Day 19.

Star stretched in her bed, and looked around the room.

Everything was different now. For the first time in a long time, Star felt like she had hope. Like there really was a chance to make things right.

She looked at the Mirror, crept over to it, and asked, "What are the current odds that Marco survives the Curse?"

"0.1301." One of the other panels now had additional text: "SYNC: 0.9178"

Star frowned. "How should we interpret the 'sync' value?"

"'SYNC' IS A DESCRIPTOR OF HOW SYNCHRONIZED THIS DEVICE IS WITH THE CURRENT STATE OF THE STRINGS OF FATE. THIS VALUE WILL GO DOWN OVER TIME AFTER CALIBRATION, AND WILL GO DOWN BY A LARGE AMOUNT WHENEVER THIS DEVICE IS ASKED TO PERFORM CAUSAL ANALYSIS. THERE IS NO MATHEMATICALLY CORRECT ALGORITHM THAT CAN TRANSLATE A SYNC VALUE TO A CORRECTED CAUSAL PROBABILITY ANALYSIS."

Star glanced at Marco, who seemed to still be asleep. She crept next to him, to buffer his dreams, and then said, "calibrate yourself again."

For about a minute, the room once again became nightmarish. Star braced herself as the room was filled with a noxious odor, and the floor began to grab at her feet.

Then, the Mirror finished, and everything returned to normal. "Mirror. What are the odds that Marco survives the Curse?"

"0.1245. SYNC: 0.9945."

Star sighed. "I guess that's still higher than yesterday morning, but..."

The business with Calibration and the consequences of not calibrating the Mirror answered a major question that had been pestering Star since they'd found the Mirror in the first place: could the Mirror accurately predict how they would react to the answers it gives them? It turns out that it actually can't―at least not without calibrating the Mirror. That solves the paradox she had developed: the Mirror was fully capable of answering that something had a 100% chance of happening, even if her actions afterwards were to absolutely prevent it from happening. Because the Mirror simply couldn't predict around its own answers.

It also explained some of the strange inconsistencies, like when Eclipsa had asked how the Queen would deal with Lyros: it was entirely possible that there was a 100% chance that Lyros would be executed―before Eclipsa asked about it and chose to intervene instead.

So that made the Mirror more trustworthy. But it also made it less reliable. Because now that it was clear that the Mirror could be wrong, even about really trivial things, that also meant that they now had to be uncertain about things they thought they could know for sure.

Star rubbed her forehead.

She heard stirring behind her, and looked at Marco, who was slowly sitting up. "Hey Marco."

Marco looked at Star with… Star wasn't quite sure how to interpret his facial expression. Somewhere between wary and pensive. "Hmm," he said, quietly.

"Is… Are you okay?"

He looked away from Star. "I'm better than I was before. Although..." His eyes narrowed.

"What is it?"

He sighed, then turned to look at Star. "Alright, look Star. I didn't want to bring this up yesterday, because things got really intense, and I think what we both wanted… What we both needed… was to just decompress from everything that happened. But now that we've had some time to cool off, I think there's a really important question I need to ask you."

Star felt her chest constrict. "What… is it?"

He folded his arms and looked down at his legs. "Why were you willing to kill yourself to save me?"

Star gulped. "I… I told you why, Marco. You have so much more to live for than I do, and..."

Marco closed his eyes. "Okay, pretending for a second that I actually believe that… You realize how dumb an argument that is, right? You've got a thousand things to live for yourself. You're important to a ton of different people, especially here on Mewnie." He folded his knees up to his chest. "There's no world where my life is more valuable than yours."

"Marco..."

He shook his head. "At any rate. Like I implied, I don't actually buy that for a second. I think that's the excuse you're feeding me because it sounds noble and selfless, and lets you avoid the truth."

Star blushed and tucked her head into her own knees. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Star. Come on."

Star felt her whole body shaking. "… You already know, don't you?"

Marco rolled his eyes. "What is it that I already know?"

Star suddenly became hyper-aware of her own hands, and how they were gripping her legs. "Marco… I..."

Marco closed his eyes.

"I'm in love with you, Marco." Star's eyes began to well up.

Marco opened his eyes, and looked at Star without turning his head.

Star popped her head up to look at him. He looked… Unsurprised. Not quite upset, but not happy either.

"Did… did you know that?" Star asked, weakly.

Marco exhaled. "I mean." He looked down at the foot of his bed. "I wasn't certain until you said it. But thinking about everything that's happened… How poorly you and Jackie were getting along, how you felt like you had wanted to hurt her, and now, with what you tried to do to save me…" He looked up at the ceiling. "Friends will do a lot for each other, but sacrificing yourself to save someone else… I mean, that's really extra, you know?"

Star chuckled, then sniffed. "I know."

There was a long pause between them. Star traced her finger on her knee, wanting to say something, but not wanting to break the silence.

"I mean, I was awake one of those times."

"What?"

Marco looked at Star's hand. "Do you do that thing where you touch someone's hair to everyone, or just me?"

Star turned bright red and looked back at the floor.

"Yeah, I figured."

Another awkward pause.

Eventually though, Star spoke: "um."

Marco turned to look at her. "What?"

Star hesitated, before finally forcing herself to say it: "do… How… do you feel about me? I mean..."

Marco turned back to look at the foot of his bed. He didn't say anything.

Star bit at her nails. "… Marco?"

"You're really important to me, Star. I would be devastated if anything happened to you."

Star's heart sank, knowing what was coming next. "But..."

He turned to look at her, and saw the heartbroken expression on her face, and he blushed slightly. "It's not…" He stopped, unable to find the words.

"Just say it, Marco. You'll never love me the way I love you."

