Last we saw Red …
… she was witnessing a ‘blurred reality’ … the threads of her destiny? Then something snapped and ‘there stood Mum.’
Stoic. Comely. Auburn hair striking against porcelain skin, lit by feral green eyes. Zophia Lilith Dorsett had once looked to the stars—though those memories had been taken from her. She couldn’t recall. Everything. Yet.
Now, she clung to the safety—no, necessity—of order. Unable to dissuade her daughter from the danger she was reaching for.
Her husband had always coddled Red, but Zophia didn’t believe in coddling, especially Red. Coddling was false hope.
The truth, though, was Red had never even been part of the plan—the ‘baby farm,’ as it had become known—she just happened and Zophia was just tired.
Could anyone really blame her?
She’d signed on to create life—not necessarily raise it.
After four sons and eight daughters, Zophia had been one of Ti Tayme’s top producers—yet no one dared mention her failures: a miscarriage and a separate involuntary termination—two sets of twins—four children unnamed and unheld.
Tired? Yes. But worried? Definitely.
As she watched Red reaching for the stars, Zophia wondered if she had ever been as fearless, as foolish. But the memory, if it existed, slipped away before she could claim it.
There was never a need to dawdle.
She scowled at Issi, then advanced toward her youngest, the unexpected one.
The click of her heels sliced through the silence, sharp as glass cracking under pressure. An unnatural chill seemed to follow Zophia into the immense hall, chasing away any warmth and smothering the young stargazer.
Red watched, struggling to stay upright.
Issi restrained his instinct to leap forward and save the girl.
“Well, little Miss Something, how did you manage this?”
As Zophia sauntered closer, her eyes darted below. Section Twelve. Only a flicker before returning to Red.
Unbeknownst to Red, her mother came to the AOD nearly every morning. It was just bad luck to find her here today.
Red glanced toward Issi, wondering if she had been betrayed.
Issi shrugged his shoulders, but the awkward turn of his lips hinted at some taste of guilt. He should have warned Red perhaps, but it seems even Magnus Finn was unaware of his wife’s early morning whereabouts. He made no mention.
Issi was unclear why Zophia regularly requested a certain private space in the AOD, but he respected her privacy … even when he heard her muffled sorrow. Finney had alerted him to his daughter’s likely arrival that morning and his only instruction was to keep Red safe.
Alin Finn had simply presumed Red would make a second run at the AOD, but had zero ideas why his wife, Zophia, would ever appear there.
Red glanced at her mother through the augmented goggles.
She looked like a creature rudely disturbed from hibernation.
She wasn’t sure what she had ever done to fall from her mother’s grace—but had she ever been there to begin with?
What would it take for Mum to understand?
Red wanted to run.
“Quite brazen, even for you, Jayla,” Zophia said as she clicked across the echoing lumina.
She spun her head to the curator. “You should have called me.”
Issi dropped his eyes, then cleared his throat gruffly before meeting Zophia’s admonishing glare. “Aye. She’s a curious bairn, ma’am.” He suspected Zophia may have reason to be harsh, but his tone remained firm. “Not every day you see a spark like that one, aye?”
Zophia’s eyes narrowed into seething slits as Issi met her with practiced ease. He was accustomed to weathering storms and figured Madam Finn was as well.
Sneaking a look at Red, he offered a reassuring smile, silently communicating, “Don’t give up, lass.”
Zophia huffed in agitation and turned to Red, who dodged her initial capture. It took Zophia a second lunge to grab her, and this time there was no wriggling free.
Red found herself pinned under her mother’s contempt.
“You don’t listen!” Zophia’s voice cracked, frustration laced with something raw.
“Why do you keep chasing this?”
Whatever Red was chasing, Zophia was running from.
The question hung between them. Too late to take back.
Her voice dropped, quieter now.
“There’s nothing out there but disappointment.”
A wistful spark from her eyes revealed she indeed knew the ‘why’ of Jayla's behavior.
She choked away her own childhood fragments.
Zophia wanted nothing more than to run away herself, but she couldn’t afford any amount of vulnerability.
She reached for the goggles on Red’s head.
Carefully—as if afraid they might break.
As if Red, herself, might break.
She hesitated too long. Her fingers clenched around the goggles—too tightly, for too long. They felt heavier than they should have, like something was pushing back. Red’s fragile dreams? Her own forgotten ones?
Her grip faltered.
For a single moment, she considered giving the goggles back. Letting Red keep this one thing.
But no. That was too dangerous.
Zophia steadied her grip, forcing her fingers to curl tighter.
Dreams. Shattered. Stolen.
Her voice, when it finally came, was almost too soft. Too careful.
“Nonsense.”
Red’s hands shot forward as her mother slid the goggles from her head, and there she held. For the tiniest glint, she thought she saw something in her mother, something those feral eyes were holding. The look either vanished, or was too unfamiliar for Red to understand. She felt her fingers brush against the prismatic lenses, but failed to grasp them.
“No! Mum, please!”
The words shot out, raw and desperate.
But the goggles were already gone.
Red’s hands clenched into fists, shaking. Her vision blurred. She couldn’t let the tears come. Not in front of Mum.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “You never do.”
Zophia clenched her jaw. She wasn’t here. She had drifted to another moment.
She was with a girl—no … she was the girl.
A voice—hers. I’ll find you.
The present yanked her back. The glint of the AR goggles in her daughter’s grip—the same reckless hunger, the same desperate hope she had once carried?
Impossible.
She opened her mouth. Stopped.
Red’s eyes were wide, desperate. Expecting … something else.
The words slipped out, colder than Zophia meant.
“You know nothing about loss.”
Regret flickered at the edges of her breath.
Too late. Too late.
She grabbed Red’s wrist and pulled her away.
The chill of her mother’s touch was no match for the cold of the cosmos. What chance did a child stand?
As the sliding door sealed away the stars, Red’s anguished plea to them, the voice among the stars, hung like a fragile echo.
“Please don’t leave me.”
And for a half a heartbeat, Zophia stalled. She fired a searching glance through the aluminum panes, then as quickly realized her foolishness. Red’s words called her back. Pierced her defenses and stirred something long buried.
Her daughter’s outstretched hand, so small, so desperate.
For that instant, it wasn’t Red’s hand.
It was her own—reaching for stars that had burned her long ago.
But it wasn’t the stars that had burned her. Was it?
Dreams. Not anymore. Not for me.
Next: Episode 8—The Hidden Chamber
Bonus Content
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