Celeste stepped back into what they’d loosely dubbed the kitchen, and her jaw slackened for a moment. A massive pile of ripe strawberries sat glistening on the new table—one that definitely hadn’t been there last night. It was a swirling clear rainbow lollipop, polished like glass, and surrounded by gumdrop chairs that shimmered in pastel hues. The whole thing looked like a fancy tea set designed by a sugar-fueled architect with too much time on their hands.
She blinked, slowly approaching it. Parts of the egg base had changed overnight. There were now shallow grooves along the curved walls, like shelves were slowly pushing through the sugar-glass surface. The architecture was adapting.
She rested her fingers on the tabletop. Warm—not just from the sun filtering through the candy-floss leaves outside, but alive, like the base itself was breathing softly, evolving in response to their needs.
Behind her, familiar voices rose in argument.
“I’m tellin’ you, this place is perfect!” Mezzo said, throwing both paws up as if the answer was obvious. “It’s safe, it’s weirdly cozy, and all it really needs is a pizza oven.”
Arcade whipped around so sharply his glasses nearly slid off. “A pizza oven? Mezzo, we are trapped inside a magical death dome with zombie generals, corrupted infrastructure, and no functioning government response, and your strategic recommendation is interior decorating?”
“It’s not decorating,” Mezzo shot back. “It’s morale.”
“It’s insanity.”
“It’s vision.”
“It’s carbohydrates.”
“Exactly!”
Arcade dragged a paw down his face. “You are unbelievable.”
Mezzo puffed his chest out. “And yet correct. We’ve got a magic tree-house, a living fridge, and dragon-delivered care packages. Why would we leave?”
“Because,” Arcade said through gritted teeth, “we need to find actual authority. Real help. Soldiers. Police. Anyone with resources and a functioning chain of command.”
Mezzo snorted. “Aye, because the Council’s done such a bang-up job so far.”
Before Arcade could fire back, Ray stepped into the room, took one look at the two of them, and sighed like she was already tired of this conversation.
“You’re both wrong,” she said flatly. “We stick to the plan. Bash the wall and leave.”
Mezzo turned toward her with exaggerated disbelief. “Ah, brilliant. The sunshine speaks.”
Ray’s eyes narrowed.
Mezzo kept going anyway, because of course he did.
“Sorry, I forgot. Our fearless ray of warmth and emotional balance has arrived to save the day.”
Ray folded her arms. “Keep talking.”
Mezzo grinned, all teeth and bad judgment. “Oh, I fully intend to, yer grumpy little furnace.”
Something in the air changed.
Ray inhaled sharply.
Then she breathed fire.
Not a huge blast, not enough to set the whole kitchen ablaze, but a sudden vicious flare that sent Mezzo yelping backward, flailing so hard he nearly tripped over a gumdrop chair. Heat flashed across the room, and for a second violet-gold light danced over Ray’s arms—
Phoenix feathers.
Fine, bright feathers slid down her forearms in shimmering streaks before vanishing again, revealing what she’d been trying very hard not to show.
Mezzo stared at her, singed fringe smoking.
“Oh, stars—stop, stop, I take it back!” he cried, throwing both paws in front of his face. “Don’t roast me, I’m mostly seasoning!”
Ray stepped forward, eyes blazing. “Don’t push me again.”
Mezzo swallowed hard and gave a shaky nod. “Noted. Deeply noted.”
At the table, Celeste had silently grabbed a strawberry.
Then another.
She was chewing both with the unmistakable speed of someone trying to eat her nerves before they ate her first.
Outside, Bonbon suddenly shrieked with laughter and ran off into the garden, her little feet pattering over the biscuit path. Skye and Lumina chased after her, all three of them darting between patches of candy-coloured grass after a cluster of tiny sentient marshmallows that bounced and squeaked like living sweets.
Ray turned back to Celeste. “We’re going to the barrier.”
Arcade looked between them at once. “You should let Celeste choose. She’s the one with the weird core we’re all attached to.”
Ray rolled her eyes. “Fine. Then here’s the choice. We hit the barrier first. If we can break through it, we leave. If we can’t…” She shrugged one shoulder. “Then we find the mythics and see if they can remove our connection to Celeste so we can use our mana by ourselves.”
That made Celeste stop chewing.
“Oh,” she said faintly.
Ray’s expression softened only a fraction. “I’m not saying that to be cruel. I’m saying it because being magically leashed to one person is a terrible survival strategy.”
Celeste looked down at the half-eaten strawberry in her paw. Then at the doorway. Then at Ray. Then at Arcade, who was watching her like this was some kind of exam she had not studied for.
Finally, she gave a small, reluctant nod. “Right. Okay. We can try the barrier first.”
Ray straightened at once, already preparing to move.
From the side, Mezzo leaned toward Celeste and muttered under his breath, “Ray’s going to be an issue, princess. You need to stand up to her.”
Celeste glanced nervously toward Ray, then back at Mezzo.
“…She breathed fire.”
Mezzo opened his mouth.
Celeste went on, dead serious. “I do not want to end up a roasted marshmallow.”
Mezzo stared at her for a second.
Then, despite himself, barked out a laugh.
“Fair,” he admitted.
Celeste lingered by the lollipop table, fingers turning the last strawberry over and over in her paw before finally eating it. Her ears drooped a little as she glanced toward the sugar-glass windows, where the tree’s branches swayed softly outside.
