XII. THE CHRISTINA WENDELL INCIDENT PART II.
THE WARDEN'S WHISPER: The sĂ©ance is circled like a fresh corpse across a battlefieldâwarm, dangerous, impossible to ignore. Peter stands between flight or fight, between saving himself or becoming what The Veil demands. The Darkhavens fracture as old tempers and older magic rise, the codex begins to shift, no longer contained by prayers, rituals or bloodlines alone. Protection turns feral, and the question sharpens to a whisper soaked in love: what is a guardian, when guarding means spilling blood first?
hand and hex: 9,747.
A SHADOW'S CAUTION: angst, magical burnout, grief, blood mention, darkhavens losing their temper (yes, most of them), children in distress, graphic death threats.
back through the fog.
âââââ âŸâœ âââââ
HEMLOCK GROVE, PENNSYLVANIA.
Dr. Clementine Chasseur arrived in Hemlock Grove on a deceptively sunny afternoon, her sunglasses shielding more than just her eyesâperhaps she hoped they might reveal something hidden to ordinary men.Â
Something wicked.
She carried a badge from Fish & Wildlife Services, bore the scars of a Marine, and swore allegiance to the ancient and secretive Order of the Dragon. A devout Christian by day, a closeted lesbian by night. A paradox wrapped in doctrine and discipline.
Ironic, wasnât it?
No one knewâno one dared to knowâexcept the Darkhavens.Â
Dr. Chasseur had barely spent forty-eight hours in that cursed town when she cornered Peter Rumancek, eyes sharp, voice low, asking if heâd ever heard of something called clinical lycanthropy. As if she hadnât already drawn her own bloody conclusions about the poor boy.Â
Later, she paid a visit to Christina Wendell at Hemlock Acres, investigating the mutilated body of Lisa Willoughby. It was there she met Dr. Norman Godfreyâand it was there, in the echoing quiet of the psychiatric wing, that she saw Y/N Darkhaven emerging from his office, a shadow trailing behind her like a second skin.
Before she arrived, Clementine had received only one warning from her superior:
Do notâunder any circumstanceâengage with a Darkhaven. And for the love of God, do not hurt one.
But she caught up to the youngest of the twins just past the hallwayâs last security lightâwhere the fluorescent hum faded and the walls began to breathe.
âMiss Darkhaven.â Clementine called, calm but cold. Measured.
At the mention of her surname, the girl turned slowly, her face unreadable, the air around her seemingly heavier than before. Her eyes, now dark and sharp flicked to the badge on Clementineâs jacket, then to the St. Jude necklace around her neck. A half-smirk ghosted across her lips.
Dr. Chasseur stepped forward. âI wanted to ask you a few things about the girls. The ones who died.â Her voice held steel, but there was something underneath itâa tinge of uncertainty, or perhaps caution.
âYou mean the ones torn apart like deer in mating season?â Her tone was soft, but something feral lived just beneath it. âYouâll have to be more specific, Doctor. Girls seem to die a lot around here now.â
Clementineâs jaw tightened, her temper starting to run out. âI donât like games.â She hissed. âYou found Brooke Bluebell the night she died.âÂ
âThat's correct, and I donât play them, Doctor.â The young witch replied, stepping in just close enough for the space to feel wrong. âEspecially not with women who hide behind God and guns.â The air between them stilled, bending to its mistress. âI know youâre with the Order.â Y/N whispered. âI know that youâre really here to hunt. But youâre not the first dragon-slayer to knock on our door. And you wonât be the last.â
Chasseur felt the weight of those words settle in her spine. She could feel it nowâthe hum of old power beneath her skin, the way the shadows leaned into her like loyal beasts, how the air knock on the windows as if it was trying to protect her.Â
âDid you know Lisa Willoughby?â she asked, changing course, almost instinctively.
âI know she screamed.â Darkhaven answered lowly, like she could feel Lisa's presence behind her. âBut not nearly loud enough.â She paused for a minute, studying her like an old magic book she had on her shelf. âItâs not him.â Clementine knew to whom she was referring; of course she knew but she ignored it.
Clementineâs jaw flexed, but she didnât look away. âThen who is it?â she asked, tilting her head. âYou seem awfully certain for someone who claims she doesnât play games.â
Her expression didnât change, but the air shifted again, heavy with that strange, magnetic pressure that made Clementineâs stomach twist. âYouâre asking the wrong question.â she murmured. âYou should be asking why you want it to be him.â
Clementine frowned. âExcuse me?â
âYou heard me.â The girl's tone was silk over thorns. âYouâve been watching Peter since you arrived. He fascinates you.â Her voice softened, almost curious. âNot because heâs guilty. Because heâs alive in a way youâre not.â
âThatâs notââ Clementine began, but stopped. Y/N was smiling now, faintly, cruelly.
âCome on, be honest.â The witch pressed. âItâs not about justice for the girls. Itâs about the thrill. The chase. You want to see what he becomes under moonlight, donât you?â
Clementineâs pulse kicked, hot and quick. âYou donât know what youâre talking about.â
âOh, but I do.â Darkhaven stepped closer, her eyes glinting like smoke under the flicker of the lights. âYou call it duty, penance, whatever you need to sleep at night. But itâs desire. You hunt what you envy. Peter is wild, free, untamed by your God. You want to leash thatâfeel it fight you back.â
The words hit too close. Clementine laughed once, brittle, the sound scraping against her teeth. âYou really think Iâd waste a bullet on some delinquent for fun?â
âI thinkâŠâ She replied, her voice low and steady, âyou already decided you would. Just for kicks. Just to see if the wolf runs.â
Clementine opened her mouthâclosed it. The witch had moved so close she could smell herâsomething ancient and metallic, like rain on a grave.
âCareful now, DoctorâŠâ Darkhaven murmured. âWhen you start hunting for pleasure instead of purpose, you stop being a dragon-slayer.â Her eyes flashed, black and endless. âYou become the dragon.â
But the witch stepped closer, her silhouette swallowed by the flickering light at the end of the hall and looked at Clementine like she could see right through herâbones, secrets, and all.
âYou carry your faith like armor.â She murmured softly, tilting her head. âBut itâs brittle. Brittle because you hate who you are at night. Because you pray after the taste of her lips hasnât left your mouth yet.â
Clementine blinked. Frozen. No one had ever said it out loud. Not like that. Not with surgical cruelty wrapped in softness.
âYou think God forgives you.â Darkhaven continued, stepping closer now, her eyes never blinking, never flinching. âBut you donât. Thatâs the real rot. Not the monsters out thereânot the wolves. You.â
A silence hung, choking and thick. The hallway seemed colder.
