Chapter Text

The Promise of Chocolate Pudding

Iris stepped through the door into Eos with damp hair at her temples, dust on the hem of her coat, and chocolate pudding occupying a portion of her mind so strongly that even she might have called it embarrassing if anyone had been stupid enough to ask.

The door shut behind her with a soft shimmer.

For one blessed second, she simply stood there and breathed.

Eos smelled like old paper, rain-warmed stone, polished wood, and the faint citrus oil someone used on the hinges no matter how many times the maintenance wing insisted that oiling every enchanted door in the east corridor was excessive. Above her, narrow windows cut long golden bars of evening light across the walls, and the corridor stretched ahead in familiar arches and familiar shadows, full of mismatched doors taken from worlds that did not know they had lost them. Some were plain. Some were painted. Some were carved so finely that their edges looked more like lace than wood. One near the end had a brass lion’s head instead of a handle and refused to open for anyone who did not compliment it first.

Home.

Not the first home she had known. Not the oldest. Not the one whose memories still moved beneath her skin like old frost when she was tired enough to forget vigilance. But home all the same, earned slowly, stubbornly, over years of coming back through bright whiteness and impossible thresholds to find the same corridors waiting, the same people arguing somewhere below, the same library swallowing voices whole, the same kitchens smelling of butter or smoke depending on who had been left unattended.

Iris exhaled.

The mission had been easy. Annoying, but easy.

There was a difference, though her body seemed inclined to ignore it. Her shoulders ached from standing too long in one position while an elderly clerk with a lace collar and the personality of a damp sock insisted on recounting the entire inheritance dispute of a merchant house Iris neither knew nor wished to know. She had been sent to retrieve a sealed packet from World 417, southern district, blue-roofed quarter, no direct interference, no magical disturbance, no local politics. In theory, she had only needed to arrive, identify herself to the correct archivist, exchange a token, receive the documents, and leave.

In practice, the archivist had been missing, the token had been temporarily confiscated by a child who believed it was a game piece, and the documents had been locked in a cabinet whose key had been, according to everyone present, “somewhere nearby.”

Nearby had meant in a teapot. A teapot.

Iris still had not recovered emotionally.

Her stomach gave a sharp, miserable growl.

“Yes, I know,” she muttered to it, taking off one glove with her teeth while she started down the corridor. “I was there too.”

Chocolate pudding. Warm, if the kitchens had any mercy left in them. Thick. Sweet. With the dark shaved chocolate Ansel hoarded and pretended not to hoard because she had never, in her life, met an indulgence she did not immediately classify as an emergency ration. Iris had been thinking about it for the last hour of the mission, then the last twelve minutes of the return alignment, then the final three steps through the white passage between worlds. By the time the door had opened into Eos, the thought of that pudding had become less a desire and more a moral necessity.

She wanted a bath first. A real bath. Hot enough to make her bones loosen. Then clean clothes. Then dinner, which would, if justice existed in any world, consist largely of chocolate pudding and perhaps something sensible beside it that she could ignore until guilt made her eat three bites.

She had made it three steps. Three.

“Iris!”

Her entire body stopped.

There were ways one learned to recognize danger. A shift in air pressure before a spell collapsed. The wrong kind of silence in a market. A noble’s smile that lingered too long. A hunter’s footsteps behind trees. A door humming when it should not hum. And then there was Ansel saying her name like that.

Iris closed her eyes. “No.”

Ansel came crashing around the corner anyway.

She did not truly crash, of course. Ansel had too much grace to collide with things unless doing so served a dramatic purpose. But she had a way of entering spaces as if the universe had personally wronged her and she was arriving late to complain about it. Her dark curls were piled messily at the back of her head, several strands already escaping around her face, and her blouse looked like she had dressed properly in the morning and then spent the rest of the day being slowly defeated by papers. A slim chain glittered at her throat. Ink marked one finger. Her eyes, warm brown and too expressive for her own good, fixed on Iris with immediate, pleading brightness.

Behind her, a stack of folded notes floated obediently in the air, following her like guilty birds.

“I have not said anything yet,” Ansel said.

“You didn’t need to.”

“That’s unfair.”

“That is experience.”

“Iris.”

“No.”

“Iiiiiiiiris.”

“Nooooo.”

Ansel clasped both hands together, which would have been more convincing had one of the notes not chosen that exact moment to drift into her hair.

Iris stared at it. “You have a document nesting in your head.”

Ansel reached up, found it without looking, and shoved it into the hovering stack. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I did not choose the subject. The subject found me against my will.”

“That sounds like a yes.”

“That sounded nothing like a yes.”

“It had the rhythm of one.”

“You are a terrible person.”

“I am a desperate person.”

Iris gave her a flat look. “That is worse. Desperate people are always convinced their desperation is someone else’s problem.”

Ansel placed one hand over her heart with magnificent offense. “My problem is your problem because friendship is sacred.”

“My problem is that I smell like old cabinet dust and have been awake since dawn.”

