Tuesday arrived with a grey, relentless drizzle that mirrored Gwen’s internal state. Gwen spent forty-five minutes on her armour—wielding her mascara and foundation like weapons to hide the fact that her sleep had been fitful with feverish dreams of violet resonance and warm skin. She looked perfect. She looked icy. She looked like a girl who hadn’t been pinned against a lichen-stained pillar twelve hours ago.
But Will Clark made a mockery of her composure.
To Will, the morning seemed to be a victory lap. He moved through the halls with the kind of happy, bone-deep anticipation that made Gwen want to scream. In the Great Hall at breakfast, he didn’t just walk past the Aurelius table; he practically skidded to a stop, then approached Julian Vane, with the excuse of discussing their next Fen-Ball practice. But Will’s eyes kept shifting over to her. He had all the subtlety of a lightning strike in a library.
When he caught her in the North cloisters later, his ‘code’ was so transparent it made her teeth ache from jaw-clenching frustration.
“I’ve been reviewing the… spell you showed me yesterday,” he said. His voice dropped into that low, vibrating register that sent a traitorous thrill down her spine, even as it brought her eye twitch back with a vengeance. “Just wanted to confirm our practice today. In case you found something else you needed to do.”
“Confirm all you want, Clark,” Gwen hissed, her eyes darting around the stone corridor to see if any Circle members were in earshot. “I’m not impressed by your dedication to the bare minimum.” Beside her, Sloan feigned a bored examination of her nails, but her stillness was evidence of active listening.
“I have plenty of better things to do, but an O’Dorchaidhe keeps their word,” Gwen said, chin raised. “I will see you at seven. Do not make me wait.”
He grinned then—a wide, honest smile that shouldn’t have jolted her heart. But it did. His lack of subtlety was a disaster. He was a Vapour who didn’t understand that every look he gave her was a pin in the map of her social downfall.
“Looks like the Chosen One still can’t find his way around campus,” Estelle sneered as they watched Will’s retreating back.
“Looks like he’s stalking Gwen,” Charlotte observed dryly. “Maybe he’s scared his gutter-friends will turn on him, and he’s clinging to the Hero of the North Wing for protection.”
Gwen felt the familiar, cold assessment of her peers. She waited for the twist in her gut, but instead, she found herself comparing them to Roman Smith. Roman had known Will Clark for barely more than a month, yet had risked an O’Dorchaidhe’s wrath to protect Will. Estelle and Charlotte would never do the same for her.
“Those letters were garish,” Sloan said, her expression calm but her tone carrying the weight of a command. “And everyone knows you don’t overshadow the Prime Cairn on its own stage. Gwen did exactly what any Ink should do. She contained the mess.”
Estelle and Charlotte exchanged glances and went silent. They knew better than to press their luck when Sloan stood in Gwen’s corner. Normally, that solidarity was Gwen’s oxygen. But today, it felt thin. She wondered if Sloan’s loyalty was to Gwen or to the image of Gwen she needed to maintain.
By the afternoon, the doomsday clock in Gwen’s head was ticking toward seven o’clock. She performed normal—back straight, pen poised, seated in her usual front row seat. Beside her, Sloan was a silent, observant gargoyle who hadn’t missed a single one of Will’s suspicious passes throughout the day.
When Professor Purnell gave them fifteen minutes for an open-book quiz, Sloan didn’t even pretend to look at her text. She launched into a gradual, invasive interrogation.
“You cast a curse with a boy one time, and he thinks he’s got an in,” Sloan teased, her voice a low, dangerous purr. She began copying Gwen’s answers, her eyes never leaving her friend’s profile. “Gwenhwyfar O’Dorchaidhe, you have yet another hopeless idealist wrapped around your finger. It’s becoming a habit.”
Gwen kept her gaze on her quiz paper. “He doesn’t have an in, Sloan.”
Sloan laughed, a sharp, knowing sound. She nudged Gwen’s shoulder with the kind of intimacy that usually felt like a hug, but today felt prodding. “Come on, Gwennie. We’ve been best friends since primary school. It’s obvious you have a type.”
“What exactly is my type?” Gwen asked, her forefinger compulsively tracing the silver antlers of her ring.
