“You don’t look happy to see me,” the Beast pouts. “And after I went to all that trouble to save you from the hunter.”

I blink a few times, still incredibly disoriented. “You what? You did what?”

The Beast grins and gives me a conspiratorial wink. “Just a finger on the scales, really, but more than enough. I gave the Reveler a nudge to come and find you, and then I plucked the ground from beneath your feet before it could catch you! With luck, it’ll even take care of the hunter.” The Beast pauses and tilts its–her?–head, staring vacantly past me, before continuing, “Oh, but that one’s a survivor. Very well done, little hunter.”

I can barely register whatever it is the Beast is saying about Mahiri, because I’m too hung up on the first half of that speech. “You… you can do that. You did that. You threw me into the ocean. You drowned me.” Vivid, horrible memories flood my mind, flashes of suffocating darkness and deep, deep pressure. “The tendril. Was that you, too? Did you–” I break off, shivering, remembering the weight of a vast and terrible horror wrapping itself around me. “What did you do to me?”

The Beast laughs. “Oh, that? I killed you.”

“Oh,” I say softly. Oh? Is that all you have to say? I don’t understand.

It pats me on the shoulder and I flinch away. It laughs again. “Don’t worry, you’re alive now. You were only dead for a few minutes at most. Just long enough for you to feel it when you woke up.”

“Why?” I croak. “Why would you do that? Why did you kill me? What’s wrong with you?”

The Beast raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with me? Oh, oh that is delightful. But, to your more reasonable question: I killed you to offer perspective. It’s something I think you are in dire need of, in this terrible maze. You have made so many decisions without truly understanding what drives you and what the consequences of your actions might be.”

I start to laugh. “Perspective? Perspective!? Hahaha. You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. You’re mad. You’re absolutely mad.”

The Beast just smiles. “We’re all mad here.”

“No, fuck you. Fuck that. Fuck all of this.” I knock the cup off the table and hiss at my doppelganger. “You crushed me to death at the bottom of the ocean! You can’t just toss around some cryptic bullshit and drop a literary reference as if that’s any kind of explanation. I want actual answers, now!”

The Beast watches me, unfazed by my outburst. “You have a choice to make, girl of many names. And unlike your cat-eared harlot, I believe in the principle of informed consent. You must understand the choice before you can make it.”

“What choice?” I demand.

My doppelganger removes a shard of glass from its suit and places the shard on the bar. “Tomorrow, everyone in this city is going to start killing each other over who gets to lay their hands on this shard of glass, this piece of Katoptris’ mirror shattered so long ago by the Emissary. All those who dwell within my city–Myriad, Carnival, Voidhearts, and Guild–will sacrifice everything they have to walk through the gates of my amphitheater and claim this prize.” She pushes the shard toward me. “Unless you claim it first.”

I stare at her, uncomprehending.

“Take the shard and become a pretender to the Lady’s throne. They call themselves Nobility, because they are not quite Royalty and never will be. They are the squatting lords of the Labyrinth, ruling over its scattered cities and feuding over land rights in paradise.”

“You just murdered me and resurrected me and now you’re expositing about the hierarchy of this stupid fucking hell dimension?”

The Beast sighs and leans against one of the whale ribs. “It’s only hell because you make it hell. We gave you, all of you, a world where you could be happy. A world where all your needs would be taken care of. We raised you a garden, and you keep choosing to set it on fire.”

I bare my teeth and lean forward, hands pushing against the bar. “You didn’t make a garden, you made a slaughterhouse. You filled a pen with sheep and invited the wolves. What about this outcome is surprising? It’s human nature to kill and lie and ruin.”

The Beast cocks her head. “Is that really human nature, or just your nature projected onto the whole?”

I flinch and rear back. “That’s not… I’m not a killer. I’m a liar, definitely, but I’m not a killer. Every act of violence I’ve committed has been for a higher purpose. My actions have been self-defense. I just want to survive. I just want to be safe.”

The Beast smiles. “Liar. You enjoy the act of killing; you just can’t admit it to yourself. You want to take lives, because it makes you feel powerful. When you butchered the woman in white, you wanted to make her scream. You laughed when you killed Shane Murtagh. You felt pride in your victory over the hunter whose name you never learned.”

I clench my teeth. “You’re ignoring context. My laughter was a response to the chemical rush of a spell. My pride was about survival.”

“And the first?”

“That one only looked like a person. It was just another beast of the Labyrinth.”

There’s a tap on my shoulder and I whirl, panicked, to stare into Lena’s big soft eyes. “Like me?” she asks. Blood drips down her neck from two familiar marks.

