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When was the last time you died? For me, it was today. It was yesterday, and the day before. It was last week, and last month, and as far back as I can remember.

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If I remember.

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I know I was seventeen when they took me, not long after the world discovered the miracle of lazuli. It rained that morning. Leaves rotted beneath my mud-coated boots, blooming with the scent of petrichor. The sun fought against the thick cover of afternoon clouds, and I was close to home, dodging the cracks on sidewalks because it was the most important thing I had to do that Wednesday on my way back from school. Shoes scuffed behind me, but I didn’t give it my attention. Pain erupted at my temple. My last thought, before I collapsed to the familiar stones of my childhood driveway, was that I hadn’t told my mom goodbye that morning.

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It's hard to keep track of time since waking up here. I can’t get the taste of stale fear out of my mouth. Staying awake seems futile. I’m barely awake now, which means it’s happening again soon. Are you listening? I know I’m being short, and I talk too fast, but pay attention as best you can.

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My name is Gen. I was brought here with a group of girls. It was pure luck—or a lack of it—that Moe was taken with me, but I haven’t seen her since that day when they beat her so bad her ear ripped off and she couldn’t see. I hope she got out. She was always so smart, if anyone could have escaped, it’d be her. They keep me in a room made of concrete. Lazuli flows everywhere. It’s in the walls, in the floor, in the manacle they put on all our wrists. When I’m awake, it aches like nothing I’ve ever felt before, as if my bone is decaying where it sits beneath the metal.

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And the words.

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Healer. Vision. Serenity. That’s how they get you. Those words wipe it all away, like turning off a game before you’ve saved the progress. Healer. Vision. Serenity. If you hear those words, do everything you can to block them out. Sing your favorite song, think about your happiest moment or your dog dying, it doesn’t matter. Try not to focus on what you’re hearing, or you’ll get stuck in the dreams. The damn dreams. They’re using me in them, and I can’t fight it no matter how much I try.

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I don’t have any more time to explain.

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Please. Whoever’s listening, I need your help. We need your help.

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*

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Healer. Vision. Serenity. The words echo like they’re from somewhere far away. Another room, maybe.

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“Priest. Wisdom. Babylon,” I say. I have to say it. That’s the rule.

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“What was that?” a woman asks. My belly lurches as if I’ve toppled off a high ledge. The library drips back into view. Shelves loom all around, packed tight with leather tomes. I dig my bare toes into the green shag carpet. It’s like damp moss, cool and squishable. The woman in front of me taps her sharp nails on the bar counter.

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The Madam. I forgot about her. She’ll be upset if she knows I got lost. The thought sends a visceral prick of nausea through me. I try my best to let a pleasant smile leak across my face.

 

“I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

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Her black eyes rake from my neck to my feet. The look she gives me resembles a disapproving mother, except it’s not motherly. Not at all. It could be, if she was a spider about to wrap me up and stash me next to her ripe egg sac.

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“We were discussing a game. Don’t you remember?”

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My head gives a dull throb. A game. Yes, I was thinking about a game.

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“Right,” I say, mouth moving for me. I brush my plaited hair behind my shoulder, tilt forward, and reach past the rings of sticky alcohol on the counter for her hand. “How do we play again?”

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Her slender fingers brush across mine. She moves like a puppetress sewing strings into my knuckles. “It’s a glorious game of colors,” she says in a velvet voice, “pink, red, purple, and black.”

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I’ve never heard it before, but I’m sure we were talking about it over a bottle of champagne. Yes, that’s right. “Sounds intriguing.”

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“Oh, come now. You could give me more than that.” She sips from her glass, coils of silver hair shifting around her chin. Her dewdrop earrings catch in the haze of fading candles, rubies like clotted blood. She smacks her lips, textureless skin stretching to reveal perfect teeth, except there are too many of them for her mouth. Gums overflowing with porcelain bones.

 

I push the sight from my mind, looking around to focus on anything else. There’s a hanging slab of wood over the Madam’s shoulder, a sign lit by lanterns with words etched in it:

 

Hall of Dreams

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A red fox balances on it.

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That’s what I was looking at a moment ago, wasn’t it? When I was thinking about something important. How did it get up there? The fox stays poised, giving no indication of faltering on its perch. Indistinguishable patrons walk the library stacks in silence. The Madam clears her throat.

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Stop getting distracted.