“You always smell like old cabinet dust. You work in archives.”

“That was rude.”

Ansel grinned. “It was fond.”

“I do not accept fond insults before dinner.”

At the word dinner, Iris’s stomach betrayed her again. Loudly.

Ansel’s expression changed at once, softening with such quick affection that Iris almost regretted every word she had said in the last ten seconds. Almost.

“Oh,” Ansel said. “You haven’t eaten?”

“I have been promised chocolate pudding by the benevolent future I created for myself.”

“That is very specific.”

“Trust me, it is needed.”

Ansel winced. “World 417?”

“Never speak of it.”

“That bad?”

“The key was in a teapot.”

Ansel froze. Then her mouth twitched.

Iris lifted one warning finger. “Do not laugh.”

“I would never.” Ansel lost the fight, though, and laughed, bright and warm and completely unhelpful.

Iris walked past her.

Her friend immediately turned and followed. “All right, before you disappear into a bathtub and drown yourself in dramatic silence—”

“I do not drown dramatically.”

“—I need a favor.”

“No.”

“You don’t know what it is.”

“Your favors are.”

“This one is not,“ she almost whined. “This one is tiny.”

“Tiny favors are always traps,” Iris muttered, glaring up at Ansel. How unfair, truly, that nearly all of her friends were so much taller than she was. There was only one person Iris considered a friend who had managed to grow shorter than her—a spiteful fae woman with the power to rip worlds apart and hoarded diamonds and jewelry like a dragon.

“It is not a trap.”

“Then take it yourself.”

“I...eh, can’t.”

Iris slowed despite herself and glanced at her sideways. “Why?”

Ansel’s expression shifted again, this time into something more genuinely harried. She tucked a loose curl behind her ear, then immediately lost it again. “Because Master Orven found out about the duplication issue in the western index.”

Iris stared at her.

Ansel stared back.

“The one you said was not technically your fault?” Iris asked.

“It is not technically my fault.”

“Is it actually your fault?”

Ansel’s silence was devastating, the small jerk of her shoulders revealing everything.

Iris sighed. Deeply.

“It wasn’t supposed to duplicate the entire census category,” Ansel said quickly. “Only the titles. Only the titles, Iris. I was trying to make the cataloging easier.”

“How many entries?”

“That depends on whether you consider one ghost registry an entry.”

“How many, Ansel?”

It took a second. Then she mumbled, so silently Iris almost didn't hear her, “Eight thousand.”

Iris stopped walking.

Ansel smiled weakly.

Iris looked toward the far end of the corridor, where the central staircase curved downward toward the kitchens, warmth, food, pudding, and everything good in existence.

“Eight thousand?!“ 

“It was an accident! And that's why I can't do this—”

“Absolutely not.“ 

“It’s a pickup,” Ansel pleaded, grabbing Iris's hand and squeezing once. 

“You said favor first. Now it’s a pickup.”

“It is a pickup because it is so simple that calling it a mission feels insulting.”

“That sounds like it'll turn into a disaster.“ 

“It is a script,” Ansel said, pressing both hands together again, though this time there was less theatrical pleading and more honest urgency beneath it. “A bound translation draft from World 693. The glass monastery. You remember? We requested it two months ago for the archive comparison project. It finally came through, and I am supposed to retrieve it before moonrise local time, but if I don’t fix the western index before Orven comes back from dinner, he will make me recatalogue every maritime death record from the blue plague century by hand.”

Iris blinked. “That is oddly specific.”

“He made the threat with great detail.”

“Of course he did.”

“I would do it myself if I could.”

That, unfortunately, Iris believed.

Ansel was many things. Dramatic, yes. Disorganized in a way she insisted was simply multidirectional efficiency, absolutely. Guilty of sending stacks of notes into people’s hair with alarming regularity, certainly. But she was not lazy. She would not push work onto Iris simply because she did not feel like doing it.

Which meant Iris was in danger of agreeing. She hated that.

Her stomach complained again, quieter now, perhaps sensing betrayal.

Iris pressed a hand to it mournfully. “I was going to eat chocolate pudding.”

“I will make sure there is pudding when you return. I will guard it with my life!”

Iris gave her a long look.

Ansel held it for a second, then softened again. “Please?”

That was cruel.

Iris had survived worse things than Ansel saying please. Objectively. Obviously. She had survived chains and blood and winter stone, survived the first accidental jump with one shoe missing and an arrow in her shoulder, survived worlds where the rain sang warnings and worlds where the sun never fully rose. She had endured hunger, fear, study, failure, magic that burned through her like fever, and the long, humiliating process of learning how to live as a person instead of a possession.

And yet Ansel saying please in a corridor when Iris was tired and hungry still somehow ranked among life’s more effective attacks.

Iris looked at the ceiling. The ceiling, being stone, offered no assistance.

“Fine,” she said.

Ansel lit up. “I love you.”

“You love convenience.”

“I love you conveniently.”

