a stranger!”
“Agott…” Coco's expression softened, her hold on Agott unwavering.
“I’m a coward, Coco. I’ve been trying to hold onto you with everything I have, but it’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough.”
Coco didn't pull away. She just leaned closer, her thumbs brushing away the moisture on Agott's skin.
“You aren't a coward,” Coco said firmly. Like it was a fact. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known. You’re the only reason I didn't lock myself in that room forever.”
“I don't care about being brave!” Agott cried, her voice rising, desperate and raw that it shocked Coco a little.
“I don't want bravery!” She yells out. Her hands went to Coco's arms, gripping on them like Coco really was leaving in front of her. With tears in her eyes, she finally lets go of the chains that she carried for the past five days.
“I want you!”
Coco was taken aback. Her body froze at the sudden confession, and her breath hitched. Agott kept on going.
“I want to keep you. I want to keep the way you laugh, and the way you mess up your ink, and…” Agott felt as if she was selfish. Hearing herself now, she probably is. But she didn't care.
“I want to keep the way you look at me. It’s the only thing that makes sense in this entire miserable life.” Agott pauses, her breath catching up. Then a shaky exhale escapes her. “I want you to be right next to me everyday.”
A final exhale.
“I love you, Coco. I love you so much it feels like I’m dying.”
The confession hung in the air, stripped of all artifice, all the pretenses Agott had kept for months.
Coco’s breath held. For a second, the light in her eyes intensified, a flicker of something fierce and ancient. She let out a soft sniffle, her forehead dropping until it rested against Agott’s.
Agott felt her heart race at the intense closeness between them, but she did not complain not pull away.
“I was so afraid to say it,” Coco whispered, her voice barely audible over the rustle of the grass.
“I was afraid that if I admitted how much you meant to me, it would only make the forgetting hurt more.” She confesses, her voice breaking. “I tried to distance myself, I tried to be 'just an apprentice,' but Agott... you are the sun. You’re the reason I learned to love this path. You’re the reason I love being here.”
She pulled back just an inch, her gaze searching Agott’s with a terrifying honesty.
“I love you, Agott,” Coco said. It wasn't a whisper anymore. It was a vow. A vow of the Coco she knows. A vow of her Coco.
“I love you with everything I have left. I love you more than the magic that’s taking me away. I love you.”
Agott let out a ragged, broken gasp. The words seemed to hit her like a physical blow, grounding her and unmooring her all at once.
“I don't want to lose you,” she sobbed, burying her face against Coco’s neck. “I don't know how to do this.”
“You don't have to,” Coco whispered, her arms winding tightly around Agott’s waist, pulling her into a hold that felt like a shield.
“We just have to be here. Right now. Just you and me. Let the world be whatever it needs to be tomorrow, but tonight... Tonight belongs to us.”
Agott tilted her head up, her eyes locking with Coco’s. In the starlight, there was no more space for doubt, no more room for the masks they had worn.
“Stay with me,” Agott whispered, her voice a plea. “Forever.”
“I’m already here,” Coco promised, her eyes overflowing with tears of her own. “I’m not staying, but I'm here. I’m all yours.”
The way she said it was not as a simple phrase, but as a testament, and it wrenched another sob from Agott’s throat. Coco leaned forward, closing the final painful inch of distance.
The kiss wasn't like the ones in the stories they read in the library. It wasn't sweeping or grand. It was desperate.
It tasted of salt and the metallic tang of fear, a frantic exchange of breath and warmth.
It was a plea to the universe to stop the clock, to freeze this single, fragile moment in time where they were still them.
They were not witches. They were not prodigies. They were not apprentices.
They were two girls under the stars.
They broke apart, gasping for air, their foreheads resting against one another. The cold wind whipped at their cloaks, but Agott felt as though she were burning.
“Please stay with me,” Agott whispered, grabbing the lapels of Coco’s robe. “Just stay here. Don't go back. Let the world end up here.”
“I can't,” Coco whispered back, though her arms wrapped around Agott with a grip just as desperate. “I have to do this. For my mother. But... I don't want to leave. I want to stay here with you forever.”
They shifted, sinking down into the grass together. It was damp and uneven, but it didn't matter.
They huddled together, limbs tangled, cocooning one another against the biting night air. Agott pulled her cloak over both of them, creating a private, makeshift tent beneath the vast, uncaring expanse of the cosmos.
“Then I'll run away with you,” Agott pleaded.
Coco smiles sadly. “Then you'd be seen as a disgrace.”
“I don't care about my name.” Agott protests.
“Then you'll be hunted, and we'll be killed.” Coco sniffles.