âYouâre not here to save anyone.â She finished, her voice nearly a whisper now, almost gentle. âYouâre here to bleed for a sin you still love.â
Dr. Clementine Chasseur didnât move for a long time. She just stood there, listening to the silenceâand wondering if sheâd just spoken to a witness or something much, much worse.
The lights above them hummed, then flickered once.
And in that half-darkness, Clementine thought she saw something behind her eyesâsomething old and watching, amused by her struggle.
When the lights steadied, she was already walking away.
âYouâll figure out which one of youâs the monster soon enough,â she said without turning back. âBut by then, it wonât matter who screamed first.â
   ââââââââ»âââââââ
The bell above the door had always sounded like a prayer to meâsoft, circular, a tone that stitched the air back together. Iâd grown up believing the apothecary breathed through that sound. Its lungs were the glass jars lining the walls, its pulse the scent of lavender, pine resin, and clove.
That afternoon, it was alive.
Gaia and Gael had burst in like sunlight breaking a spell, their laughter scattering over the floorboards. They didnât knock, didnât softenâjust arrived in the world the way they always had: loud enough to remind it they existed.
Chaos in sunlight. Hands that couldnât stay still. Voices that ignored silence on principle.
I stood behind the counter, sleeves rolled to my elbows, sorting tinctures into their drawers. A ritual older than my memory, taught by hands steadier than mine. The glass chimed faintly, whispering against itselfâlike the jars recognized us, like they remembered whose blood had built this place and wasnât done paying its due.
âCareful with the doorâŠâ I murmured without looking up. âLast time you slammed it, the north shelf sang for half an hour.â
Gaia huffed. âIt wasnât me! it was the wind.â
âItâs always the windâŠâ Gael added, dropping her satchel onto the counter. Something inside clattered⊠star anise, if the sweetness in the air was any indication.
âYou mean the one you were supposed to find two days ago?â
Gael winced. Gaia glared. âWe got distracted. The fox was back.â
That caught my attention. The fox.
âStealing the sage or judging you?â I asked, but my voice had already gone softerâmore aware than amused.
Because the truth was: I had never seen it. Neither had Y/N. Not once. Not a flicker of russet fur, not a shadow slipping between the herbs, not a single pawprint in the soil outside. Nothing. And Iâd looked. I always look. Strategy is instinct; danger is a language I learned before I learned words.Â
If something walks in our woods, I notice it.
But the twins⊠They spoke of the fox the way children describe dreams that arenât quite dreamsâeyes widening, voices dropping, certainty in the place where logic shouldâve been. Not frightened. Not confused. Just⊠sure.
A creature that appears only to them. An entity that leaves no marks. A presence that bends around my sight as if Iâm not meant to meet it.
Iâd tried to rationalize it, once. Maybe a regular red fox, drawn to our herbs. Maybe the twins exaggerating, embellishing a real animal into something mythic. But Gaia insisted its eyes werenât âfox eyes.â And Gael swore it didnât move like oneâsaid its steps were too quiet, its gaze âtoo knowing,â as if it recognized them. As if it was waiting for them.
A familiar? Possible. But familiars choose their witch, and neither twin had shown the marks yet.
Guardian spirit? Maybe. The forest had its own loyalties; old ones, older than even Nana liked to admit. Or something else. Something the Veil only let the youngest glimpse.Â
What bothered me wasnât the mystery. It was that I could feel when they talked about itâsome shift in the wind, the way the apothecary seemed to listen harder, the wards prickling faintly across my skin.Â
Like the fox was real enough to the magic even if it wasnât real to me.
There was a part of meâburied deep but still beatingâthat hated not knowing. Hated that the twins had access to a world I couldnât quite see. But there was another part, quieter and sharper, that wondered if maybe the fox didnât show itself to me because it didnât need to. Because I wasnât the one it was watching. Because it was watching them.
Anything that watched my sisters that closelyâwhether guardian or threatâhad my full, undivided attention.
They didnât answer. I smirked and motioned for them to come closer. âWeâre brewing dream balm. Nanaâs recipe.â
Gaia brightened. âThe one that smells like rain and vanilla?â
âThatâs the one.â
Gael made a face. âMugwort again?â
âOld socks,â I corrected, âthat keep nightmares away.â
Their laughter softened something in my chest I didnât have a name for. The stained-glass window fractured the light across us: amber, green, gold. Gaia once told me the apothecary listened when I spoke. Maybe it did. No, not maybe. I was sure it did. Nana says that a place only lives as long as the familyâs voice fills it.
The bell chimed again.
This time the air foldedârecognizing a different kind of presence, one carved from gravity instead of sugar. Our father stepped inside with the weary precision of someone carrying the world under his coat and refusing to drop it.
âGirls.â he sighed, ushering Gaia and Gael fully in, âstay where your brother can see you. I have a meeting in ten minutes and a headache in two.â
Gaia saluted him dramatically. Gael hugged him around the waist before slipping back to the counter.
Dad leaned on the edge of the table, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders. âTown hallâs a mess. Bodies turning up again. Murders piling like theyâre rehearsing for a festival. And the auditsâŠâ He exhaled sharply. âYour mother and I are practically living at the firm.â
I brushed dried petals from my palms. âBusy saving the town again, huh?â
âIf people and the Vargulf could stop killing each other for five minutes, itâd be nice.â
I raised a brow. âYou love the chaos. Mom does too. Admit it.â
He gave me a lookâhalf stern, half something like a restrained smile. âLaw doesnât run on chaos, son.â
âBut you two do,â I teased, leaning back against the workbench. âGoing to court together again? The dynamic duo?â
âBaelââ
âYou know the judges have bets on who wins when you and Mom take opposite sides.â
âThat is absolutely notââ
âItâs definitely true. Nana told me.â
My father pressed a hand to his forehead. âYour mother and I donât come as a âpackage.â Weâre just very efficient together.â
âWhich is exactly what a package would say.â
Gael giggled into her sleeve. Gaia hid her smile behind a jar of crushed jasmine.
He eventually gave up and redirected with the subtlety of a man fleeing the battlefield. âSpeaking of packagesâwhereâs your sister? I thought she was supervising today.â
âShe stepped out,â I answered. âsomething about checking on a ward she recalibrated last night.â
âThen youâre in charge.â His eyes sharpened. Dark, steady, carrying that familiar weight that managed to make me feel twelve again and seven feet tall, somehow both at once. âYouâre still their older brother. When your sister canât be here, itâs your duty to take care of them.â
I lifted my chin, not in defiance, but in acknowledgment. The responsibility felt natural on my shouldersâheavy, yes, but shaped like me.
