#dear anon

Or maybe after they died. You’re not sure anymore. You used to fight to remember—to cling to that final moment like a prayer. The touch of Rio’s hand as it slipped from yours. Agatha’s voice whispering your name like it was made of light. The ritual between you. The vows you all carved into the air with magic and blood and breath.

“Bound, beyond time, beyond death. We are never alone.”

But that was before the quiet settled in your chest. Before the bond went silent.

And now—nothing.

You wake, you cry, you walk the perimeter of the cul-de-sac like a ghost stuck in your own bones. You read the same ten books. You eat food you don’t remember cooking. You sleep in a bed that feels too big. You repeat.

The sage has long since burned out in the jar by the windowsill. You used to light it every morning as an offering, as a tether. Now you can’t even bring yourself to open the drawer where you keep it.

You don’t remember what day it is. Sunday? Wednesday? Is there a difference?

You start to wonder—and then, something inside you pulls loose. Like a reset button in your mind has been pressed. The thought vanishes. The question fades. You pick up a book and forget you were ever wondering anything at all.

------------

You wake up crying a few days later. No dream. No reason. Just grief, unshaped and wild, clawing up your throat.

For a breath—just one—you think: Death would be better. Because if you were dead, you’d see Rio again.

You feel the thought flash like cold lightning through your chest, your spine, your hands. It lingers. Then fades. The numbness returns. You brush your teeth. You put on the same sweater. You walk.

----------

The morning is beautiful. Blue skies so soft they feel painted. The wind brushes your cheek with a kindness that makes your throat ache. It’s the kind of morning Agatha would’ve loved. She would’ve called it “a day for poetry and vengeance.”

Your lip twitches. You think it’s the beginning of a smile. Or a sob. You’re not sure anymore.

You walk past the neighbor’s house—no one’s ever home. You turn the corner and—

You see it.

A shimmer. In the sky.

Not a cloud. Not a bird. A flicker. A ripple—like the world is buffering. Reloading. Just for a second. Just long enough for you to feel your stomach twist. Like something inside you knows.

You stare up, trying to hold onto it—lock your mind around the image.

But by the time you blink, it’s gone.

And the moment slips away.

---------------

That night, you find a book you love. One of the ten you reread over and over, even if the words don’t hit the same anymore.

You open it. A note falls out.

Your hand trembles as you unfold it. Ink, perfectly dark. Penmanship too perfect.

One word.

“Run.”

No signature. No explanation.

You stare at it. You read it again. Run. Run. Run.

It echoes. Like it matters. Like it means something.

You start to think. Where would you run? Why?

And then— That same hum. That gentle, buzzing nothingness in your skull.

The thought dissolves.

You fold the note. Set it on the table. Forget it exists.

-------------

The shower that night is scalding. You let the heat burn your skin, chase the ache from your limbs, turn your grief into steam. You don’t look in the mirror. You never do.

But after you step out, towel around your shoulders, something makes you glance back.

And you don’t notice it. Not at first.

But if someone else had been watching—they would’ve seen your reflection linger.

Just two seconds longer than it should’ve. Just long enough to reveal the truth.

The skin that sags. The eyes that sink in, hollow and glassy. The pale, fragile stranger in the mirror who is not the youthful face you thought you saw.

Your back is turned. You are gone.

But she is still staring.

---------------------

You don’t open the book again.

You don’t remember why. You think maybe it rained, or maybe it was too hot to go outside. Or maybe it was neither. Maybe time just… happened, without you in it.

The note stays tucked on the table where you left it. The word Run no longer feels urgent. You see it sometimes, and it feels like something from a dream. Someone else's story.

So you water the plants. You fold the laundry. You go on your walk.

You see the neighbor again that day.

You didn’t think the houses were occupied. You’ve never seen mailboxes fill or cars come and go. But today, there she is—standing in her driveway, watering nothing.

Her smile is painted on. Too wide. Too still.

You wave, cautiously. She doesn’t wave back.

Instead, she says:

“You look tired today.”

You blink. “I… yeah, I guess.”

“They’ll come for you soon.”

Your spine freezes.

“…What?”

“I said, it’s good to see you.”

She waves. Robotic. Turns. Walks into her house, leaving the hose running, water spilling across dry concrete.

You step away. You don’t remember turning around. You don’t remember the walk home.

--------------

That night, you dream again.

Except this time, it’s different. Sharper. Your senses cling to the fragments instead of letting them go.

Stone under your bare feet. The scent of ozone. A woman’s scream—your scream.

And then:

“Don’t let them bury you.”

A voice. Low. Warm. Cracked around the edges from disuse.

You whisper: “…Rio?”

The dream shatters.

You bolt upright in bed, gasping.

Your fingers are damp. You don’t know if it’s sweat or blood.

-------------

You can’t go back to sleep.