“As long as I bleed out with our hands together, I'm ready to leave the world.”
They lay there in the dark, watching the stars drift. Agott began to talk.
It was a rambling, frantic stream of consciousness. She talked about the first time she saw Coco in the atelier, about how annoyed she’d been by Coco’s boundless energy, about the way the light caught in her hair when she was focused on a spell.
She poured out every detail she could think of, trying to fill the silence with the substance of their existence, as if by cataloging every memory, she could somehow prevent them from being wiped away.
Coco listened to every word, her hand resting over Agott’s heart, feeling the frantic, uneven rhythm of it. She didn't interrupt. She let Agott vent the entire contents of her soul.
Because deep down, she was trying to memorize the sound of Agott's voice.
As the night deepened, the frantic energy began to die down, replaced by a newfound, exhausted stillness. The tears stopped, leaving them both drained, hollowed out, and utterly raw.
They weren't fighting anymore. They weren't planning.
They were holding each other.
“Agott… ?” Coco whispers her name.
“Yes?” Agott responds immediately. Too immediate, but soft and quiet.
“Whatever happens tomorrow…” Coco hesitates “Promise me you won't stop being you. Promise me you won't stop being the girl who protects the atelier.”
“If you're not there,” Agott whispered, “I don't know who I’ll be protecting it for.”
“For yourself,” Coco said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “For the memory of who you were when you were with me.”
Agott squeezed her eyes shut. She felt the warmth of Coco’s body against hers. The steady, rhythmic beat of her heart, the softness of her breath against her neck.
She memorized the weight of her, the smell of ink and parchment and rain that always followed her.
She was trying to etch this feeling into her own bones, a permanent tattoo of a girl she was about to lose.
Slowly, the exhaustion of the last five days caught up with them. The cold, the grief, and the sheer emotional toll dragged them down. Their breathing synchronized, slowing into a deep, heavy cadence.
In the quiet of the night, surrounded by the ancient, distant stars, they fell into a peaceful sleep. For a few hours, the world was simple again.
They were just two people, holding each other, unaware that the dawn was already creeping up over the edge of the world, ready to demand its price.
They slept, their hands locked together as if by an iron vow, hoping against hope that when they woke, the sun would have forgotten its duty to rise.
For the first time, Agott had no journal to cry to.
The dawn did not come with a fanfare of golden light. It was a gray, seeping slowly over the horizon and bleaching the vibrant night sky into a dull, flat reality of the world Agott always hated.
Agott’s consciousness returned not with a jolt, but with a lingering, dreamlike warmth that she desperately tried to preserve.
She felt the steady, gentle weight of Coco against her, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest pressed firmly against Agott’s own.
The cold of the hill had seeped into their bones, but under the shared cloak, the warmth of their bodies was an island in a freezing world.
She didn't open her eyes immediately. She kept them squeezed shut, clinging to the sensation of the night before.
She could still feel the phantom heat of Coco’s breath against her neck, the lingering phantom touch of their fingers interlaced.
‘If I stay here,’ Agott thought, her heart constricting, ‘if I don't breathe, maybe the world will just stop. Maybe the Knights won't come. Maybe the spell won't demand its price.’
She allowed her hand to move, just a fraction, to brush a stray lock of hair away from Coco’s face.
Coco’s skin was cool now, settled into the morning air, but she was soft. Too soft for Agott. Agott let her fingers linger on the curve of Coco’s cheek, memorizing the shape of her jaw, the slight pout of her lips, the fragile arch of her brow, and the scar that she always thought was beautiful on her.
She wanted to map every inch of her, to store the information in a vault where memory could never be erased, even by the most powerful of forbidden magics.
Coco’s breathing hitched, just for a second, and she stirred. She didn't wake fully, but she shifted, pressing closer into Agott as if seeking shelter from the waking world.
That small movement was the most precious thing Agott had ever experienced. It was a silent testament to the bond they had forged in the dark.
Agott finally opened her eyes. The hilltop was shrouded in a thin, ethereal mist. The world was quiet, draped in a profound, heavy stillness that felt like a held breath.
She looked down at Coco, who looked so peaceful, so young, and so utterly unaware of the storm that was waiting for her at the base of the hill.
Agott’s own tears began to fall again, soundless and hot, tracking through the dirt on her cheeks. She didn't try to stop them.
She simply watched the rise and fall of Coco’s chest, cherishing the sight of her breathing, the simple, miraculous fact that she existed.
She knew the time was coming. She could feel it in the shifting of the light, the subtle change in the air. Every second she spent here was a stolen second, a beautiful, agonizing theft from the inevitable.