"I don't know!"

Star shot her head up, the area around her eyes red from the tears. "What?"

"… Look. The honest truth is, I don't know whether I could ever like you like that. I've spent so much time internalizing you as my roommate, as my best friend, that thinking about you in a romantic context never even entered into my mind."

"… O-Oh."

"I don't want to like…" He bit his lip. "I don't want to be ungrateful, or―"

Star cut him off. "Marco, you don't owe me anything, okay? Even if I end up finding a way to save you." She looked away. "And I'd feel rotten if I thought, even for a moment, that you were only with me because you felt obligated to."

"That's not what I mean." Marco shuffled in place. "Things are really complicated right now! I'm still torn up over how things resolved between myself and Jackie, and even despite everything, I'm still a dead kid walking. And then, to pile onto all of those emotions, I've got you. It's… stressful."

Star sniffed. "I'm sorry."

Marco shook his head. "No… You don't need to apologize for having your own feelings. I just..." He looked away briefly. "What I guess I'm trying to tell you is that I can't promise you anything. I can't sit here and tell you that when all this is over, my feelings towards you will have changed."

Star took a moment to still the tremor in her chest. "I won't stop trying to save you. No matter what. Even if you never love me the way I love you."

Marco chuckled quietly. "I already know that. You were willing to kill yourself to save me, thinking I was fated to be with Jackie. I don't need to question your selflessness."

Star smiled.

Marco smiled back at her, then suddenly had a very embarrassed look on his face. "Oh god, we slept in the same bed!"

Star blinked. "I mean… We were afraid of creatures that turned out not to be real."

Marco buried his face into his pillow. "Yeah, but… Still."

"That night was very special to me, even if nothing happened!" Star blurted out, unable to contain herself.

Marco peeked his head out from under his pillow. He had a serious expression on his face, like he was concentrating. "Wait..."

"What?"

"How long have you felt like this towards me?"

"A long time," Star said, her voice quieter than she expected.

He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Since before or after we visited the cave?"

Star gasped softly, seeing where he was going with his question, but shook her head. "I've felt this way since long before the cave. The Artificers had nothing to do with it."

Marco buried his face back in his pillow. "Maybe not. But you know what they're all about. And..." He looked up at Star, a disgusted look on his face. "You know about my nightmares."

Star hugged her knees closer to her chest, feeling revolted. "Are you still getting those?"

"They haven't been so bad ever since we started sleeping in the same room. But..." His voice was trailing off. "That was the one reason why I didn't talk to you about your feelings until now. Because a part of me was worried that they were… Manipulating you. Suggesting you to do things you wouldn't normally do."

Star felt a chill run down her spine. "I don't know what to tell you. I've felt like I'm in control of myself this whole time. I know pretty much everything having to do with Fate and Fate Strings is… Hazy and undefinable, but..."

"I believe you."

Star nodded.

They sat in silence.

"I just wish..." Marco's voice trailed off.

"What?"

He looked up at the ceiling. "I just wish we could be honest with each other. Like all the time. I wish you could tell me about your feelings. I wish that you didn't need to lie to me about how you were going to save me." He looked at his knees. "I wish I didn't need to lie to you about my will to live. I wish I didn't need to lie to my parents about my odds of survival."

Star looked directly at Marco. "Telling the truth is hard. It's not just about whether you'll hurt people. Sometimes knowing the truth can be dangerous." She narrowed her eyes. "That was why Zemd told me that Fate could shuffle our strings. It was his way of hurting me one last time, after he already knew he had no other capacity to do so. He didn't need to lie to hurt me. He fed me a thousand lies; how he justified being with the Artificers, how the Artificers secretly weren't that bad, how he wasn't culpable or responsible for anything they did. And because I knew they were all lies, they couldn't hurt me. So despite all that, telling me a single Truth was the most dangerous thing he did to me."

"I still don't fully get what happened with him: was he the one that cursed me?"

"No. The Artificer that cursed us was Areana. Zemd was the spare, the last Artificer that Eclipsa hadn't managed to kill."

"Right."

Star leaned back. "I wish I could talk to Eclipsa. Ask her about this stuff. Not just because so much of what the Artificers were and became is so..." Star shook her head. "At one point, she wielded Fate Mana herself. I'd love to ask her what it felt like for her, and if she knew anything about acquiring that ability again."

Marco shrugged, then looked at the Mirror. "Uh."

Star looked at the Mirror, and to her surprise, the Mirror had once again volunteered information without being expressly asked: "IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO COMMUNICATE WITH ECLIPSA. THERE ARE, HOWEVER, MEANS OF OBTAINING THE INFORMATION YOU SEEK IF YOU RETURN TO THE CAVE ONCE MORE."

Star tilted her head. "Interesting..." She blinked. "All the Artificers are dead, correct?"

"CORRECT."

"What will I find in the cave?"

"THIS DEVICE IS FORBIDDEN FROM DISCUSSING THAT SUBJECT."

Star glanced at Marco. "Is this dangerous?"

"THIS DEVICE CANNOT ACCURATELY REPRESENT THE MORTAL THREAT THAT THE CAVE ITSELF REPRESENTS, BUT THIS DEVICE CAN ASSURE YOU THAT NO OTHER DANGER IS REPRESENTED BY THE CONTENTS OF THE CAVE."

Star looked at Marco. "Should I bring Marco along?"

"SPECULATION: IT IS NOT NECESSARY FOR MARCO DIAZ TO ACCOMPANY YOU TO THE CAVE, AND THIS DEVICE CANNOT RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO SO. IT IS UNLIKELY THAT BRINGING HIM ALONG WILL CAUSE ANY TANGIBLE HARM, HOWEVER."