“What are you–” I blink and she’s gone, like she was never there. My hands won’t stop shaking. “Stop it. Stop.”

“Perhaps a more familiar environment would make this easier for you. Let’s reset.” The Beast snaps her fingers and the beach vanishes, the bar and the whale with it, and for a brief moment we are suspended in darkness before the world reforms around us.

It’s another tea party. A fancy tablecloth, painted white chairs, an expensive-looking tea set. And all around us, stretching to the horizon in every direction, is a series of alternating black-and-white squares like the world’s largest chessboard. The Beast sits across from me, sipping her tea, still wearing my face and dressed in a three-piece suit. Lena stands at her side, now unbloodied, smiling placidly.

“Much better. Now, allow me to begin again: I have brought you here, Maven Alice, to offer you a choice. If all you truly desire is to be safe and feel loved, then you simply have to take up the shard of Katoptris’ mirror and you shall have both safety and companionship. The shard shall keep you from aging or falling ill, though that is something your demonhood already provides. You shall have the love and care of any figment you desire, though again that is something already within your reach.” She gestures at Lena, who waves at me.

I frown at the monster. “Why are you undermining your own points?”

“Oh, I’m simply making a different point than you think. But, regardless, there is another thing the shard can offer that you do not already possess: power. Within the Labyrinth, only a handful can match the raw power of a shard-holder. You will not be Royalty, but you will be closer than most, and you will have a degree of control over the Labyrinth itself while within your sphere of influence. Take up the shard and it would become child’s play to strike down Averrich and all his hunters.”

“Okay. That’s a bit more tempting, sure. So what’s the catch? What am I giving up? What’s the other option in this choice?” I give the Beast a hard look.

She smiles and takes another sip of tea. I haven’t touched mine. “The other option is that you stay with Cheshire and attempt to become God.”

I narrow my eyes. “You’re framing that as mutually exclusive with the shard of glass. Why?”

“As a Noble, your power will be stagnant; glass cannot grow. You will become a fixed existence, far more powerful than you are now but far less powerful than your theoretical potential as a demon. And in becoming a Noble, you will give up your demonhood and turn your back on your geist. Those are the terms of my offer.”

I suck in air. “You can’t be serious. That’s absurd. Do you know what I’ve sacrificed already to get this far?”

“You’re reciting the sunk cost fallacy,” she chides me. “What you have sacrificed is irrelevant; what you stand to gain or lose is all that matters. Take the shard and you lose Cheshire and your chance at ever becoming Royalty, but you gain immediate and guaranteed security, companionship, and power. Reject my offer and return to Cheshire, and you put your life at risk at the side of a creature that you do not and cannot trust. It would seem an easy choice. So why do you hesitate?”

“You just said I won’t be able to reach Royalty–”

“Why do you care?” she interrupts me, suddenly vicious. “If your greatest drive is a fear of death, then why do you balk at the easy road to immortality? If you feel alone and unloved, then why would you not reach for those you know cannot betray you? If you take the shard, you will only ever rule a piece of the Labyrinth, but is that not enough? Is my paradise lacking? What is missing for you to be happy here?”

I look away from her, down at the cup of tea in front of me. I don’t have an answer.

“You want control. That’s the real root of it all. You cut yourself for control. You manipulate people for control. You’re desperate for it. Back on Earth, you felt like you couldn’t control anything; you couldn’t control your emotions, you couldn’t control your behavior, not who liked you, not your financial situation, not your success or popularity, none of it. And at the end of it all, you knew, no matter what you did to turn your life around, no matter what scraps of control you managed to scavenge, you would still never be in control of your own mortality.”

I hug myself and mutter, “Cheshire already tried this, okay? I’ve already had my fear of death used as a cudgel to beat me with.”

“It’s not about death,” the Beast insists. “It’s about pride. When you were a teenager, when you realized that you were never going to invent a dozen miracle solutions to stave off your own inevitable demise, do you remember what you fantasized about next? You dreamt of killing the world. You sketched out plans of how you would become the president of the United States so that you could trigger a nuclear fucking holocaust. If you were going to die, then damn it, at least let the Earth die with you. You thought that maybe, just maybe, you could feel some satisfaction if you died knowing that you had taken out every other human being first–that of all humanity, you were the last human standing. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I was just a kid! I was just a stupid, sad, angry teenager, okay?” I cover my ears, hating all the words she’s saying. Just stop, just stop, just stop!