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“Keep going,” I say, and force my eyes to drag over her pristine pantsuit, dark as shadows with a cherry-colored bow at her waist. If her hum is anything to go by, she approves of my feigned interest.

 

“We’ll play like this: one of us picks an aisle. The first book we see that matches our colors, we get to perform an action.” The Madam steps toward me, eating the space between us. She’s much taller than me. “A pink book means a kiss. Red means we get to touch. Purple, I put my mouth on you, here.” She brushes her thumb below my hip. “Black means…”

 

She doesn’t finish because she doesn’t need to. Now I’m supposed to step into her web. That’s the next step. It’s why I’m here with her in this place, wearing this stupid ruffled dress to impress her; I’m supposed to do whatever she wants. I want to. It doesn’t matter that I have no choice.

 

It’s what I’m meant for. At least I think so.

 

I glance at the hall of shelves behind her. Their contents are dark. So, she set her game’s parameters with a purpose. A single warm remark and I’d be in her clutches. I prepare to speak, but there, on the carpeted ground, is that fox. Watching. Its ears twitch—one of them is clipped. My chest tightens at the sight, and I look back to the Madam. Am I supposed to know her name?

 

“Sounds like fun,” I say, attempting to keep my voice sultry. “How about we get to know each other a bit more, and play later?”

 

Her eyebrows raise. “We know each other enough.”

 

I said the wrong thing. I mask it with a smirk. “We just met. I think it’s better with more depth, don’t you?”

 

“Stop talking so fast,” she says. Her face falls flat. I keep messing up. “And no, You’re wrong. We’ve been on three dates. On the last one, you said you wanted to play a game.”

 

“I did?” The memory stings when I reach for it, leaving me with bare impressions of a story.

 

“You did. Now we’re going to play my game.” She must be telling the truth, and I know I should listen. She pulls my braid from behind my back and lets it fall over my chest. “So be a good girl and make me feel like magic.”

 

I need to listen. That’s what’s important. But a blur of movement on the bar counter makes me hesitate.

 

The fox waits from beyond the Madam’s arm, a tuft of fur soft as cream. It doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch its nose. It stares at me with prowling eyes.

 

The Madam whips her head around, searching the counter. “What are you looking at?”

 

“The fox,” I say like a secret. The sight of it makes my limbs lock. I tear my attention from it but it’s difficult to focus on my surroundings. The air seems filled with fog, causing everything to smudge. I search for the smell of old books or the scent of the Madam’s perfume, but nothing comes. I can’t hear anything except a faint electrical buzz and the vibrations of her voice when she speaks. No footsteps from the readers in the library. No creaking of the floorboards beneath the carpet. No bartender filling glasses.

 

“What fox?”

 

“The one behind you.”

 

She turns back to me, fingers coming to clutch my chin with too much force. “There’s no fox.”

 

My heart beats in my cheeks. “I think I need to use the restroom for a minute,” I say around her grip. Her touch burns, acid crawling down my throat like thick honey. It’s a strange, familiar pain that won’t last—it’s never permanent.

 

But how do I know that? When has this happened before?

 

The fox stays motionless. Invisible stones stack on my lungs, making it hard to breathe.

 

“I’m not feeling well. I think I should go.”

 

“Unbelievable.” The Madam laughs, a sound resembling a slap. Her eyes turn to ice. “Go

where?”

 

I don’t know. I search the stacks of books in the hall but see no doors or walls, only labyrinthine shelves reaching toward a ceiling too high to comprehend.

 

Everything is wrong.

 

“You’re awake,” says the Madam. Her tone sings with morbid curiosity. “How are you awake?” I don’t know what she means. My chest heaves. The woman’s face twists, and she releases my chin. I can’t focus with the fox watching me. I look around for a way to leave again, but the library goers have stopped to watch the commotion, whispering. All of them, even ones far off, stand motionless. I can’t make out their features, but they’re all wearing the same clothes—white shirts and black slacks. Every single one.

 

The back of my throat grows wet.

 

“Calm down,” the Madam orders. “You’re going to flood the scape.” I watch as her skin ripples, slow like a swimming serpent. Her features crumble and pulsate, skating across her face as if it’s made of sand.

 

“What’s happening?” I ask between violent breaths.

 

Then the library begins to bleed. Ink trickles down the edges of my vision, and an image splays behind the blackness: a concrete room replaces book stacks, lit by the glow of cobalt blue tubing spanning the ceiling like veins. A television murmurs nearby. Before I can make out the details, my surroundings solidify once more.