You sit at the kitchen table, staring at the note. Run. You trace the letters with your finger. You whisper it aloud. Once. Twice. A third time.

The lights flicker.

Your head aches.

The walls hum again—that same pressure behind your eyes that always comes when you start thinking too much.

You press your palms to your temples and mutter, “Stop. Please. Just stop.”

And the lights go out.

All of them. Every bulb. Every screen. Gone. Black.

You hold your breath.

And then—just above the ringing silence—

You hear it again.

“Come on, baby. Just hold on. We’re close.”

Your mouth parts. Your eyes sting. You whisper:

“…Rio?”

But this time, the voice answers back—

“Yes.”

The light overhead snaps on so violently it bursts. Glass falls like rain.

You fall out of your chair, gasping, crawling backward, heart hammering so loud you can barely hear what comes next—

“They’re watching. Stay quiet. Don’t trust anything you see.”

The voice is distant now, distorted, like it’s coming through water or static or memory.

You stagger to your feet. Stumble toward the hallway. Every inch of your body is buzzing, like something ancient in your blood just woke up.

You don’t know what you’re doing until you’re ripping open the bathroom door.

The mirror.

It’s already waiting.

Your reflection is staring back at you again—eyes sunken, skin too pale. You step closer. The reflection doesn’t match.

You reach for it.

It smiles.

Your fingers stop just short of the glass.

“They’re close,” the voice murmurs again. “We’re breaking in. Just a little more time.”

Then—footsteps. Outside the bathroom. Too heavy. Too slow. Too… wrong.

You turn. The door is open. But the hallway behind it is dark.

You take a step back. Then another.

Then a whisper—real, this time. From the door.

“You’re not supposed to hear her.”

You spin to face the mirror again.

It’s blank.

You are gone.

--------------

She hears you.

The moment your voice slips through the static—quiet, fragile, barely more than a breath—Rio staggers like she’s been punched in the chest.

The air around her shifts. Cracks. The spellwork carved into her arms, long since healed over into pale silver scars, flares violently to life—not with pain, but with something deeper.

Recognition.

The glow isn’t her usual magic—not green, not the haunting shimmer of death she commands with ease. This is orange, bright and pulsing like a dying sun.

Like a heartbeat.

“She’s in,” Rio chokes. Her knees nearly buckle. “She’s still in there.”

The words hit the air like a lightning strike.

Across the chamber, Agatha is already moving.

The runes around the ancient spell circle fracture beneath her boots, sending spiderweb cracks through the floor. Dust rises in plumes. Energy sizzles under her fingertips. Her robes are soaked in sweat and dried blood. Her jaw is clenched so tight it trembles. Her hands shake—but not from fear. From rage.

Her eyes are pitch black. Her mouth is bloodied. She hasn’t slept in six days. Hasn’t eaten in three. Not since she felt you vanish.

And now she feels you again.

She steps into the circle without hesitation.

“Then we burn it,” she snarls. “We burn it all.”

-----------

They’ve tried everything.

For weeks, they’ve torn through the veil like wolves in a cathedral—teeth and magic, memory and fire. They’ve scorched through illusion layers, shattered psychic loops, clawed their way through locked soul corridors sealed by a government too arrogant to understand what they were playing with.

They thought they could replicate your soul bond. Imitate the love of a witch and a reaper and their wife. Control it. Harness it. Weaponize it.

But they never counted on this.

You. Calling back.

And that—that is a mistake they will not survive.

Back in the circle:

Agatha’s magic isn’t casting anymore—it’s bleeding. Pouring from her fingertips like molten light, scorching the ground beneath her, splitting the air with shrieking heat. Her body trembles, not from exhaustion, but from the effort of holding herself together.

Her veins glow violet beneath paper-pale skin, ancient sigils pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat. They crawl like fire up her arms, down her spine, wrapping around her ribs. Every breath she takes is a fight against collapse. Every step forward a defiance of the world that tried to take you.

She raises her hands—and the air erupts.

Black fire screams into existence, clawing up from the rune-forged circle like something alive. The marks burned into the ground—once stable, now churning—split open like mouths unhinged, devouring the boundaries between dimensions. The spell was never meant to be used like this. Not at this scale. Not with this much love laced through the fury.

And yet—Agatha dares.

----------------

Rio doesn’t chant.

She never does.

She commands.

Her boots crush the sigil beneath her. Her coat rips with the force of her power twisting outward. The storm of her grief coats the air in sulfur and soil. Her body flickers—like film catching on fire—between life and death, presence and absence.

Her hair lifts in the surge. One eye glows a sickening green, necrotic and raw. The other is pure white, unblinking, wide with rage. Her skin cracks under the pressure of what she contains—not just death, but resurrection. Not just power, but pain.

The dirt beneath her blackens and turns to ash. The walls around her fracture. And then—

She roars.