âI know, Dad. Iâve got them.â
My father didnât respond right away. He just⊠looked at me with that rare, aching kind of silence he only ever used with me and my sisters, like he was memorizing us every time he walked out a door. Like he feared that one dayâeven with all his power, all his law, all his strategyâhe might not get to see us again.
He crossed the apothecary floor slowly, steps soft on the old planks, as if he didnât want to disturb the space, as if he didnât want to disturb our ancestors. As if we were more sacred than the wards stitched into the walls.
Gael was closest. He reached her first. She turned instinctively, that bright smile already formingâand he cupped the back of her head, pressing a kiss to her forehead. A gentle thing, barely a breath, but it made her shoulders melt. Gael always pretended to be the tougher twin, but nothing disarmed her faster than Dadâs affection.
Gaia stood taller, trying to seem unbothered, older than she was but he bent anyway, brushing her curls aside and kissing her temple. Her eyes softened, golden at the edges, and for a moment she didnât look like a witchling who saw fox-spirits in the woods. She looked like a little girl who adored her father.
He turned to me, but he didnât reach for me the same way. He knew better. I wasnât a forehead-kiss kind of son, and he respected that. But he stepped close, close enough that I felt his presence settle around me like a second coat.
âYouâve grown into something solid.â he murmured. Not praise. Not quite. More like⊠recognition. A truth he was finally willing to say out loud. âI'm proud of you.âÂ
His hand rose a fraction, like he intended to fix my collar the way he used to when I was small. He stopped himself, fingers curling once before he let them drop.
âYou take care of them while Iâm gone.â he said softly. âYou take care of this family.â
âI do.â I replied and I meant it in a way that made my chest tight.Â
Dad inhaled. A quiet, steadying breath. The kind a man takes when he loves his children too much for the world heâs about to step into. Then he straightened his coat, smoothed his tie, and forced himself toward the door.
At the threshold he paused, turning back one last timeâeyes sweeping over the three of us, like he was sealing the image into memory, into marrow.
âWe'll be home before dinner. Try not to burn the place down.â
Gaia laughed. Gael rolled her eyes. I felt the smallest smile tug at the corner of my mouth. The bell chimed softly as he stepped outâa sound that felt, for once, less like a prayer and more like a promise.
For a little while, it was peace again.
Honey poured slow into the brass cauldron, petals crushed to paste under small palms, their hands moving in rhythm with mine.
But peace didnât last long. The bell above the door chimed. At first, harmless. Then the air folded in on itself, sharp as a bitten tongue. The smell of clove turned metallic. That caught my attention.Â
I looked up.
Dr. Clementine Chasseur stepped through the threshold like a sermon walking on two legsâcoat buttoned, badge glinting beneath the low light. Fish & Wildlife Services, a st. Jude necklace but the symbol didnât fool me. I could smell the steel of the Order on her; it had that faint, holy moldâlike incense thatâs burned too long.
âGirls, go to the back.â Gaia froze, Gael stared at the stranger, small hands sticky with honey and resin. âNow.â
They obeyed. The door to the greenhouse creaked open and shut, leaving behind the fading scent of rosemary and sugar.
Only then did I meet Clementineâs eyes.
âYouâre a long way from your sanctum.â I said, voice level. âDr. Chasseur, isnât it?â
She removed her sunglasses, folding them into her collar. âYou know my name.â
âI know your kind.â I leaned against the counter. âOrder of the Dragon. Scripture and silver bullets. You hide behind the cross because youâre afraid of what stares back.â
Her lips thinned into something close to amusement. âYouâve done your research.â
âYou donât need to study dragon slayers when youâve watched them try to burn your ancestors and fail.â
The air between us stretchedâquiet, tense. The shelves hummed, warning her, though she couldnât hear it.
âI just have questions, didnât come here to do no harm.â she said at last.
âYou already asked my sister, and yet you wear a gun on your thigh.â I replied. âYou tried to frighten her, didnât you?â My tone didnât rise, but the temperature in the room fell, my shadow stretching out to the ground. âSo what do you want here? A confession? A relic? A witchâs heartbeat in a jar? Last one's a bit expensive so I'm not sure if you can afford it.âÂ
She scoffed, trying to brush my words off. âIâm investigating two murders. Brooke Bluebell and Lisa Willoughby. I was told you saw the bodies.â
âI didnât see them.â I let the silence work for me. âI felt what was left.â
âThatâs not an answer.â
âItâs the only one youâll get.â
Her boots whispered against the floor as she stepped closer. Gun oil ghosted the airâacrid, metallic, the kind of smell that never quite left a room even after the weapon did. I watched her hand hover near the holster strapped to her thigh. Not a threat. Not yet. But my blood knew the language of danger before my mind ever had to translate it.
The twinsâ absence pressed against the walls like a second heartbeat. I could still hear their laugh echoing behind my ribsâfragile, bright, something worth bleeding for.
âYou and your sister seem awfully calm.â Clementine said. âThis townâs full of monsters.â
âWe donât fear monsters, Doctor.â My voice stayed low, steady, threaded with the kind of stillness my grandmother once told me was a weapon on its own, and I believed her. âWe study them. Sometimes we marry them. Sometimes we become them.â
âYou sound proud of that.â
âNot at all.â I met her eyes. Unblinking. âI just sound awake.â
Something crossed her expressionâhard to read, because she hid behind a badge and a gun the way humans hide behind anything that makes them feel safe, even if itâs for a little while. A flick of hope, maybe. Or disdain.
âYouâre protective.â She said finally. âI can respect that. But Iâm not scared of you.â
I let a slow, deliberate smile unfurl. The kind that wasnât meant to intimidateâjust to inform. âYou should be.â Her hand instinctively brushed her holster again, like she needed to remind herself she had an advantage when truly she didnât.Â
âMy sisters are in the greenhouse and I donât like guns,â I added, voice soft, nonchalant in a way that made her brows rise.
âNo surprise there,â she said, mocking laced in her tone. âBit squeamish? Or do you witches just not handle recoil well?â
I huffed a laughâquiet, but sharp enough to cut. âGuns are loud, messy. Soulless things. Tools for men who canât fight without metal between them and the truth.â She opened her mouthâprobably to scoffâbut I didnât give her the chance. âMy ancestors won wars without a single bullet.â I continued. âThey held ground with nothing but their shadows and their will. They gathered storms in their hands and turned armies to ash. They carved peace out of the throats of tyrants without ever touching a trigger.â Clementineâs grip on her hip tightened. Just a little. Enough. âWe donât need guns. We never have.â
She exhaled, slow, controlledâlike she couldnât decide if I was delusional or dangerous. âYou think that impresses me?â she asked.