“…I don’t want to leave the tree either,” she admitted at last, voice quiet. “It’s the first place that’s felt even a little bit safe. But… maybe it is sensible to get far away from here.” She gave a weak little shrug. “I hate having to look over my shoulder all the time. And I want to get back home. Maybe my dad’s waiting there.”
She hesitated, then fiddled awkwardly with the edge of her sleeve.
“I could ask him about my ID too,” she said. “Though… I don’t really believe he’d be honest with me.” A tiny, embarrassed smile tugged at her mouth. “I’m not very good at telling when people are lying.”
Mezzo, who had been half-sprawled across a gumdrop chair, blinked at that. The usual grin on his face softened for a moment.
“Yeah,” he said, quieter than usual. “I get that.”
Celeste looked over at him. “Do you?”
He nodded, gaze drifting for the first time that morning. “Been wonderin’ if my mum and my older sister are alright.” His tail gave a slow, absent flick. “Haven’t seen either of ’em in years. Not since I left home to travel.”
Celeste tilted her head. “Why were you travelling?”
Mezzo straightened a little too fast, grin snapping back into place like a stage curtain dropping. “Ah, y’know. Wanderlust. Dramatic backstory. Incredible cheekbones. Bit of this, bit of that.”
Celeste gave him a look. “That is not an answer.”
“No,” Mezzo agreed cheerfully, “but it is the one you’re getting.”
That made her laugh, small and soft.
Then she looked back toward the window, chewing her lip. “Maybe… if the barrier thing doesn’t work out…” She glanced at him sideways. “We can ask Marzipan for a pizza oven.”
Mezzo went still.
Then he bounced up and down so hard the gumdrop chair squeaked beneath him.
“That would be great!” he declared, eyes shining. “Now that is leadership. Vision. Hope. Cheese.”
Celeste giggled despite herself. “As long as everyone’s happy and safe, I’m happy.”
Ray stretched, cracking her knuckles, lollipop still rolling lazily. “Fine. Let’s go smash a barrier. Or die. Whatever comes first.”
Just then, Skye stopped, eyes narrowing slightly as he fixed on Celeste. His words came out quiet, blunt, but almost… searching.
“Do you actually want to help me and Arcade?”
Celeste faltered mid-step, surprised. “That’s… um… a strange question.” She smiled shyly, earnest. “But yes. Of course I do.”
Skye studied her for a long moment, gaze unwavering, like he was listening for something behind her words. Then he nodded once.
“…Good. That’s what I needed to know.”
And without another word, he walked down the hall, leaving Celeste blinking after him, a puzzled frown tugging at her lips.
“…What was that about?”
Arcade adjusted his arcbracer, not looking up. “That’s Skye. He drifts off sometimes. But even for him? That was odd.”
Celeste watched after him, unsettled. Something lingered in the air—like a whisper she couldn’t quite catch.
The scream ripped through the base like a blade.
Everyone scrambled, weapons half-summoned, as they burst out of the lounge.
Lumina stood in the middle of the corridor, her pink-gem sword clenched tight in trembling hands. At her feet lay a twitching mess of candy shards—a sugar rusher, its cuboid body cracked open, crystalline fangs still glinting before the whole thing shivered, glitched, and fell apart.
Lumina’s chest rose and fell in sharp, panicked gasps. Her wide eyes locked onto Celeste’s.
“I—I didn’t want to…” she stammered. Her grip slipped, the sword dissolving into light as her arms fell limp. “He attacked me. I didn’t want to kill him…”
Celeste rushed forward, wrapping her arms around her little sister. She pulled her close, rocking her gently despite the fear knotting her own stomach. “Shh… you’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Mezzo leaned over the body, whistling low. “Bloody hell, that was clean work. Not bad at all, kiddo.”
Lumina sniffled, shaking her head hard against Celeste’s coat. “It’s too scary. I don’t like this. I… I want to go home. Please, Celeste. Can we go home now?”
Celeste kissed the top of her head, whispering soft but steady. “I know, cariad. We’re going to the barrier today. We’ll see if we can escape. Together. Okay?”
Lumina sniffled again but nodded, a tiny smile breaking through. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll get Miss Jellybeans.”
As she darted off, the sugar rusher’s remains twitched one last time—and then fizzled into pixels, scattering like broken code.
Arcade crouched down, studying the glitch with wide eyes. His quills bristled, a spark of static racing down his back. “This is… wrong. Too weird. It’s not even biology anymore—it’s a program. Like someone’s experiment. And I’ve got no intention of being anyone’s lab rat.”
Mezzo gasped theatrically, clutching his chest. “What?! You—mister science brain—don’t like weird science stuff? I thought you lived for this!”
Arcade stood, lips curling in irritation. “I like logic. Predictability. Laws that make sense. This?” He gestured at the dissolving candy corpse. “This is just creepy.”
Before the argument could stretch, Lumina returned, clutching Miss Jellybeans tight against her chest—the little bunny doll in its frilly pink Lolita dress now her anchor against the madness.
Celeste bent down and scooped up Bonbon, who blinked blearily from where she’d been woken by the noise. The toddler cuddled into her shoulder, mumbling something soft in Caerfaenic, her thumb creeping into her mouth.
Ray slung her hammer across her back, already heading toward the exit. Her voice was flat, but her stride had fire in it. “Enough stalling. If there’s a way out, we find it. I’m done rotting in this candy-coated hellhole.”
Celeste adjusted Bonbon on her hip, gathered the others with a nod, and followed.
Together, they stepped out into the warped park beyond—the barrier waiting somewhere ahead, and the promise of escape glinting like hope through sugar-glass.