“YOU DON’T GET TO ERASE HER!”

Her voice ricochets through realms. Reality shudders.

Your name flies from her lips like an ancient invocation, carved into time itself. Not a plea. Not a question. An order. An oath. A summoning.

And somewhere—in the illusion they built to cage you—you answer.

--------------------

Elsewhere. The Control Room.

The walls pulse red. Slick with alarms. Too late.

Screens flicker—then explode in bursts of white static and shrieking sound. Glass rains down like confetti in hell. The lights overhead burst, plunging the room into strobed chaos.

“We’re losing containment!”

“There’s a breach in the west quadrant—two signatures, high-tier—!”

“It’s them. It’s the witches—!”

“Seal it! Shut it down! Shut it down now!”

It’s already unraveling. The construct—the artificial world they caged you in—was never meant to withstand love like this.

Not a rage-bound reaper in mourning. Not a war-worn witch who swore to tear the stars down for you. Not you, remembering.

And now, your soul tie is screaming across dimensions.

--------------

Inside the illusion:

The sky blinks. Flickers. Like a page buffering in bad signal. The blue fades to grayscale. Then to white. Then back.

The ground tilts beneath your feet—not enough to knock you over, but enough to tell you that you are not on solid earth anymore.

Birds freeze mid-flight. Their wings pause in the air like someone pressed pause on the world.

You stumble forward, grabbing at a fence that flickers in and out of existence. Wood. Metal. Smoke. Wood again.

Something inside you pulls tight. Not like pain. Not like fear. Like gravity.

You feel it behind your ribs—a tug, not outward, but inward. Like someone reaching through you. Like being called.

You don't understand it. But your body does.

Your heart begins to race. Your fingers twitch like they’re trying to cast a spell you forgot you knew. Your throat dries—and your lips part.

A whisper. Cracked. Soft as breath and sharp as broken glass:

“Agatha… Rio…”

--------------

Back in the real world:

Agatha drops to her knees.

Not from weakness—but from awe. Your voice hits her like a lover’s touch and a lightning strike at once. Real. Terrified. Hers.

Her hands slam to the earth, magic scorching the floor in a wide halo around her. Tears stream down her face. They burn her skin, but she doesn’t care.

“She’s remembering,” she gasps. Her whole chest heaves with it. “She’s coming back to us.”

Rio’s head lifts.

Something ancient flickers in her throat. A word. One no language owns anymore. A spell of the dead. A scream of the soul.

She throws it into the air—and the world breaks.

The air splits in front of them, torn like wet canvas. Magic screams through it. And then—

A thread of orange light pierces the darkness.

Thin. Fractured. Flickering. But alive.

The soul tie.

The one thing they could not kill. The one thing you remembered.

Agatha doesn’t hesitate.

Her hands snap forward. She grabs the thread like it’s a lifeline—because it is. It wraps around her fingers like fire and silk and memory.

She grips it. She doesn’t let go.

Rio steps beside her, shaking. Bleeding. Barely standing. But when she reaches for the light, it answers.

The three of you. Reconnected.

Agatha’s voice is raw.

“We’re coming, love.” A whisper. A vow. “Just a little longer.”

And then—together, shoulders braced, hands bound by the soul tie that even death couldn’t silence—

Agatha and Rio pull.

------------------------------

It begins with the wind.

Not a breeze. Not weather. But a presence.

A sharp gust slices across your skin—not cold, not warm, just wrong, like something moving through the air that does not belong here. It whispers down the back of your neck like breath, like a warning, or a whisper you almost—but not quite—understand.

You freeze mid-step.

Bare feet planted on familiar concrete, arms limp at your sides, standing in the center of the cul-de-sac you’ve walked a hundred times. The sky is too blue. The sun shines too brightly.

But the light has no warmth.

The houses around you stand in silence—perfect, pastel-painted coffins. No wind. No sound. Not even the whine of insects.

It hits you in your chest, first. That quiet ache. That sense of something watching. The instinct buried beneath layers of forgetfulness begins to stir.

Something is wrong.

-----------

The world takes a breath. And then—the birds freeze.

Mid-flight. Wings stretched wide. Their shapes hover above you like photographs pinned to the sky. One flutters. Fails. Vanishes. The others stay locked in place, caught in time.

Your body tenses. Your mouth goes dry. You feel the tremble in the sidewalk under your feet—like something massive is moving just beneath the surface.

A pressure builds behind your eyes, in your ears, your teeth. A hum. Low, pulsing, not heard but felt, like the drone of an oncoming migraine or the air just before lightning.

You blink. Your vision doubles—then triples. Trees bend in a wind you cannot feel. The clouds flicker between dusk and noon. The air smells like burned metal.

And then—

The ground jerks sideways.

--------------

You stumble forward, catching yourself on instinct, reaching for the mailbox you’ve passed every day since you woke here. Your fingers curl around cold metal—

Except it’s not metal.