Iris resumed walking, smiling despite the additional work, though not toward the kitchens now. Tragic. Cruel. Wrong. Instead, she veered toward the side passage leading to the mission desk, where tokens, seals, local notes, and return alignments were kept in neat drawers under several layers of watchful enchantment. Ansel fell into step beside her at once, relief visible in the loosening of her shoulders.

“World 693?” Iris asked.

“Glass monastery.”

“Political restrictions?”

“None relevant.”

“Language?”

“Local common. Or old Merethi, if the archivist insists on being annoying.”

“I can read Merethi.”

“I know.”

“Climate?”

“Cool. Dry. Late autumn.”

“Hostility?”

“None. The archivists are pacifists.”

“Pacifists can still be irritating.” Iris glanced at her. “Magic density?”

“Stable. Doorway alignment checked twice.”

Iris raised an eyebrow. “By you?”

“By Master Sevin.” Ansel pouted.

They passed beneath a high archway into the mission antechamber, a circular room lined with shelves, maps, clocks, and small brass instruments that tracked the breathing rhythm of nearby worlds. Some clicked softly. Others hummed. One in the corner was smoking gently, which Iris chose not to examine because it was not her problem and she was already carrying one of Ansel’s.

A junior keeper at the desk looked up as they approached, expression brightening in recognition.

“Iris. Back from 417?”

“Do not ask about the teapot.”

The keeper paused. “The what?”

Ansel slid a paper across the desk before curiosity could become fatal. “Handoff for 693. Iris is taking it.”

The keeper skimmed the order, then glanced at Iris. “You just returned.”

“I have been informed friendship is sacred.”

“Ah,” he said, with the solemn understanding of someone who had also been victimized by affection. “Ansel.”

“Why does everyone say my name like that?” Ansel asked.

“Because we know you,” Iris said.

The keeper smiled faintly and turned to the drawers behind him. “The world is simple. No extra equipment required unless you want a satchel. The script should already be wrapped.”

“No satchel,” Iris said at once.

Ansel looked at her. “Are you sure?”

“I am not carrying a satchel for a twenty-minute pickup.”

“Thirty if he talks.”

“If he talks, I will stare until he stops.”

The keeper placed the mission note onto the table: coordinates, local arrival point, expected contact, return mark. Simple. Almost insultingly simple.

Which was good. Simple meant pudding was still possible.

Iris scanned the note, then folded it once and slipped it into her pocket. Then she turned toward Ansel. “You. Pudding.”

“Yes.”

Ansel placed both hands on Iris’s shoulders before Iris could step back, light and brief enough not to trouble old instincts because Ansel had learned, years ago, where the lines were drawn and how not to cross them carelessly. “Chocolate pudding,” she promised. “Warm. With the shaved dark chocolate. I will even steal the good cream.”

She squeezed once, then let go. “Thank you.”

There it was again. Not theatrical now. Not playful. Just gratitude, honest and warm.

Iris looked away first.

“Fix your index,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And remove the ghost registry from your hair.”

Ansel reached up so quickly that Iris almost smiled.

The floating notes bobbed behind her in disarray as she hurried backward toward the corridor. “Twenty minutes!”

“Thirty if he talks,” Iris called.

“Don’t let him!”

“I won’t.”

Ansel stood beneath the archway, one hand lifted around the papers she was trying and failing to keep stacked, curls loosening further around her face in the late light. The window beyond her turned the corridor gold.

“See you tonight,” Ansel said.

Iris, already thinking of pudding again, lifted the ivory token between two fingers in acknowledgment.

“Save me dinner,” she said.

Then she turned and opened a door. It was not a physical one, but one made of light that wasn't really light. A rip into the fabric of reality, so to speak, and although technically she could make it look like however she wanted to, she and many other travelers preferred to give it the shape of an actual door.

White light filled the frame. Not harsh. Not cold. The brightness between worlds had frightened her the first time she had seen it, years ago, when she had stumbled into it half-dead and certain that any place beyond the one she knew must be another form of punishment. It had taken time to stop fearing the whiteness. More time to trust it. More still to understand that the space between worlds was not empty. It held motion, memory, direction. It hummed against the bones of travelers like a song only they remembered how to hear.

Now, stepping into it felt familiar. Not safe, exactly. Nothing powerful enough to carry a body between worlds could ever be entirely safe. But known. Practiced. As much a road as any path through trees or stone street or archive corridor. As much home as Eos was by now.

Iris stepped into the white. The brightness wrapped around her, sound falling away until the world behind her became a muffled suggestion. She thought, briefly and with deep conviction, of warm chocolate pudding, of Ansel’s emergency stash, of a bath so hot it would make her forget the existence of teapot keys and bureaucratic men with lace collars.

Iris did not look back. She already knew what Eos looked like. She knew the corridor, the archway, the mission desk, Ansel’s smile, the promise of dinner waiting somewhere beyond routine and light.

The door shut with a soft, final hum, sealing her inside the Void.

And Iris was gone.