âIt wasnât meant to impress you.â
âThen what was it meant to do?â
I tilted my head, letting the air between us settle heavy and electric. âTo make something very, very clearâŠâ I murmured. âYouâre standing in a place my family built. A place protected by names older than your badge, older than guns, older than anything youâve studied and older than your order.â I took one small step closerânot threatening, just present. âIf you ever point that weapon at one of my sistersâŠâ I whispered, âall your training, all your steel, all your science, not even your godâwonât save you from what wakes in me.â
The apothecary held its breath. She did too. The light trembled. My shadow stretched along the counter, detached from meâwatching her, breathing where I didnât. The air rippled.
âIâm not my sisterâŠ.â I said quietly. âUnlike her, I donât think about saving a life that threatens my blood. If I see you near them again, I'll pull the skin from your bones and tear you limb, by limb. And I wonât call it violence. Iâll call it balance.â
She didnât back away, but her pulse betrayed herâfast, staccato, echoing against the hum of the jars. âYou sound like the creatures I hunt.â
âThen maybe the only difference between us,â I said, âis that my monsters answer when I call them.â
Her gaze flicked toward the shelvesâevery jar trembling with light. She understood then, the line between faith and magic thinning at her feet. I could have ended it there. Could have let the threat hang like incense. But something in meâsomething too much like my motherâs temperâleaned closer, wanting her to understand.
âYou donât get to walk into my house,â I whispered, âand make my sisters afraid. Not for your evidence. Not for your God. You leave now, or the walls themselves will decide how to bury you.â
For a long breath, she didnât move. Then, jaw set, she turnedâbut the door opened before she could touch it.
The bell chimed once, sharp as a blade being unsheathed. My father stepped inside. I froze. This was not good.Â
He didnât even look at me first. His eyes went straight to Clementineâassessing, reading, calculating danger at a speed that made the air itself feel thinner.
âDoctor.â he said, voice quiet, too quiet. âWhy are you speaking to my son without me present?â
Something in her stiffened. âI came to askââ
âNo.â The word cracked like oak splitting under an axe.
My father took one step forward, then another. His movements were slow, precise, controlledâbut his temper rolled in behind him like a dark tide slamming to the stones on the shore. The pressure of it made the jars hum in their shelves, the wards behind the walls shift like a creature waking.
He was trying to pretend that he was calm, but his magic was speaking louder than his body and voice.Â
âYou donât question my children alone.â He murmured, each syllable a sharpened edge. âYou do not corner them in our familyâs place of work. And you do notââ His eyes flicked toward the back room, where the twins had been. âfrighten them.â
Clementineâs hand twitched near her holster. A mistake. He noticed. But dad didnât raise his voice. Didnât lift a finger. He didnât need to. He never did.Â
His calmness was worse than his rage.Â
âReach for that and you will lose far more than your badge.â
The apothecary tightened around usâlight contracting, shelves vibrating, resin and clove thickening like the breath of something old and unseen rising behind the walls.
Clementine swallowed hard. âI didnât come to cause trouble.â
âThen leave. Now. Before this house finishes what my son started.â
She hesitated just long enough for me to respect her stubbornness. She pushed past him, and stepped into the cold breeze. The bell above the door chimed once more, a final warning disguised as a farewell.
When the door shut behind her, the apothecary exhaledâthe light settling back into its jars, the scent of clove and pine uncoiling.
My father didnât move for several seconds. His jaw worked once. Twice. A silent attempt to force a rage not meant for mortals back into the cage he kept it in. The kind of fury men like him inherited, something ancient, cold, and loyal.
He turned to me. Not sharply. Not with suspicion or authority, but slowlyâlike he needed to look at me with his own eyes before deciding what the world deserved next.
He stepped closer. âAre you hurt?â His voice had softened, dropping into that scarcely used register, the one he saved only for his children. It broke slightly at the edges, like the question itself bruised him.
âIâm fine, Dad.â I started. âThe twinsââ
But he didnât let me finish. He raised a hand, tentative at first, then firm with decision, and cupped the side of my face. His thumb brushed under my eye, checking for tension, for heat, for signs of fear I mightâve swallowed before he walked in. His hand was warm. Solid. Familiar.
âAel.â he whispered, not scolding, not doubtingâjust⊠needing to say the nickname he gave me.Â
He searched my face the way a man searches for proof of life after disaster. Then, when that wasnât enough, his irises flickeredâgray lightning sparking across the surface, a storm Iâd inherited but hadnât mastered.
His sight slipped over me like a tideâgentle, not invasive. A fatherâs check. A fatherâs fear.
I felt the magic skim my skin, cool as rain. Felt it slow when it reached my throat, when it found the edge of adrenaline still stuck there.
His jaw clenched. Not angerârelief sharp enough to hurt him. âYouâre shaking, my boy.â he said softly. âI can feel it.â
âIâm not scared.â I confessed.Â
âI know.â His thumb traced the corner of my jaw. âBut youâre still my son.â
The apothecary hummed around us, wards responding to him the way living things react to a steady heartbeat.
âDad,â I tried again, âthe twinsââ
âGo to them,â he murmured. âThey need you.â
His hand lingered another moment, as if letting go would make the danger return. Then he dropped it and straightened, though the softness in his eyes didnât fade.
âIâll handle everything else. As your father. Not as a lawyer. Not as a Darkhaven. As your father.â
I hesitatedânot because I doubted him, never that, but because my sister and me hated leaving him alone in the ruins of his own anger. The room still remembered the threat heâd become; the walls still vibrated with it.
He saw my hesitation and shook his head. âGo, Baelor.â He murmured gently. âIâm right behind you.â
âOkayâŠâÂ
I went. When I reached the greenhouse the twins were pressed together among the rosemary stalks. Gaelâs eyes were red; Gaiaâs small hand clenched around the wooden spoon sheâd refused to drop. When they saw me, they ranâwordless, tremblingâand I caught them both, one arm wrapped around each.
They buried their faces against my chest, breathing the scent of smoke and honey that clung to me.
âAre we in trouble?â Gaia whispered.
âNo, not at all.â I murmured into their hair. âShe was.â
Gael hiccupped a laugh that turned halfway into a sob. I brushed her curls back, careful not to let them see how my hands still shook.
âPromise meâŠâ I told them quietly, âyouâll never let anyone make you feel small just because it makes their job easier.â
They nodded, solemn.Â
âAre you scary, Baelor?â Gael asked, peering up through wet lashes.
