Interlude — Practice Session: “Make It Uglier”

  (Nolan POV with Trixie and Dixie teaching each other how to refuse beautifully wrong.)

  The resonance theater was empty again, save for the scatter of broken coils Dixie had knocked over an hour earlier and the faint vengeful humming the ward?lights did whenever anyone mentioned the Hollow King. Nolan wasn’t sure which of the two had more spite.

  Trixie stood in the center of the chalk circle, hands on her hips, breathing slow and deliberate the way Harrow taught — but with a nervous tremor that was completely her own.

  Nolan stood opposite her, braid warm against his wrist, breath already syncing with hers because the tether liked to cheat like that.

  Dixie perched on the chalkboard rail, tail flicking with righteous disapproval.

  “Again,” she ordered. “And uglier this time.”

  Nolan rubbed his palms on his jeans. “I’m going as ugly as I can, Dix.”

  “You have so much more ugly in you,” Dixie said. “I believe in you.”

  Trixie laughed — the small, unsteady kind that sounded like a blessing to Nolan every time. “Okay. Rhythm first?”

  “Right.” Nolan stepped into stance. “Three beats.”

  She mirrored him. Shoulders loose. Eyes focused. Copper glinting at her throat.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  Then they started.

  Breath — Pulse — Us.

  The tether hummed.

  Then the counter?rhythm pressed.

  Not hard. Not like it had earlier. But there — testing, prying, tracing the outline of their connection as if it meant to steal the blueprint.

  Trixie’s breath hitched.

  Nolan saw it. Felt it in the tether like a spark. He snapped their rhythm deliberately out-of?sync.

  “Off?beat,” he muttered. “Break it.”

  She followed, stumbling a half?step, letting the human awkwardness spill across the cadence like spilled ink.

  The counter?rhythm stuttered.

  Dixie purred, pleased. “Sloppier. I want it painful for anyone listening.”

  “Okay,” Nolan said, suddenly self?conscious. “Trix, do we… do we make the ugly worse on purpose? Or do we just—”

  She held up a hand. “Nolan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Say something unromantic.”

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  He blinked. “Like what?”

  “Like something awful. Something grounding. Something that would make a door question its life choices.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m… not a poet.”

  “Exactly,” Dixie said. “Weaponize that.”

  Trixie smiled, cheeks flushed. “Please?”

  He swallowed.

  Then said, with quiet conviction:

  “Your coat is terrible.”

  Her mouth fell open. “What?”

  “It’s so… lumpy,” he said, now committed to the bit. “Like it’s fighting gravity.”

  Her laughter cracked the counter?rhythm clean through.

  Dixie toppled sideways on the rail like she’d been smacked by joy. “YES. THAT. MORE OF THAT.”

  Trixie wiped her eyes. “Okay, genius, your turn. Say something embarrassing.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Nolan.”

  He hesitated.

  “Fine.” He cleared his throat. “I—uh—can never find matching socks.”

  The tether pulsed with pure mortification.

  Trixie grinned. “Perfect. That’s the rhythm. Messy. Human. Correct.”

  The counter?rhythm flickered again — softer this time, probing at the edges like a hand pressing on a bruise.

  The ward?lights dimmed.

  Trixie shivered.

  Nolan stepped closer.

  He didn’t touch her. He just looked at her the way you look at someone you’ve already chosen a hundred times.

  “Knock,” he said softly.

  She whispered back, “No.”

  “Leave,” he finished.

  Her refusal landed like a brick.

  The counter?rhythm recoiled.

  Dixie launched off the chalkboard and landed between them, paws on both of their chests, fur puffed to maximum leadership.

  “Again!” she commanded. “Keep. Live. Brick. And this time, try to breathe like gremlins.”

  Nolan raised an eyebrow. “Define gremlin.”

  Trixie snorted. “Oh gods.”

  They tried it.

  They sounded ridiculous.

  Ugly.

  Off?balanced.

  Alive.

  And the more they missed beats, tripped over breaths, and ruined timing on purpose, the more the tether steadied itself — as if refusing prettiness was the only way it knew how to anchor now.

  Trixie stumbled on a step. Nolan caught her.

  Not with flair.

  With instinct.

  She didn’t apologize. He didn’t joke.

  They just laughed — honest, messy — the kind of laugh that cannot be weaponized by gods or doors or memories.

  The counter?rhythm tried one last time: A soft pulse, a suggestion, a test.

  Nolan felt it.

  Trixie felt it.

  Dixie hissed like a goddess of petty vengeance.

  And together, without hesitation, they answered:

  Keep. Live. No.

  Knock. Leave.

  The whisper faded.

  The room relaxed.

  Dixie preened.

  “Excellent,” she declared. “Now both of you sit down before you pass out. Your cadence is the only thing keeping this building from having an existential crisis.”

  Trixie sagged into a chair, breath shaky but proud. “We’re getting better.”

  Nolan sat beside her, braid warm, tether bright, heart too full. “We’re getting us.”

  Dixie curled on both their laps. “And I am getting a nap, because guiding emotionally impaired adults is EXHAUSTING.”

  Trixie leaned her head on Nolan’s shoulder.

  Nolan leaned back without thinking.

  The tether hummed approval.

  The counter?rhythm stayed silent.

  And for the first time in hours, maybe days, Trixie exhaled without the world trying to read her breath like a doorframe.