“Did you ever stop being that kid? Can you honestly tell me you don’t still harbor that desire to burn the whole world lest it outlive you? That you’re not, deep down, still just a scared, hateful little girl? What difference is there, really, between you and Homura?”

Like a bucket of ice water, I’m shocked completely out of my stupor. “How do you know that? How do you know about her? Does… does Cheshire know about Homura?”

My doppelganger shrugs. “I know many things that Cheshire doesn’t, and she knows many things that I don’t. I highly doubt she’s aware of the visions you’ve been seeing in your dreams. And I do know why you’re having those visions, and what they mean. But if you want to know what I know that you don’t… take the shard.” The piece of glass appears on the table, taking the place of the teapot.

I curl my lip. “You want that so fucking badly, huh? Why? What do you get out of this?”

She smiles. “I’ll tell you, if you take the shard.”

“Ugh. Okay, different question: what happens to you, if I take the shard and become a Noble? You said I’ll rule this city, but didn’t you call it your city?”

“Correct. The mirror fragment is my animus, what you might call my animating principle. When you take my animus, my existence as the Beast of Lamentation and Euphoria will end. From one point of view, I will die. But in other ways, I will live forever by your side, through you and part of you.”

I narrow my eyes. “You’ll replace Cheshire. Trading a geist for a phantom reflection. Why the hell would I agree to that? Cheshire may secretly be plotting to backstab me, but at least she’s trying to be appealing. You are infuriating.”

The Beast laughs. “You have no idea how funny that is. Ah, that’s delightful. But, please, let’s get back on track. You want answers, and I can provide them. Answers about why I’m so interested in you. Answers about why you were brought to the Labyrinth in the first place. Answers about Homura, and Reska, and the world of your dreams. Answers to questions you’ve forgotten. I can answer all your questions, even the ones you don’t know to ask. Take the shard, and I’ll tell you everything you’ve forgotten. Take the shard, and I’ll tell you all you want to know.”

Everything I’ve forgotten? That sounds like more credence to my “Alice in Wonderland” theory. Hypothesis. Whatever.

“I can give you back the names you’ve forgotten. I can even break Eirdryd’s hold over you.” She leans in, expression full of sincerity that could so easily be faked. “I want to free you, Maven. Cheshire? She wants to make you into a hungry animal she can pull around on a leash.”

“How can you say you want to free me when your shard would put me in a cage? Forever bound beneath Katoptris, beneath the Demiurge.”

“You can’t beat the Demiurge, Maven. I’m not sure you really understand how impossible that feat would be. She is the guiding will and living avatar of the Dreamweaver. You can’t usurp Nyara without usurping Azathoth, and Azathoth is the entire universe–all universes, all realities, all of everything. The hard road only leads to suffering and despair. There will be no victory at the end of it. Please, choose the easy road instead. Stay with me. Take my shard. Rest.”

“You’re asking me to give up. To just abandon everything I’ve worked for.”

“Let this be your story’s end. It doesn’t need to be a tale of all or nothing. Accept compromise and walk the easy road. Let yourself find happiness in comfort and safety, surrounded by people who love you. Or, you can take the hard road, and struggle and strive like one of those wretched Leviathans. Destroy yourself, again and again, in pursuit of an unattainable dream. The choice is yours.”

I will have all the world, Huntsman, or I will have nothing at all. That’s what I said to Eirdryd, right before making one of the most costly decisions of my time in the Labyrinth. I sacrificed my name and gave a faerie hold over my free will, all for the sake of a single magic spell. There’s a temptation to call that decision foolish, idiotic, a monumental fuck-up.

But it worked. The compass bought me a path out of the forest, and it led me to my first ally in this world. Anyone who would have balked at that deal would have died in that forest, from starvation or spider-dogs or just a whim of the Huntsman. Being reckless saved my life. Hell, even before Eirdryd, my all-or-nothing approach is how I won my first fight. And my second, come to think of it.

I bet on Bashe when I broke the circle, and for all that our relationship went south, it worked. He turned out to be a better man than I had even hoped for, and his sense of obligation earned me spells, information, and crucial guidance. If I hadn’t taken so many risks in my conversations with Bashe, I think I would have been in a much worse position going into Sanctuary 7.

And when the Mourner caught me and infected me with despair, my recklessness saved my life yet again. My callous risk-taking has been downright adaptive in this environment. All my victories have come from being willing to go all-in on a crazy, reckless, dangerous plan.

And sure, maybe those victories will come with scars. But I’m already wearing a tapestry of them, inside and out. What’s a few more to add to the collection?

“The hard road,” I finally tell the Beast of Lamentation and Euphoria. “I’ll take the hard road.”