âOnly when I need to be.â I murmured and meant every word. They returned to the cauldron, shoulders touching, stirring in slow, patient circles. The scent of honey rose again, warm and steady, and something in my chest finally loosened.
Maybe this was what protection meantânot the fight, but the warmth that followed it. The insistence that the world would not take what was ours.
 ââââ ⊠⹠âȘ °â° â«âą ⊠ââââ
The scream didnât come at once.
It bled into the trees. A sharp, wounded soundâcracked, like it had torn its way out from somewhere deeper than lungs.
I stood still, half-hidden behind a moss-covered stone at the treeline, the wind crawling cold across my bare arms. The scent hit me first. Blood, iron-rich and hotâmingling with damp pine and decay.
I didnât need to see to know what had happened. I felt it. In my teeth. In my ribs. In the ring of protection spells trembling faintly at my spine. But I saw it anyway.
Christina Wendell, running. Tripping. Crying.
She crashed into the clearing like a girl lost in a nightmare, and fell to her knees before what remained of Lisa Willoughby.
Her body was⊠wrong.
Stretched. Torn. Sliced open in too many places. Clothes ripped. Hands curled inward as if theyâd tried to hold something inâorgans, breath, God.
Lisaâs upper body was gone. Ripped open like a fruit. Still, Christina didnât scream again. She sobbed, yes. Her voice cracked. But then she leaned down, gently, as though tucking a child in for sleep and kissed Lisa full on the mouth.
Soft. Lingering. Almost⊠ritualistic. My fingers clenched around the edge of my coat. I didnât move. Couldn't reveal my presence. Something was not right.Â
But I watched. Like a hawk watching a vulture circle the wrong kind of corpse. Christina pulled back. Her mouth was red. Not just from tears. Something passed over her face in the shadowsâsomething hungry. Something empty. Something old.
Her sobs returned seconds later, loud and broken and theatrical. She clutched Lisaâs limp form, rocking back and forth. But it was a performance.Â
I could tell. I've seen true grief. This wasnât it. This was mimicry. A poor imitation of sorrow. I felt my breath moved slow in my lungs. Magic stirred lightly under my tongue and, for a moment, just a flicker, Iâve couldâve sworn Christina looked up. Straight toward the trees.
Straight to me.Â
Her eyes scanned the trees, narrowed. Then passed over my hiding place and moved on. She didnât see me, but I saw everything.
The way Christinaâs hands were too still. The way her pupils shifted too wide, too fast. The way her body didnât recoil from the blood, but seemed to curl into it.
She stepped away only when she felt the cold in Lisaâs lips, her lower body full of worms. Tore open her throat with a second screamâperfectly timedâand ran.
I came back to myself like surf breaking on stone, breath cold in my chest, even though the room was warm.
The memory didnât drift. It stuck.
I stood in Baelorâs private drawing roomâhis sanctum of charcoal ghosts. Overlooking the woods. Somewhere beyond the treetops, beyond the silver line of the creek, Lisaâs body had been zipped into a black bag.
And somewhere, Christina Wendell was caged between the walls of Hemlock Acres. Crying. Clutching her journal to her chest. Acting like she hadnât kissed the dead girl.Â
I narrowed my eyes. I didn't approach her when I visited Norman Godfrey this morning. Hadnât spoken a word. Just watched. Patient. Silent.
I didnât like Christina. She gave me chills. Not because of what she did or didnât sayâbut because I could feel how twisted her soul was.Â
Something wrong. Not entirely human. Not entirely honest. I didnât need proof nor blood under my fingernails or a curse in the wind.
I just knew.
There was something inside Christina Wendell. And one day, it would come to the surface. Something primal and envious.Â
When it does, I'll be waiting for her.Â
My eyes drifted to my brother's space, not knowing how I even got here in the first place. Maybe I was meant to see how his mind was running these days. The air still smelled faintly of graphite and turpentine, that sharp scent of obsession that clung to everything he touched. The curtains were drawn back, letting the vanilla twilight spill across walls crowded with sketches.
Everywhere I turned, there were visionsâhis visions. He draws what he sees and what he sees⊠terrifies me.
There were no portraits of the living here, not anymore. No faces laughing under the sun, no blooming things. Only violence made flesh in black ink and blurred pencilâbodies half-devoured by shadow, angels with their wings torn, wolves swallowing light. The kind of things that live behind oneâs eyelids and never sleep.
He hasnât been here in years, at least not to draw. I can see his body moving across the room leaving the visions and returning to his bedroom. Still, this place breathes like he still lives here. As if his nightmares were still pacing behind the paper, whispering to one another when the wind moves.
I reached out to one of the drawingsâa woman split in two, one half rotting, the other burningâand felt my hand tremble. Lisa Willoughby.Â
I used to think his gift was sacredâI still do. Seeing beyond the veil meant understanding it. But now, standing here, surrounded by his torment, I canât tell if itâs vision or curse.
He used to draw usâGaia chasing fireflies holding Gael's hand, Nana in her garden, even me once, laughing with a mouth full of apple slices.
Now, every stroke looks like a scream of help.Â
I wonder if thatâs what happens when you stare too long into the darkâwhen you stop trying to protect the world from it, and start letting it speak through you.
I took a step back, pulse rising, eyes catching the reflection of my own face in the glass. The forest outside looked distant, unreal, like another painting he couldâve madeâbranches twisting, the light too sharp to be gentle.
For a moment, I didnât recognize the girl staring back at me. Her pupils were wide, her lips pale, a ghost framed in gold and morning fog. There was something other in her eyesâsomething ancient, heavy with memory and duty. The kind of thing you inherit before you can speak, before you even know what it means to bear it.
The reflection blinked when I did, but slower, as if the girl in the mirror was reluctant to follow.
Protector. Witch. Darkhaven.
Witch. Darkhaven. Protector.
Darkhaven. Protector. Witch.Â
Titles whispered through me like cold air slipping through a keyhole. They should have felt like honor, but they burned like chains. I was born into a legacy built on oaths older than language, bound to the Veil, to the balance between life and whatever waits beyond it. I should have felt proud. Instead, I felt haunted.
The glass trembled faintly under my fingertips, as if the power beneath my skin wanted out. The same current that ran through my mother, through my grandmother, through my father, through all of us who carried the weight of the unseen. It was supposed to protect usâto protect them. But in moments like this, surrounded by Baelorâs nightmares, I wondered if our gift was protection or punishment.
Maybe thatâs why he stopped coming here. Maybe he couldnât stand to look at what the magic showed him anymore.
I envied him, in a quiet, aching way. Because even in his silence, in his distance, he was still himself. I wasnât. I could never be. My path had already been written in the ink of my ancestors, my hair, my blood.