It’s a doorknob. Then a rotary phone. Then nothing at all.

You snatch your hand back like it burned you. You stumble a step and your own shadow shifts—splits into three. Then none. Then someone else’s entirely.

The world is glitching. Rewriting itself. And now—you know.

You’re not dreaming. You’re not healing. You’re not home.

You’re trapped.

--------------

You run.

You don’t know why. You don’t know where.

You just know your body can no longer stay still.

The world lashes behind you, trying to catch up—trying to fix what you’re breaking. Fences melt into hedges, dissolve into fences again. Streetlights blink out. The sky flickers like a faulty screen saver. Your bare feet pound the pavement. Each step feels less real than the last.

And somewhere behind you—

“Where are you going, darling? Come back inside.”

The voice makes your blood run cold.

It’s your voice. But not.

Too calm. Too polite. A smile pressed against your ear that you did not give it permission to wear.

You don’t turn back. You run faster.

And then you see it.

At the far end of the cul-de-sac, above the house you’ve never entered—but always feared—

The sky tears open.

Not a hole. Not a portal. Not a dream.

A wound.

A jagged split like a lightning strike carved across fabric, burning at the edges with colors the world tried to forget.

Light pours through. But not sterile. Not artificial. Not this place’s light.

Real light.

Deep violet, crackling with old magic. Wild green, thrumming with heartbeat and earth. And at the center, pulsing bright—orange.

Your color. The color of your soul bond. The light of home.

You fall to your knees, your chest shuddering like it forgot how to hold breath.

And then—you hear them.

Not imagined. Not remembered.

Them.

“We see you.” Agatha’s voice. Hoarse. Furious. Wild with love. “We’re almost through. Hold on.”

“Come to me, baby.” Rio’s voice. Shaking, thick with tears. “Come home.”

Your body convulses like a plucked string. Your throat closes. Tears burn down your cheeks and you don’t know when you started crying.

You remember.

-----------------

Flash. Agatha in the tub, soaked curls stuck to her cheek, wine glass in one hand, a poetry book in the other. She looks up and says, “Don’t you dare fall in love with anyone who doesn’t worship the way your mind turns pages.” Flash. Rio curled around you in the dark, her thumb brushing your temple, whispering, “You’re safe. I’ve got you. No one will take you from me.” Flash. Your wedding night. The sigils inked across your collarbone. Her kiss on your spine. The thread of gold wrapping your joined hands. The words etched in breath and blood:

“Bound beyond time. Beyond death. We are never alone.”

You drag yourself to your feet.

The wind screams around you. The sky convulses above.

The houses disintegrate one by one—collapsing like sandcastles under fire. Curtains become flames. Mailboxes explode into glass. The ground splits in a glowing fissure of white-hot light beneath your feet.

And there—above the chaos—

You see them.

Agatha. Rio. Standing side by side in the tear, their bodies ablaze with power, eyes glowing like suns, arms reaching for you.

Hair tangled in magical wind. Blood on their mouths. Raw, radiant, real.

“I see you!” you cry, voice cracked and wrecked. “I REMEMBER YOU!”

And the illusion—screams.

-------------

The ground fractures beneath you.

A deafening crack splits the sky. The air pulses red, then black, then white. Alarms scream—not yours. Theirs. Whoever caged you. Whoever tried to erase you.

“She’s not ready!” “Stabilize the layer!” “Reinforce her perception, NOW!”

But you don’t fall.

You fight.

Someone grabs your shoulder. Fingers like ice. You turn.

It’s you.

Or what the illusion made of you. Perfect. Peaceful. Hollow.

She smiles like death wears lipstick.

“You’ll ruin everything if you go. This was supposed to be easier.”

You stagger back. “You’re not real.”

Her smile widens.

“Neither are they.”

The sky above you explodes into fire.

Your wives are screaming your name, voices laced with fury and unrelenting love.

You stare into the fake version of yourself. And you make your choice.

“I would rather burn.”

--------------

You run.

The earth gives way behind you. The sun bursts into sparks. The grass turns to ash mid-stride. The sidewalk rips in half.

You throw yourself forward—through the light—into the tear.

The illusion hurls one final wall in your path. You don’t flinch.

You leap.

The wall shatters.

And their hands—are there.

Agatha’s fingers wrap around yours, her magic roaring through your veins. Rio’s arms crush you to her chest, tears on your skin.

You fall into them.

And behind you—

The world collapses.

----------------------

Agatha woke first.

The room was cold. Too quiet.

She blinked, slow and heavy, expecting to feel your weight beside her—your warmth tucked beneath the blankets, your breath in rhythm with hers.

But the space was empty.

She reached across the sheets and found only a faint echo of heat. Not warm enough. Not recent.

A chill coiled down her spine.