Agott reached out and pulled the cloak tighter around them, refusing to concede to the morning.
She buried her face in the crook of Coco’s neck, inhaling the scent of her, the faint, lingering smell of old ink, dried wildflowers, and the sharp, clean scent of the mountain air.
She wanted to burn this scent into her senses so deeply that it would haunt her dreams, a permanent reminder of the love that had been allowed to bloom, even in the shadow of an ending.
She didn't want to wake her. She didn't want to be the one to bring the nightmare back. But as the gray light continued to bleed across the sky, turning the mist into translucent, silver threads, Agott knew she had no choice.
She pressed one last, lingering kiss to Coco’s temple, a silent promise and a goodbye all in one.
"Wake up, my love," she whispered, the words trembling and barely audible in the vast, empty morning. The thought of calling someone ‘love’ used to be a joke to the younger Agott. Now, she says it like she never saw it as something to be ashamed of.
"It’s time."
Coco stirred, her eyelids fluttering. As she slowly drifted toward consciousness, Agott steeled herself.
She knew that in a few hours, those eyes would open and look at her, not with the recognition of a lover, but with the blank, curious stare of someone who had lost their map of the world.
She took a shaky breath, tightened her arms around Coco one final time, and waited for their world to break.
When they reached the atelier, the house was already awake. The others were there, their faces masks of brittle, controlled grief.
They didn't ask where Coco and Agott had been, the swollen eyes and the quiet, haunted way they held each other told them everything they needed to know.
Qifrey stood by the doorway, his silhouette stark against the morning light.
He looked at them, his gaze lingering on the way their hands remained locked, and his expression softened into something profoundly sorrowful.
“The Knights are waiting,” He said, his voice barely a whisper.
Agott reached for Coco's bag, the one she had carried one day when she went to run errands with their master. Agott pulled a plain, heavy-stock envelope from the pocket of her robe.
Her hands were steady, finally devoid of the frantic shaking of the night before. With a quiet, deliberate motion, she slipped the envelope into the bag, tucked safely behind the leather flap.
It wasn't a gift for the “Coco” who would come back. The girl who would know nothing of the atelier.
It was a message in a bottle for a version of Coco that might, through some miracle, stumble upon it and feel the echo of a ghost.
The Knights were looming in the plains, their shadows long and cold. Coco turned to face Agott one last time.
“Agott,” Coco said. She didn't look like a stranger, not yet. She looked like the girl who had changed everything. “I don't know what tomorrow looks like.”
“I know,” Agott said. She reached out, cupping Coco’s face, her thumbs tracing the delicate line of her cheekbones one last time. “But I know what today looks like. And that’s enough.”
Coco leaned into the touch, her eyes closing as she soaked in the warmth of Agott’s palms. “I think... I think I'll remember the way you feel,” she whispered, a secret confession. “Even if I don't remember the name, I think I'll know the feeling.”
“Good,” Agott said, her voice thick but unbroken. “Keep that. Keep that as long as you can.”
Coco stepped forward, wrapping her arms around Agott in a final, crushing embrace.
She held on with a strength that belied her frailty, as if she were trying to graft her own heart onto Agott’s.
Agott buried her face in Coco’s shoulder, inhaling the scent of her one last time, pinning it to her memory with the force of her entire will.
“Thank you,” Coco breathed into her hair. “For everything.”
“Don't thank me,” Agott pulled back, her eyes meeting Coco’s one last time. “Just... live, Coco. Please, just live.”
Coco offered a final, fragile smile, the ghost of the girl she had been, and then she turned.
“I love you, Agott,” She said for the last time.
“I love you too, Coco,” Agott says back.
She walked toward the door, toward the Knights, toward the erasing of herself. Qifrey followed behind her, accompanying his apprentice for the last time.
Agott stood in the doorway, her hands clasped tightly in front of her to stop them from reaching out. Her body felt heavy, as her knees trembled. She resisted the urge to scream her name and to run with her. She resisted the urge to use her shoes and swoop in to take her far away from everyone.
She watched as Coco stepped out of the atelier, her silhouette shrinking against the evening’s mist. She didn't look back. ‘It is for the best,’ is what Agott thought.
By the time the sun lowered, Coco was gone like the wind.
When Agott stumbled in Coco's room, eyes blurry and knees weak, her Coco was gone.
When Agott lets herself collapse on the bed, she sobs loudly, clinging on the sheets and curling up, no one comforts her.
When Agott feels her head ache, no one carefully runs a hand through her dark curls.
When Agott's fingers dug into her skin to the point of blood clinging inside her nails, no one was there to hold them into their hands.
