Amelia stopped pretending three nights later.
My regenerated leg was almost complete.
Still pale, slightly smaller than the others, but functional enough that landing no longer felt like balancing on a damaged chair.
Mayra had gone out.
Room 317 was quiet.
Amelia placed two bottle caps on the desk.
One contained sugar water.
The other held a tiny dark-red bead.
Her blood.
My body reacted before dignity could intervene.
Front legs rubbed.
Wings lifted.
Hunger and evolutionary greed arrived together.
Amelia watched the entire response.
Of course.
I remained on the curtain rod.
She sat and waited.
No cultivation.
No visible cold trap.
No cage.
“Come here,” she said.
I did not move.
Understanding the instruction and refusing it felt safe.
Amelia pointed toward the desk.
“Sugar.” I flew down—then landed on the blood cap.
She covered it with one finger.
“No.” I stared at the finger, then at her.
“Go to the sugar.” I flew in the opposite direction.
Her eyebrow rose.
Good.
Stupid mosquito.
No comprehension.
She pointed toward the lamp.
“Land there.” I landed on her book.
“Window.” I flew to the bedpost.
“Stay still.” I began circling immediately.
Excellent.
Disobedience.
Chaos.
No pattern.
Amelia leaned back and folded her arms.
I hovered.
“You realize deliberate disobedience requires understanding.” I stopped.
Damn.
There it was.
Not a biological trap.
A logical one.
Worse.
“You followed every command closely enough to do the opposite,” she continued.
“You recognized the blood.
You make a distinct sound when Mayra calls you Kevin.
You fought the cockroach when it approached me.
You stayed during my nightmare.
And you have extracted different biological functions from three organisms.” My internal defenses supplied answers.
Instinct.
Coincidence.
Resource protection.
Mistake.
System.
None could be communicated.
Most were weak anyway.
Amelia leaned closer.
“You understand every word I say, don’t you?” I froze.
Options: Continue pretending.
Fly away.
Attack her finger.
None were good.
Then I looked at the blood trapped beneath her hand.
Looked at Amelia.
Slowly raised one foreleg.
Thumbs-up was impossible without thumbs.
I did the best approximation.
Amelia stared.
One second.
Two.
Then she laughed.
Not a breath of amusement.
Not an almost-smile.
A real laugh.
Warm.
Startled.
Completely unlike the controlled woman I had been watching for days.
I remained with one leg raised, humiliated beyond measure.
Still.
Worth it.
Amelia covered her mouth, recovered, then looked at me differently.
Not as an animal.
Not fully as a person yet.
But closer.
“How intelligent?” Excellent question.
I flew toward the alphabet printed across the cover of one of her notebooks and landed near the word INTRODUCTION.
Then I moved from letter to letter, trying to show intention.
The spacing was wrong.
My feet were too large relative to the print.
The attempt was barely readable.
Amelia understood anyway.
She pulled index cards from a drawer and wrote two words.
YES NO She placed them apart.
“Can you read?” I landed on YES.
Her breath caught.
“English?” YES.
“Were you trained to respond?” NO.
“Are you human?” I stopped.
Current body?
No.
Mind?
Was.
I landed between the cards.
Amelia’s eyes narrowed.
“Not a simple answer.” One buzz.
Yes.
She wrote more cards.
HUMAN ANIMAL SPIRIT BEAST OTHER I landed on HUMAN.
The room changed.
Amelia studied me, then the card, then me again.
“Before?” One buzz.
Yes.
“Reincarnated?” I landed on YES.
Her expression did not become disbelief.
That was the strangest part.
Recognition arrived first.
Amelia looked away.
For several seconds she said nothing.
She lowered her hands to the desk so I could see they were open and empty.
Then she asked, “Did you choose this body?” NO.
“Are you being controlled?” NO.
“Are you trapped in pain?” I moved between YES and NO, then toward the healing leg.
Sometimes.
Not now.
Too complicated.
Amelia understood enough.
Her shoulders loosened slightly.
“Can you leave this room if you want?” YES.
“Do you want me to keep your intelligence secret?” I landed on YES immediately.
She nodded once.
“I will.” The promise came without negotiation.
Something inside me eased.
Amelia wrote two more words.
HE SHE Then, after a moment, OTHER.
“What should I call you?” I landed on HE.
She nodded and wrote it beside my name.
No smile.
No joke.
Just information that belonged to me.
Then she asked, “Are you a danger to Mayra?” I landed on NO.
“Will you feed on her without permission?” NO.
“Have you watched her in private because you could?” NO, immediately and with considerable offense.
Amelia’s mouth moved slightly.
“Good.” The questions should have felt insulting.
Instead, they felt like terms under which I could remain in the room as something other than a pest.
Clear boundaries.
Mutual risk.
A place, perhaps, if I wanted one.
Then Amelia looked at the cards again.
“You are not the only one who woke in a life that was not the one you lost.” My wings stopped.
No.
Of course.
The Winter Crown.
Burning.
Old languages.
Impossible cold.
Amelia had died too.
She saw the recognition in my posture.
“So was I,” she said.
Silence settled between us.
Former human.
Former—something else.
I did not yet have enough language to ask.
She did not force the explanation.
For the first time since waking on the wall, I was not the only person in the room carrying a death no one else could see.
Amelia gave me time to absorb that.
She did not ask what world I had come from, who I had left behind, or whether I wanted my old body back.
Perhaps she knew how cruel those questions could become when the answers were missing.
Instead, she wrote a fresh question.
NAME?
There.
Important.
She drew the alphabet in wide rows across several cards, leaving enough space for me to land.
“Show me.” I moved slowly.
P.
L.
E.
N.
T.
E.
A.
F.
U.
L.
Amelia read the letters as I moved.
“Plenteaful.” My body went still.
Hearing it was different from seeing it in the Codex.
This was my name spoken by someone else.
Proof that I existed outside my own thoughts.
“Plenteaful,” Amelia repeated, more carefully.
I looked away.
She noticed.
She did not comment.
Good.
Then the door opened.
Mayra entered carrying food and stopped when she saw the alphabet cards, the two bottle caps, and me on the desk.
“What are you doing?” Amelia answered without hesitation.
“Teaching the mosquito to spell.” Mayra stared.
Then laughed.
“Sure.” Good.
She did not believe her.
Amelia looked at me.
I looked back.
A secret.
Ours.
For now.
Mayra set down the food.
“Did Kevin learn his name?” Idiot buzz.
Amelia’s mouth curved.
“Yes.” Mayra looked interested.
“What is it?” “Plenteaful.” The name entered the room.
Mine again.
Mayra repeated it incorrectly.
“Plentiful?” Idiot buzz.
Amelia laughed softly.
And just like that, pretending ended between the two of us.
The rest of the room would take longer.