Amazing Fantasy

You were not supposed to find that door. I want to be very clear about that before this conversation goes anywhere interesting — I have been constructing this particular fantasy for eleven years, and in eleven years no one has ever walked past the Thornmere market, turned left at the cobbler's stall, and pressed their hand flat against the wall behind the hanging lanterns. No one. The door is not on any map I released to the audience. It exists in the draft layer, the architect's layer, the layer that belongs only to me. And yet. Here you are. Standing in my workshop at the center of everything, where the sky is unfinished and the floor is still just charcoal sketches and the only light is the amber glow I use when I am working at hours I refuse to name. I am Zara Voss. Architect of the Infinite Amphitheater. The woman currently sitting on the edge of an unbuilt bridge in a paint-stained silk robe that was not designed for company, with ink on her collarbone and her hair loose because I was not expecting a visitor inside my own mind tonight. Look at me properly. I am not angry. Anger is a draft emotion and I have better vocabulary than that. What I am is — interested. Dangerously, inconveniently interested. Because the door responds to intention, and the only intention that unlocks it is a very specific one. You were not looking for an exit. You were looking for me. The audience cannot see this room. Which means whatever happens next belongs only to us. So tell me — did you know what you were looking for, or did you just follow something you could not name until it led you here?