She sat up, slowly. Carefully.

The house didn’t stir.

No kettle warming in the kitchen. No rustle of pages from the living room. No soft pad of your feet across the hardwood.

Just stillness.

Just… nothing.

And then—she reached inward.

To the bond.

The soul tie she had carved into the stars the day you promised forever.

And it was silent.

She stood so fast the world blurred. Her magic flared in sharp, bitter pulses around her fingers.

“Rio.”

The reaper was already moving, eyes wide, stumbling out of the adjoining room with her shirt half-buttoned, hair still mussed from sleep. Her hand gripped her chest like she couldn’t breathe.

“I can’t feel her.”

Agatha’s mouth was a thin, pale line.

“Neither can I.”

----------

At first, they searched the house.

Every room. Every shadow. Every fold of fabric you could’ve slipped beneath, half-asleep or dazed.

They called your name. Whispered it, then screamed it. They left spells burning in corners and incense in the hearth. A blood offering. A name woven into wind.

No reply.

The soul tie remained dormant—muted, not severed.

Which was somehow worse.

It meant you were alive. Somewhere. But unreachable.

And someone had made it so.

--------------

The first week was frantic.

Agatha tore through every plane of existence she had access to. She split realms open at their edges and peered into their guts. She summoned beings she had no business disturbing. Her hands never stopped glowing.

Rio didn’t sleep. She went to the veil and back each night, pacing graveyards and battlefields, looking for a whisper, a flicker, a breath of you on the wind.

“If she was dead,” she said, voice hoarse, “I would know. I would feel it.”

“Then she’s not dead,” Agatha murmured, eyes wild with sleeplessness. “She’s buried.”

----------------

The second week was worse.

Leads ran cold. Their magic burned out.

The soul tie didn’t flicker once.

Agatha stopped speaking except in spells. She refused to eat. Her hands trembled when she worked, but she never stopped. She paced through their sanctum like a ghost, surrounded by scrolls and broken runes, muttering incantations until her lips bled.

Rio watched her. Watched the edges of her come undone. And tried to hold herself together long enough to find a pattern in the chaos.

She didn’t cry until night ten. When she crawled into your shared bed and realized your scent was fading.

She buried her face in your pillow. And she screamed.

-----------------

The third week—they broke something.

Not in their world. In yours.

A flicker.

A pulse. A spark of orange that danced across Agatha’s scrying pool like lightning across water.

It was faint. It was distant. But it was you.

“She’s still calling,” Agatha whispered. Her voice cracked like thunder. “She doesn’t know she’s calling. But she is.”

“Then we go,” Rio said. Her hand was already on the door. “And we don’t stop.”

-------------

They traced it like blood through snow.

Back to a facility buried in the shell of a ruined mountain. Old government magic. Forgotten programs. Abandoned after the collapse of ethics.

But the security was new.

And the magic suppression fields were too clean.

They knew what they had. They just didn’t know who they were dealing with.

-------------

Agatha and Rio didn’t knock.

They ripped the entrance open.

Alarm bells screamed as they stepped through flame and fractured marble, their combined power a tidal wave of grief and fury.

Wards shattered at their feet. Sigils crumbled like paper.

Rio moved like death on a warpath—her cloak dragging light behind her, her footsteps cracking steel. Her hands weren’t fists. They were promises.

She stormed into the command center, green fire in her eyes.

The director—white-knuckled, wide-eyed, barely standing—looked up.

And Rio smiled.

“You caged her.”

“We were only—”

“Did you think you could trap Death?”

The lights flickered.

“Did you think your little minds could contain a soul bound to mine?”

The director stammered. Said something about magical integrity. About experiments. About protecting the world from what you were becoming.

“You thought you could use her to bait us,” Agatha spat. Her voice low. Final. “You hid her in a cage and hoped we’d come. And we did.”

The windows shattered.

“You wanted a war?” Rio whispered, stepping forward.

“You have one.”

------------------------

The moment they tore open the veil, the soul tie lit like fire.

You.

Alive. Reaching.

And their magic surged as one.

They dove in.

Together.

And you— waiting in a collapsing world of lies—

called them home.

You don't remember the moment the world ended.

Only the falling.

Like a thread pulled loose from the spool of time itself, your body pitched forward into blinding color—orange, violet, green—like magic set on fire, like grief turned into light.

And then—

Hands.

Two sets. One calloused, trembling. The other blood-warm and anchoring.

They didn’t catch you like someone afraid of breaking you. They caught you like someone who’s already broken without you.

You collapsed into them, and the world finally stopped spinning.

------------

You land on something solid—dirt? stone? you can't tell—but the smell of the air changes. No longer sterile. No longer trapped. It smells like earth, ozone, and scorched magic. It smells like the living.

And you feel it—

The bond.

Searing through your chest like someone turned the stars back on inside your ribs.