And yet, beneath the fear, there was something elseâsomething alive, thrumming just under my ribs. The name I never say aloud when I feel this kind of weight.
Roman.
It came like a wound reopening, familiar and cruel. His presence lingered in everything, even hereâin the way the light hit the windowpane, the way the forest breathed beyond it. We were the same in that way: cursed to see too much, to feel too deeply. But where his darkness called to me, it also threatened to consume me.
Maybe thatâs why I couldnât let go. Because even when he tore through my calm like a storm through the trees, I saw the same fear behind his eyes that I carried behind mineâthe terror of being what we were made to be.
My reflection wavered again. For a heartbeat, I saw not myself, but herâthe girl I might have been if I hadnât been born under the old moon. A version untouched by magic, by Roman, by the weight of my bloodline. She looked⊠happy. Light. Ordinary.
Then she was gone.
Only me remained. The Protector in waiting. The witch who sees too much. The sister standing in her brotherâs ghosts.
âTell me itâs not all for nothing.â
I pressed my palm flat to the glass, breath fogging the surface, and whisperedânot to the mirror, but to the Veil itself. The room swallowed the words whole. It always did.
âI wish I could tell you that.â Baelor's voice echoed through the study, soft and slightly warm at the edges, but somehow, worn out. He was tired. And I noticed, these past daysâsilence was doing most of his speaking. I startledânot visibly, but enough that the mirror caught the slight widen of my eyes. I turned.
My brother stood in the doorway, shoulders tense beneath his dark sweater, hair still damp from the the shower. He held one of his sketchbooks at his side, the edges of the paper smudged with charcoal. Charcoal that still stained the crooks of his fingers like soot.
He looked older than he shouldâve. Haunted. But steadyâas if heâd walked through nightmares and decided that walking out was optional.
âYou didnât answerâŠâ I said quietly, lowering my hand from the glass. âNot really.â
He stepped inside, closing the door with his shoulder. No hesitation. This was his room, his sanctuary, and yet he moved around it like he feared waking something dormant.
His eyes passed over the drawings on the wallsâhis drawingsâand a flicker of pain darted through his expression. Not shame. Recognition. Like seeing your own reflection rotting.
âItâs never for nothing, at least thatâs what I like to think.â he murmured, though he didnât sound convinced. âBut the price⊠we never get to choose that.â
He approached the nearest table, the one beneath the window, and set the sketchbook down. A loose page slipped from insideâface downâskittering across the wood like it wanted to escape.
âBaelor.â I called, nodding toward it. âWhat did you see this time?â He didnât answer. Instead, he turned the page over with two fingers and my stomach tightened.
Lisa. Or what was left of her.
He had drawn her torn apartâlimbs arranged in angles a body couldnât make, head tilted as if listening to something only she could hear. Shadows writhed around her like living things, tendrils slipping between ribs, licking at the places where flesh met bone. Not wolves. Not beasts. Not anything with a name.
It was the way he drew the eyes that gutted me: not dead, but aware.
I swallowed hard. âYou saw her like this?â
His jaw clenched. âI see everything like this.â
A confession. A wound spoken aloud.
There was a tremor in his right hand, almost imperceptible, but I knew Baelor too well not to see it. He wasnât afraid of what he drewâhe was afraid that this was all he could draw now, as if the brighter visions had been bled out of him.
âHow long?â I asked, voice tight. âThese visions... this darkness. How long has it been getting worse?â
He looked away, eyes glassy. âSince I crossed Kilderry Park and found Roman and Peter there. Since the woods demanded your sight and everything shifted.â A breath. âSince I realized seeing doesnât mean I can stop it.â
The quiet that followed wasnât silence. It was thick with the unsaid, with the weight of what our bloodline takes from us in exchange for sight.
I moved closer, fingers brushing the edge of the table where the drawing lay. âBaelor⊠this isnât your fault.â
He laughed under his breathâharsh, unbelieving. âI drew it before they even found her. I drew the creek. The bag. The shadows.â He tapped two fingers to his temple. âItâs all right here, all the time. And I donât know if itâs warning me⊠or if itâs trying to break me.â
My chest tightened even more. My brave, quiet brother, carrying storms aloneâŠ
âWhat did you come here to tell me?â I asked gently.
He finally met my eyes, and for a heartbeat, I saw past the visionsâpast the tormentâto the boy he used to be. The one who drew fireflies and gardens and sisters laughing with bitten apples.
In the split of a second, all I could think of was him. Not the seer, not the vessel of nightmaresâbut Baelor. My Baelor. My twin.Â
The boy who cut down the entire branch of the old ash tree because I fell from it onceâjust onceâand scraped my knee. He marched into the backyard with a kitchen knife, face set in righteous fury, and hacked at the bark until Nana found him and shrieked like he was murdering the tree itself.
âThe tree betrayed her,â heâd said. âIt wonât do it again.â
He was five.
The boy who, when we were ten and our parents decided we were âold enoughâ to sleep in separate rooms, waited until the house went quietâthen padded barefoot into my room and climbed into my bed without a word. Just curled against me, small and warm, because he knew I hated the silence.
When I asked him the next morning why he came, he shrugged. âYou have nightmares,â heâd whispered.
âBut I didnât last night,â I said.
âI know,â he replied. âItâs because I was there.â
The boy who always stood between me and any harmânot because he wasnât afraid, but because he felt it more deeply than any of us. He was the sensitive one, the one who cried when Gaia threw away a bird feather, the one who kept fallen birds in his room after rainstorms and healed their wings so âthey wouldnât drown in the mud.â
And now here he wasâstill that same boy, but older, splintered in places no one could see. Bearing visions that carved at him from the inside out. Holding horrors with the same hands that once brushed dirt off my scraped palms.
How unfair that he, of all people, should see the worst of the world. How cruel that the Veil chose him.
I always want to reach for him, to pull him into a hug like when we were children and our biggest worry was who got the larger slice of Nanaâs blueberry cake. But Baelor had grown into his silence, into a kind of stoic stillness that felt like touching a frozen lake under moonlightâbeautiful, fragile, and dangerous if mishandled.
Still, looking at him now, I felt something swell inside me. A vow, maybe. A promise. A memory curled into resolve. He thinks he carries storms alone. But he never has. Iâll be damned before I let him start now.