 

It comes to me all at once—this place isn’t real.

 

The Madam snatches my wrist, yanking it to her face. There’s nothing there, but she’s inspecting my forearm like it’s a book written in a language she doesn’t understand. The shackle of her grip scorches my skin, radiating down my arm. I can’t pull away, can’t even catch my breath long enough to scream.

 

She drops it, brows knitting together. My arm hangs limp at my side as her wide eyes cast around the room. “Stop. Right now. Do you know how much I paid for this?”

 

Her words knock into me.

 

Paid for this.

 

I squeeze my eyes shut. The concrete walls return to me. The lingering blue light waltzes in my peripheral. Like an axe sinking through my skull, a withering pain overtakes me, and my mind becomes a fractal. For the barest second, I remember. Then I lose it again.

 

I blink. The Madam isn’t in front of me anymore, she’s a dozen feet away and moving at a fast pace toward a door as tall as the shelves, far at the end of the domed hall.

 

A door that wasn’t there before.

 

A way out.

 

I try to go after her, but I can’t move. My feet won’t budge; the carpet sticks to them like half-dry glue. Sweat builds on my skin. My ribs tighten, but the fox pads into view, unaffected by the gummed floor. I realize now that I recognize its clipped ear. It looks at me with its predator eyes.

 

The fox isn’t a fox. I know that much. But figuring it out doesn’t matter right now. It comes to my bare feet, nose brushing against me—or it should, but I can’t feel it. I can’t feel the carpet, or the way my dress shifts against my skin, or the temperature of the air. I feel when it bites me though, feather-light like an eyelash kiss.

 

My feet slip from their spot.

 

I run after the Madam with the fox at my side, dodging the people around me. They squeeze closer from the halls, congesting the path toward the door and blocking my view of the Madam. Their bodies smack together like frozen meat. One knocks into me, grabbing my shoulders.

 

I know why I couldn’t make their features out before—this man doesn’t have a face. None of them do, but now I can hear what they’ve been whispering. An empty voice comes from the man, creeping out of an unseen orifice. “Healer,” he says. The fox jumps onto the man’s head, and as soon as it lands, the man drains away, leaking like water from cupped hands until there’s nothing left of him. No flesh, no smell, just air. The fox prances ahead, bouncing off more faceless bodies in the way. Like the man, they begin to disappear. Through the gaps of, the Madam closes in on the door, unbothered by the swarm.

 

None of this is real, I tell myself, and I keep moving past the infinite stacks of books. The fox doesn’t clear the path completely, though. People press in, whispering at me.

 

“Vision,” one says.

 

The fox looks back at me. Faster, its gaze says.

 

The mountainous door is closer now, maybe a hundred feet away. It opens at an ominous pace, revealing a darkness the Madam’s silver curls stand out against. For a moment, she’s minuscule against the door. The void swamps her, stealing her from view.

 

“Serenity,” says the crowd. It echoes along with my breath. I don’t want to listen to them. What they’re saying, I’ve heard it countless times before. Nothing good happens when—

 

“Priest,” I say without thinking. It tumbles out of me, causing me to trip. The fox doubles-back, kicking off from shins and thighs. Lifeless fingers scrape over my braid as I regain my footing. They’re grabbing at me, trying to catch my arms, my dress. The carpet churns beneath my feet as I push thighs over knees over ankles, whispers lapping at my ears. I close in on the door.

 

Another word claws inside my mouth. I can’t keep it in. It rips from my lips in a snarled tangle of tongue and teeth. “Wisdom.” It takes away my headache, leaving behind cotton candy pressure.

 

The fox scrambles at my feet. The people keep whispering but they drop from view. A brief glance backward shows the bodies standing still, lined up as if stuck behind a border. I crane my neck up and catch no sign of the top of the door—it’s as endless at the shelves. Another word lodges in my throat. I need to leave before it comes out. The fox cuts in front of me, just before the opening to the exit. It jumps to my chest, sitting in my arms when they curl beneath it on instinct. It gnaws at my wrist, the one still tender from the Madam handling it.

 

Black blotches take over my sight. I hold my breath to keep my mouth closed. If I don’t leave now, I’ll lose myself again. I feel it.

 

It rises in me like bile. Babylon. The closing of the gate, the end of the mantra. Whatever the fox is doing, I can’t wait. I stumble forward into the black space of the door, choking on syllables. The fox screeches.

 

The gaping darkness closes around us, trapping us within its maw.