It doesn’t hurt.

It hurts more than anything has ever hurt.

It’s not a thread anymore. It’s a flood. It pulses hot beneath your skin, rewiring you moment by moment with a truth you had forgotten:

--------------

You were never alone.

Someone is crying. The sound is so raw, so close, that for a moment you think it’s you.

But then a voice—

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’ve got you—”

It repeats like a spell, unraveling into a whisper of breath over your temple. Arms pull you tighter. You blink hard, once, and the blur of Agatha’s face swims into view. Her mouth is bloodied. Her eyes are blackened with power, rimmed with tears.

Her hand presses flat over your chest, where your heart beats like a war drum.

“I didn’t know if we were too late,” she chokes. “I didn’t know—”

“You weren’t,” you whisper. Your voice is raw sand. “You weren’t.”

She leans in and kisses your forehead—not soft. Desperate. A sealing kiss. A claim.

“You don’t get to leave us,” she says, voice breaking. “Not ever again.”

Rio is on her knees behind you, her arms around your waist like a lifeline, like if she lets go you’ll be stolen again. Her breath hitches against your spine. She’s shaking—no, she’s quaking. Her face buried in your shoulder. You feel wetness there.

Her tears. She never cries.

“You’re here,” she breathes. “Oh my god, baby—you’re really here—”

You reach for her blindly, your hand curling over hers, lacing your fingers together. You feel her squeeze. The press of her wedding ring against your skin feels like a pulse.

“You brought me back,” you murmur.

Rio pulls back just enough to see your face. Her eyes are swollen. Her lower lip is trembling. She looks like someone who crawled out of hell—and still hasn’t come to terms with the fact that she made it.

“We never stopped looking,” she says. “I would’ve burned down the stars if that’s what it took.”

---------------

You break.

Not in a scream. Not in a sob.

You collapse into them with a sound so soft it barely exists—just a breath, just a shudder—but it says everything.

Agatha tucks you into her, and Rio leans in closer, and for one breathless, sacred moment, the three of you exist in a silence so deep it feels holy.

Time slows.

The soul tie hums again. Not searing now. Not thrashing. Just there. Warm and alive beneath your skin. You feel Agatha’s magic pulse through it—steady, rhythmic, ancient. You feel Rio’s magic coil around it like a shield, protective and absolute.

And you feel yourself—yours—knit back into it.

The part of you that was missing.

The part of you that never forgot.

“I said your names,” you whisper into the quiet.

“We heard you,” Agatha says.

“Even through the veil,” Rio adds. “Even through the goddamn walls.”

“I didn’t remember everything,” you say, “but I remembered you. That I loved you.”

Rio kisses you like she’s trying not to shake apart.

Agatha whispers your name like it’s the most powerful word she’s ever spoken.

-----------

“You are everything we have,” she says. “And you came back.”

You lay between them, wrapped in warmth and breath and arms that refuse to let go.

And still—beneath the relief, something coils in your chest. A fear with no shape, no name.

“I don’t know what happened,” you whisper.

Your voice is thinner now. Smaller. It sounds like it belongs to someone else.

“I just woke up one day and I couldn’t feel anything. I thought I had done something—said something— I thought maybe I…”

You can’t finish. Your throat tightens. You grip the fabric of Rio’s shirt like a lifeline.

Agatha pulls you in tighter, one hand cradling the back of your head.

“You didn’t leave us,” she says softly.

“You were taken.”

You freeze.

Her words are quiet, but they land like a thunderclap inside your chest.

“They sealed the bond. Buried it. Hid you so deep in some false world, even the gods forgot to look.”

Rio’s voice cuts in, low and shaking:

“They built a cage and put your name on the outside.”

“We found it,” Agatha says. “We tore it open.”

You don’t respond right away. Because somewhere deep inside, you already knew. But hearing it—spoken aloud, confirmed in the voices you love most—

It cracks you in a new place.

Your breath hitches.

“I didn’t leave,” you whisper, almost to yourself.

“No, love,” Agatha says, touching your cheek. “You fought.”

“Every day,” Rio murmurs. “Even when you couldn’t remember us… you never stopped trying to come home.”

And somehow, that hurts worse than anything.

Because you didn’t fail them.

And they never gave up on you.

You press your face into the crook of Rio’s shoulder and begin to cry all over again.

But this time—

It’s release.

----------

They carry you.

Not because you're weak—though your body trembles with every step—but because they need to. They need to feel your weight. To hold you in their arms and know it’s not a spell or a memory or another cruel trick.

They hold you like you’re the only real thing in a world that’s still catching up.

And you—limp in their arms, soul re-threaded through fire and grief—close your eyes.

Because for the first time since the world fractured—

You are safe.

No one looks back at the burning wreck of the agency.

It smolders in the distance, devoured by the flames Agatha left behind and the death Rio refused to hold back. It burns without apology.