âBael.â I murmured, voice softer than breath. âI know who you are.â
His brow furrowed gently. âWhat?â
âI know who you are beneath all of this.â I gestured faintly to the drawings, the shadows, the weight in his eyes. âYouâre the bravest person I know. You always have been.â
He looked away at that, jaw tightening as if praise were salt in a wound but I saw the flicker in his expression, the boy he used to be resurfacing just long enough
âYouâre not alone. None of us are. And whateverâs coming⊠we face it together.â
âI know.â His voice wavered, just once. âY/N?â
âYes?â
He nodded toward the mirror behind me. âItâs not all for nothing. The Veil doesnât choose wrong.â
The page on the table fluttered as if stirred by a breath not our own. The shadows in the drawing twined into each other like smoke trying to form a face.
Together we stood in the room of his ghosts. A room changed by time and bleeding with silence, but filled with love.
Baelor shifted beside me, clearing his throat with that awkward gentleness he uses when heâs trying to pull us back to something normal. Something mundane. Something safe.
âI actually came to tell you dinnerâs ready,â he said, tone flatter than usual. âDad brought Chinese food.â
I blinked. âThatâs what you came to tell me? You walk in looking like deathâs personal messenger and itâs to say lo mein is served?â
He frowned. âItâs good lo mein. From that place close to the sheriff's station.âÂ
âYou scared me.â
âI literally opened a door. Of my private studio.â
âYou materialized in the doorway like a Victorian ghost.â
âThatâs just how I stand, dimwit.â
âNo, itâs how you haunt.â
He rolled his eyesâfinally, a sliver of brotherly normalcy cracking through the storm. âYouâre so stupid, I swear.â
âAnd youâre dramatic.â
âSays the person brooding at a window like a heartbroken governess.â
I shoved his shoulder. âTake that back.â
âOh, hell nah!â He smirked, the first real one Iâd seen on him in days. âIâm savoring this win.â
âBaelor, I swearââ
âIâm kidding, Iâm kidding!â I shot him a glare, a smile tugging on my lips. âSoâŠâ he added. I furrowed my eyebrows.Â
âSoâŠ?â
âDr. Chasseur went to the apothecary.â
My eyebrows shot up. âFor what? Lavender?Moonwort? Tonic for being insufferable?â
He rubbed the back of his neck. âIt wasnât⊠that kind of visit.â
My stomach dropped. âWhat could she possibly want there?â
He hesitatedâonly for a momentâbut it was enough. âShe showed up asking questions about the murders.â he said quietly. âAccusing. Pressuring. Trying to see if any of us would slip.â
A cold spike shot down my spine. âShe cornered you.â Not asked. Stated. He didnât deny it.
He swallowed hard. âGaia and Gael were there. They heard everything. Dad walked in halfway through and almostââ He stopped himself. âIt got⊠bad.â
I felt heat rising under my skinâanger, fear, fury twisting into each other. âIâll talk to her.â
âNo, you wonât.â His voice snapped sharper than expected. âYou have enough on your plate. And Clementineâs just doing her jobâbadly, but still, sheâs like a puppy whoâs going out for a walk but has a leash on.â
âShe threatened you.â I pointed out.Â
âShe questioned me.â He corrected, then added under his breath, âLoudly.â
I stared him down. He stared back. We both knew what I was going to do. He both hated and relied on it.
âYouâre not my guard dog.â he muttered.
âAnd youâre not my martyr.â I shot back.
âThatâs debatable.â
âOh, shut up.â
âYou shut up.â
âNo, you.â
âThis is why youâre single.â
I gasped. âNow, thatâs a low blow.â
âI know.â
I flicked his forehead. He yelped. Balance restored.
I sighed in defeat and dropped into the chair by the window. âWhatever. Is dinner getting cold?â
âYes.â
âAnd you waited until now to come get me?â
He shrugged againâthat maddening, infuriating, very-Darkhaven shrug. âYou were talking to the mirror like it owed you money. I didnât want to interrupt.â
I opened my mouth, ready with a retortâbut then it happened. A pulse. A slow, bone-deep thrum that rolled through the manorâs walls.
The light overhead flickeredâjust once. A crackle of energy swept beneath the floorboards like a low rumble of distant thunder.Â
Baelor and I went still at the same time.
âOh, noâŠâÂ
âNana.â My brother whispered, swallowing hard.Â
I nodded, breath catching. âSheâs angry.â
We didnât have to guess the reason. We didnât have to say the words Order of the Dragon aloud for the pressure in the air to tighten like a fist.
The Veil inside the manor stirred, responding to our grandmotherâs furyâa quiet, simmering wrath that always tasted like iron and stormwater.
Another pulse. The air warmed. The shadows shivered.
âDinnerâs going to be interesting,â Baelor murmured.
âIt always is,â I answered.
We exchanged one last lookâpart resigned, part defiant, part tethered by blood and magic older than either of us.
âCome on, I can hear the fried rice calling my name.âÂ
âââââ âŸâœ âââââ
The moonlight spilled through the stained-glass windows in fractured colors, quieting the manor in hues of violet and silver. For once, the silence inside is not ominousâjust the hush of a home at rest.
Neven walked down the hallway barefoot, hair still damp from a late shower, wearing soft charcoal sweats and a loose cream sweater. A rare sight: the heir of the Darkhaven coven looking⊠comfortable. Human, even. In his hand was a pair of chopsticks still in their paper sleeve.
âMother?â he called lightly. âDinnerâs ready. Chineseâfrom the place you and Elle like.â
He continued down the corridor, scanning the rooms. The table had already been set, Gabrielle pouring juice for the twins while Gaia stole dumplings, Gael complaining the noodles were too hot. Baelor and Y/N coming downstairs bickering about which Tim Burton movie was the best if Beetlejuice or Alice In Wonderland. For a moment, it had all felt normal. Warm. Like a memory they didnât know how to keep.
But his mother was missing. He turned toward the eastern wing just as a sharp knock cuts through the quiet.
One. Two. Three. Four. Measured. Too precise for visitors, too late for couriers.
At the far end of the corridor, Irene stands with a cup of tea in hand, her hair pinned loosely at the nape of her neck. She stops mid-step, eyes narrowing. Another knock followsâfive this time. Final. Inevitable.
Setting her cup on a side table, she moves to the door with that controlled grace only a Protector carries. When she opened it, Joshua stood thereâthe man who had delivered letters to the manor for years. Brown coat. No insignia. Utterly forgettable.
âGood evening, Madame Darkhaven,â he says, extending a parcel wrapped in thick, faded parchment.
âThereâs no return seal.â she remarks.
âWas told youâd recognize it.â
He doesnât blink. Doesnât shift. And when Irene accepts the parcelâfeeling the wrongness in the softness of the paper, the weight of letters she already knows she wonât likeâJoshua is simply⊠gone. The air sighs where he stood, the night reclaiming him without a sound.