When Agott calls for Coco's name, no one gently calls her back.
When Agott slept, no one rubbed her back and soothed her.
When the sun rose, Agott finds herself alone in a room that wasn't hers.
Agott sat upright, the coldness of her lover's friend's room biting her. She assumes that she went to Coco's room in a daze from the crying, and pathetically cried herself to sleep in her bed.
Her heart felt empty and hollow, now that Coco was gone. Her eyes showed nothing but a blank stare, as her guts felt as if they gave out on her and started churning uncontrollably.
Coco's voice rang in her ears like a cruel joke.
Coco's laughs we're heard somewhere beside her even when she turned to look at nothing.
Coco's touch lingered in her hands even when she was alone.
Coco's eyes were what she sees, even if the curtains were closed and the sunlight was blocked.
Agott's hands trembled, clinging on the material of the sheets.
“Don't cry, Agott.” She tells herself. “Don't...”
Her eyes gaze upward, and then she notices an envelope on Coco's desk. Hope burned her chest, but she immediately put it out before thoughts began to emerge.
Hesitantly, she stood up and approached her desk. Her calloused hand drifted to the item, before picking it up.
‘To Agott’ The envelope reads. It was undeniably Coco's hand writing.
Agott felt like it was the heaviest thing she's ever held. Heavier than the books she used to carry as a child. But she holds it with care and precision.
My dearest Agott,
I hope this letter finds you, or you found this letter. As of writing this now, it is in the middle of the night, maybe an hour after you left food in front of my door.
When you find this, I assume that I already left. And as you are reading this, I am already gone.
I will use my time wisely, and I will pour out everything I've ever wanted to say to you.
Ever since the day we met, I felt awestruck by you. The way you draw spells so easily, the way you stare at the pen and paper on your hands, the way you… become you. I admired everything about it.
From the little habits you have, to the secrets you keep, I noticed them. But never once have I tried to approach you about them. Because I thought that maybe, you'd be weirded out by me.
So I was surprised when I stepped up for you. I didn't know why, but I decided to say what my heart truly felt that night. (Silver Eve if you forgot…)
After that, I swore to myself that I will protect you. Even from myself.
And to be honest, the things I said that night… Those weren't even half of the things I wanted to say. Those were the littlest of things. I wanted to say how perfect you are. How you're so gentle even if you were at your coldest.
I can't express the amount of love I feel whenever I see you. Your soft dark curls, your dangerously beautiful purple eyes, your gaze, your touch, your skin, your frame, I love everything about it. I love your voice. I love the way you talk to me and the ways you comfort me.
I always loved everything about you. Even in the smallest of things.
Even if we have our worst moments, I couldn't bring myself to hold hatred or anger towards you. Because you're just being you.
Every day is a blessing from the stars. I feel at peace when I'm with you. You keep me from breaking, and I thank you for that. I can't imagine living my life without you by my side.
And I have to be honest to you, Agott. Because I cannot bear to keep such secrets from you.
Every hour, I pray to the stars and hope that you eventually forget about me as we grow in our own separate ways. I hope that you don't have to think about us every night and cry to yourself.
I am not worth your remembrance.
But I know in my heart that you won't follow this. Because that's the Agott I know.
I'm sorry for the way I had acted in the days that passed. I can't bear the thought of all of you having the best time of your lives before I take it away by leaving.
I guess locking myself up isn't a choice any more.
You don't have to carry this alone, Agott. You don't have to carry the burden of my decisions.
I don't know how to write a goodbye letter to a friend.
I do not have the nicest of vocabulary. I do not know how to phrase things. And I do not know how to keep silent every night as I write to you this letter.
But I hope you consider this, Agott.
Thank you for staying by my side even at my worst. For holding me when the nights get rough. For making me smile. For showing me the brightest parts of magic, even when the world rejected me. For being the bark that holds me up. Thank you for loving me.
Thank you for finding me.
Choosing you as my friend was the best decision I've ever made.
Always remember that I love you.
Take care of yourself.
Keep looking up at the brightest star, because maybe... I'm looking at the same one too.
I wish we had been lovers for longer.
But maybe one day, we will cross paths again. Not as witches. But as normal people. People who can love without the world demanding anything in exchange.
Although we are strangers starting from now on, I hope my heart races when I hear your name.
I hope I fall in love with magic again. Specifically yours.
Always and forever, keep smiling. My pride of magic.
With all your love,
And yours forever,
Coco
Agott allowed herself to fall on her knees, holding the letter far from herself to keep it in its perfect form. She didn't want it destroyed from the tears streaming down her face.