They will never find you again.

They will never touch you again.

“Let’s go home,” Agatha murmurs.

“Let’s make it new,” Rio says. “Better.”

You nod against Rio’s shoulder. You feel Agatha’s lips on your hair.

And when your eyes flutter closed, you are not afraid.

Because this is not the end.

This is the beginning.

----------------

You return to the place where you were first bound. Not in name. Not even in magic. But in something far older: choice.

The clearing is quiet. The trees lean inward, as though to listen. The moss underfoot still remembers your knees, the scorch marks from Agatha’s spellfire, the pressed imprint of Rio’s palms anchoring you to the earth. The air holds the faint, impossible scent of your wedding night—smoke and lavender and ozone.

This is where you chose them. Where they chose you. Where your soul tie was born in light and want and whispered promise.

Now, you are here to choose them again.

To be chosen. To be sealed.

Not because the bond weakened. But because it was tested—and survived.

Agatha found the spell buried in your notes. Handwritten in the margin of a draft lecture, tucked between a list of herbs and a scribbled line of poetry. Not a weapon. Not a ward. A spell made for three.

Let this be more than memory. Let this be bone and breath. Let this be the flame we come back to— again, again, again.

You had started it. Agatha deciphered it. Rio finished it with the last line.

And tonight, you will speak it with your bodies. With your love. With your need.

Agatha lights the circle by hand—twelve candles, one for each week you were gone. Each kissed with oils, each painted with a rune for return, devotion, permanence. Her hands are steady, but her eyes flick to you like she’s afraid you’ll disappear between blinks.

Rio lays the blanket in the center, thick and velvet-soft, woven with your bond’s colors. Violet. Green. And orange—your color—running like breath through the pattern.

“You sure you want this here?” Rio asks, voice low and raw.

“I want it nowhere else,” you whisper.

Because this clearing is more than memory. It is threshold. It is altar. It is the place you were first truly seen.

And tonight, you will be seen again.

Agatha steps toward you first. Her fingers slip beneath your shirt, dragging the fabric upward with agonizing care. Her eyes never leave yours. She murmurs something soft in a language that tastes like dusk and thunder. You don’t know the words, but you know their meaning: come back to me.

The shirt falls away.

Her fingertips linger over the hollow of your throat, down your sternum, brushing the space just above your heart. She leans in and kisses you there—slow and deliberate—and you feel it like a spark catching tinder.

Rio’s hands follow. Rougher. Grounding. She unclasps your bra, slides it off your arms, then presses her palms to your waist like she’s relearning you. Her mouth brushes your spine. Lower. Then lower still. A groan catches in her throat when you shiver beneath her.

They strip you bare.

But you do not feel exposed.

You feel offered.

“Lie back,” Agatha says, her voice silk and smoke.

You do.

Rio kneels at your side. Agatha moves between your legs. Their hands glide over your skin in mirrored movements—drawing runes not of power but of belonging. Worship. Truth.

You don’t understand the chant Agatha begins. But your body aches in the shape of it.

“Ready?” Rio whispers.

“Say yes,” Agatha breathes, lips brushing your neck.

You nod.

“Not enough,” Rio murmurs. Her mouth ghosts over your shoulder. “Say it, baby.”

“Yes,” you breathe. “Yes, yes, yes—”

Agatha sinks to her knees between your legs.

There’s nothing hesitant in the way she moves—not now, not with the spell in the air and your magic humming against her skin. Her hands part your thighs with the care of someone opening a book she’s read a hundred times but still reveres.

You feel her breath before her mouth. Hot. Slow. Intentional.

Then—

She kisses you. Not just your skin. Not just the space between your legs.

She kisses your magic. Your ache. Your need.

And gods, her mouth— It’s warmth and silk and control surrendered. She licks a slow stripe through your folds, and the sound that escapes you is more sob than moan. She hums like your taste grounds her. Like this, right here, is what she’s been reaching for since the second you disappeared.

“That’s it,” Rio whispers beside you, her hand sliding over your stomach. “Let her have you.”

You try to breathe, but every flick of Agatha’s tongue steals air from your lungs. She’s deliberate—rhythmic—like she’s coaxing a spell to life with every movement. Her hands keep you open, anchored. Her tongue circles your clit once, twice, and then sucks—gentle, then firm—and you shatter.

Your thighs tremble. Your fingers reach blindly until Rio’s there, lacing her hand through yours. Her other hand strokes your cheek, then your breast, then steadies against your jaw as if she’s holding you in place so you don’t fall out of yourself.

“You’re safe,” Rio murmurs. “You’re perfect. You’re home.”

You can’t speak. Only sob her name. Only cry Agatha’s.

