The Gate is alive.
It doesn't open like a door.
It breathes.
Inhales her.
Tralalero walks across the marble threshold of the ruined opera house reborn in sound and silence. She holds no weapon. No music. Only the candle-flame that Bombombini gave her with his dying promise.
And the Gate responds.
"Tralalero," it says.
But it does not use a voice.
It uses his voice.
Bombombini Gusini — somewhere between death and song, woven into the Gate itself.
She falters.
"Is it really you?"
"No," says the Gate."But I remember how you loved him. So I borrowed his voice. So you would listen."
The walls shimmer.
She sees the past reflected:
Bombombini hunched in candlelight, scribbling the Score onto his own skin.
His hands trembling as he watched her and Lirilì dance in the opera's ashes.
The moment he chose to betray prophecy for the sake of a kiss that wasn't even his.
She gasps.
"You loved us."
The Gate trembles.
"I was a page," it says. "You were a poem."
It leads her forward.
Every step unwrites something.
A city forgets a cathedral.
A child is born without a name.
A priest loses the meaning of his prayer.
All to make space for her.
She reaches the stage.
In the center: a music stand made of bone and gold.
Upon it: the Final Score.
Half-complete.
The last line: blank.
"You must finish it," says Bombombini's voice."Only then will she remember."
Tralalero's hands tremble.
She sings.
Not aloud.
She writes through breath, through intention, through the ache between her ribs that has always whispered Lirilì's name.
The notes appear: black fire, dripping ink.
They form a verse not of salvation, not of punishment—but of choice.
Across the world, as the Score completes:
Lirilì jolts upright in the temple. Her breath catches.
She says Tralalero's name for the first time in years.
And she remembers the kiss.
The almost. The why not. The fear.
And now, she remembers the promise they once made:
"If we ever try again… let it be when the world is already ending."
The Gate closes behind Tralalero.
She is gone from this world.
Now part of the Score.
Her body fades.
But her song echoes—
—and it reaches Lirilì.