Irene closes the door quietly and walks toward her private study. Her magic hums beneath her skin is restless and ancient, as if recognizing what she carries. By the time she reaches the study, the door closes behind her on its own. She sits at her desk. The parcel rests in the center like something venomous pretending to sleep.
She breaks the blood-red wax. The parchment unfurls silently, like a creature stretching awake. The study exhales with itâthe air sharpened, charged, aware. Tomes tremble on their shelves as if bowing to an old, unwelcome presence.
Words carve themselves across the page in black, living ink.
âThe Vargulf has crossed into the southern quarter. Local fatalities confirmed. Redemption deemed improbable. As per Article IV, Section 9: Eliminate the threat immediately. Compliance is non-negotiable.â
âNon-negotiableâŠâÂ
She repeats, a dry, humorless laugh scraping out of her, but her expression shifts. Not fear. Not shock.Offense. Vicious, simmering, dignified offense.
Her jaw tightens, and something deep in the room seems to recoil.
âTheyâŠâ she whispers, the word coiling like smoke, âdared.â The parchment begins to vibrate, reacting to the spike in her magic. âThey dared,â she says again, louder now, âto issue me a command.â
Her power ripples through the floorboards, a tidal pulse of ancient energy. The glass in the lanterns trembles. Inkpots rattle. Books rustle like frightened birds. She lifts the letter between two fingers, as though holding something foul.
âA decree,â she scoffs. âAs if I were a novice hedge-witch waiting for orders. As if I have not been a Protector since before their grandfathers crawled out of their cradles.â
The flames in the hearth whip sideways, dragged by an unseen storm.
âAs if I havenât buried more monsters, and more generals, than their entire Order ever dared face.â Her eyes glint, unearthly green. âAs if anyone in that council has the authority to dictate to me what balance demands.â Her voice drops into a low, dangerous murmur. âThat they believe they can command me⊠that is what offends me.â
The letter begins to smoke in her hand, thin tendrils rising from the edges as the enchantments struggle against her fury.
âI am not theirs to summon,â she breathes, the room humming with her. âI am not theirs to wield.â
The parchment darkens at the corners, curling under the heat of her powerânot fire, but wrath. Behind her, the flames surge upward, wild and erratic, as if blown from within.
She closes her eyes, exhales once, and the air vibrates.Â
âHow dare they forget who I am.â The room seems to hold its breath, then the letter bursts into a line of smoke across her palmâquiet, but absolute. âIâm not your executioner.â
The room explodes in response. The desk slams into the wall. Candles gutter out. Books snap open, pages flapping like frantic wings. A pressure buildsâher magic pulsing like a storm given a heartbeat.
Outside, Neven stops mid-step. He feels it. A ripple of power that vibrates through the floorboards and up the walls. The same energy that once sent him running as a boy, now drawing him in.
âMother?â he calls, softer now, stepping past the threshold of her study.
She stands in the center of the chaos, hair unbound, eyes glowing green. The air warps around her. âThey think Iâm a dog on a leashâŠâ she spits. A shelf behind her detonates; books slam against the wall like thrown stones. She doesnât even flinch. âA hunter they can command. As if I havenât spent centuries preserving balance. As if their crest is carved into my bones.â
Neven steps closer, careful but not afraid.
âIâm a Protector, Neven. Not a weapon you draw when things get ugly. I must prioritize livesâbefore taking them.â
Slowly, he moves around the debris toward her, the burning sigil on the parchment still fading on the desk. âThe Order of the Dragon sent it?â he asks.
âThey demand I kill the Vargulf. No containment. No mercy. Theyâve already decided the human inside is dead.â
âYou donât answer to them,â Neven says firmly. âYou never have. Theyâre scared. They always have beenâof what they canât control⊠of what you wonât let them control.â
Her breath shudders. The storm in her body softens, the violent energy slowly receding.âIâve seen Vargulfs return,â she whispers. âbroken minds stitched back together. Souls dragged out of madness. Thereâs still someone inside.â
âThen we find the Vargulf.â Neven says, voice steady, the chopsticks still forgotten in his hand. âTogether.â
Irene looks at her sonâthe only man brave enough to stand this close when her power rages, when the air itself bends and buckles around her.
For a heartbeat, she sees him as the world does. The Darkhaven heir, a powerful lawyer, a fierce father, tall and solemn, shoulders squared despite the tremor in the walls, despite the sigils burning faintly in the air like war scars.
It hits her.
He's not a child anymore. Not the little boy who used to cling to her ribs while she measured herbs at the apothecary, not the youth who once hid behind her when his magic flared too deep.Â
A man. Her son has become a man. A warlock forged not in peace, but in the shadow of her and Novah's fire. In their expectations. In their legacy. In the weight of a name that has never been gentle.
A man who walks into her storm without flinching. Who steps through the shards of her power, barefoot, steady, and mostly, unafraid. Who holds her gaze instead of bowing under it and something inside her buckles.
The fury, the righteous, ancient fury, shatters under a wave of something far older. Far softer. Far more agonizing. Grief. Not for him. Not for herself.
But for the lifetime of burdens he never asked for, and still carries. For the way he mirrors her strength⊠and her sacrifices. For the price of being her son, a price she never wanted him to pay.
Her chest tightens. Her breath trembles. The rage is goneâextinguished as instantly as a candle drowned in water. What fills its place is ache. Raw and quiet. Heavy as stones. He stands there. Calm and unwavering and she thinks.
Gods, when did you become the only one strong enough to stand in my chaos? When did I let the world make you this? When did I let myself?
The storm around her falters. Books settle. The air loosens its grip. And Ireneâs eyesâstill glowing faintlyâsoften with a sorrow she rarely allows anyone to see.
Neven notices. He always does.
âTogether.â
âââââ âŸâœ âââââ
đ: under the old moon: @kikibit @vadersangel @melancuntly @lunaskye999 @a-differentbrandof-beans @ch404 @voidofsunlight @mephistoraven @fathelzzz @kill3ill đŻïžđ€
â« ââââ âȘâąâŠ đ âŠâąâ« ââââ âȘ
đâđ»: I'M ALIVE! it's been brutal out here, between work, classes and trying to take the rhythm back to saudade. happy holidays to everyone who celebrated, i wish you all nothing but love, kindness, clarity and comfort. thank you for reaching this far away with my small piece. roman and y/n ARE COMING and stronger than everâi'm just a loser for yearning in silence.
your kindness, your likes, your reposts, your words... mean more than i can ever confess. for now, i take my leave once again, until the shadows call us together again. đźđȘŹ