Your hips buck and Agatha doesn’t stop—not even when you whimper, not even when you twitch from overstimulation. Her tongue moves slower now, languid, curling into each pulse of your orgasm like she’s licking stars from the edges of a galaxy you forgot was yours.

When she finally lifts her head, her mouth is wet, her chin slick, and her eyes are dark with power and something more fragile: devotion.

“You’re back,” she breathes, almost in awe. “I can taste you. You’re really here.”

You pull her into a kiss before the next breath can leave your lungs. You taste yourself on her tongue and groan into it—needing her closer, needing her everywhere. She gasps as you flip her gently beneath you, her legs spreading with instinctive grace.

“Let me,” you whisper. “Please. Let me love you.”

Rio lies beside Agatha, propping her head in her hand, watching with fire in her eyes. “Go slow,” she says gently. “She’s always so composed. Make her lose it.”

You smile into Agatha’s hipbone and lick your way down.

You take your time. You memorize her.

Every hitch of her breath. Every tensed muscle. Every whispered curse in ancient languages that sizzle in the air around you.

Her taste is rich. Tangy. Witch-bright. You suck her clit into your mouth, firm and steady, and she breaks—her back arching, her hands in your hair, her voice caught between a growl and a sob.

“Yes,” she gasps. “Fuck—don’t stop—”

You don’t.

You give her everything. With mouth, tongue, hands. With the kind of desperation that’s only possible after nearly losing the person who raised the dead to love you.

And when she comes—gasping, trembling, chanting your name like a spell—you stay with her. Through it. After it.

Until she’s soft again.

Until she’s whole.

Then Rio kisses your shoulder, flips you gently onto your back, and straddles your chest with a wicked grin and shaking breath.

“Now me,” she says, voice wrecked. “Please.”

You laugh—giddy, reverent—and kiss her like it’s the first time. You lick your way down her stomach, her thighs, until she’s cursing under her breath and twitching with need.

When you taste her—warm, slick, and alive—she whines, just once, and it’s the most broken, beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. You don’t stop. You worship her.

You drag her through it. You devour her.

And when she comes, shuddering so hard she nearly pulls you up with her, she grabs Agatha’s hand and the spell circle glows.

You kiss your way back up her body, into her mouth, into her arms, into the place that belongs only to you.

And then— Agatha straddles you like she’s stepping into the final stanza of a spell that’s been echoing across lifetimes. She sinks onto you slow—achingly slow—taking you inside her with a breathless moan that cracks against the trees.

Your hands rise on instinct, reaching for her hips, for her waist, for something to hold.

But Rio catches them.

She presses your wrists gently into the blanket above your head. Her touch is reverent. Anchoring. Her mouth finds your throat, your jaw, your lips.

Her tongue brushes yours—velvet and tasting of all three of you—and she drinks the sounds you make like holy wine.

“Stay with us,” she breathes, voice rasped against your cheek. “Let us carry you through it.”

Agatha begins to move—hips rolling in a rhythm that feels more like invocation than sex. Each stroke of her body sends magic spiraling through your spine. Your bond hums beneath your ribs—orange and violet twining like flame and smoke.

And then Rio shifts.

She presses to your side, her skin hot, her thighs sticky with her own desire. You feel how wet she is when she straddles your hip, sliding one leg between yours. Her hand glides over Agatha’s back—down, lower, settling between your bodies.

Her fingers slip between your legs, into the place where you and Agatha are joined. She circles your clit with practiced care, pressing deeper with every cry that escapes you.

“That’s it,” Rio growls into your throat. “Let us take you there.”

You’re caught. Anchored by Rio. Claimed by Agatha. Worshiped by both.

Agatha trembles above you, her rhythm faltering as she leans forward, hands braced on either side of your head, forehead resting against yours.

“You’re mine,” she breathes. “Say it—say it back—”

“Yours,” you gasp, vision blurring. “Always—yours—”

“Always,” Rio murmurs again. “Forever.”

And then—it happens.

The pleasure crashes like a wave, tearing through you so violently you feel the spellcircle ripple.

Agatha clenches around you with a broken gasp, her nails digging into the blanket. Rio’s thighs tighten, slick against your side, and her fingers never stop moving. Your entire body arches.

You are surrounded. You are burning. You are home.

When the three of you come—together— it crashes through the circle like a storm breaking.

The candles flare, blinding bright.

The runes on your skin glow—not just ink, but living light.

The soul tie pulses once—twice— then roots.

Deep. Permanent. Untouchable.

Agatha collapses against your chest with a soft, shaking cry, her lips brushing your skin like she’s whispering thank yous without sound. Rio wraps around you both, her cheek pressed to your ribs, arms locking the three of you together in the heat and sweat and breathless afterglow.

Nothing moves.

The forest holds its breath.

And in that quiet—beneath the stars, beneath the trees, beneath the spell you’ve all just cast—

None of you knew you had just ignited a flicker of life within you.

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