“Charismatic bleeding hearts with too much power and not enough sense,” Sloan said, her smile fading into something sharper. “Clooney 2.0. How sad for him that it will never work out.”
Gwen’s heart gave a traitorous thud. She stared at the last question on the page, the pressure of her hand bleeding a dot of dark ink on the page.
“Will Clark isn’t Clooney,” Gwen said. She answered the question and set her pen down, frowning at the ink blot she had to let dry.
“Yeah, he’s worse,” Sloan agreed. “At least Clooney is Ink. Imagine what your father would do? That was bad enough with the 1.0 version. So not worth it.”
Gwen felt the prickle on the back of her neck. She risked a microscopic glance over her shoulder. Four rows back, Will was staring at her. When their eyes met, he offered that small, tentative smile—the one that made her feel like she was floating and drowning all at once.
Gwen’s phone buzzed. She pulled it from her satchel to find a text from Sloan: Staring again. Stop leading the poor Vapour’s on! People will get the wrong idea.
Gwen looked at the text, then at the ink blot on her paper, and then at Sloan. The imagined rumours were already running circles in her mind: An Ink latching onto the Chosen One for clout, and a Vapour orbiting an Ink for the perks of status.
People would talk. She’d already thought of that. The variable she couldn’t plan for was Sloan’s reaction. Was Roman right that Ink loyalty was only valued as a favour for a favour? The urge to test her friend—to see if there was anything genuine beneath the social posturing—overtook her.
She typed: What if I’m not leading him on?
The ley lines were barriers today—the magical interference making digital signals lag and stutter. The ‘sent’ status hung in limbo for an agonizing thirty seconds before the message landed. Sloan read it, and her posture went rigid.
“That’s not funny, Gwen,” she whispered, her voice tight.
Lying to Sloan would be a waste of energy. Sloan had been her friend since they were five; she could read the tension in Gwen’s shoulders like a Brand Bible. Gwen took a breath, her chest achingly tight, and typed the damning truth.
I’m meeting him tonight. It’s a date.
Beside her, Sloan went deathly pale. She hissed a breath through her teeth, her shoulders locking as she physically shielded her screen from Estelle and Charlotte behind them. She tucked the phone against her stomach, hiding the screen in the shadow of the desk, and typed with a frantic, trembling speed.
The magical lag was torture. A full minute of silence passed while Sloan fumed. Finally, she shoved the phone toward Gwen, keeping it low under the desk.
I know first-year uni students tend to go wild, but this is social suicide!!! A Vapour? In public? Gwen, my dorm. After class. We talk before U ruin your life.
“It’s just coffee, Sloan,” Gwen whispered, her voice barely audible over Professor Purnell’s resumed drone about the importance of semantics in chants.
“It’s never just coffee,” Sloan replied, her eyes dark with a genuine, terrified warning. “Coffee is a prologue, Gwen. And I won’t watch you burn your legacy for a hot fling.”
Gwen looked back at her quiz, but the words were a blur. The doomsday clock was still ticking.
***
Sloan’s dorm room was a curated explosion of mood boards and fabrics, essential oils and abstracts, organized containers and strewn supplies—a snapshot of a mind that was outrageously planned yet passionately restrained. Jewellery boxes overflowed, half-finished balms littered her desk, and a heavy wardrobe groaned under the weight of three seasons of high-end fashion.
“It’s a massive, screaming, neon-red tactical error,” Sloan said, her heels pounding as she paced the blanched-almond throw rug. She flicked a stray thread off a tweed blazer with a vehemence that suggested she wished it were Will Clark’s head.
Gwen was currently waist-deep in Sloan’s walk-in closet (a charm placed on the Vespertine-standard dorm wardrobe). She pushed aside sequined mini-dresses, tailored skirts, and classy jumpsuits. “You’re being hyperbolic,” Gwen said. “It’s a coffee chat, Sloan. I’m simply… exploring options.” She paused to untangle her watch from a feathery shrug. “Maybe I’m sick of seeing the same pure-blood faces our parents have been trying to arrange into a wedding guest list since we could walk.”
“You’re exploring social suicide,” Sloan countered. She stopped as Gwen pulled out a chunky, cream-knit sweater. Sloan made a sound of genuine physical pain. “No. Absolutely not. That’s for elderly tea parties in the Cotswolds. Mum made me bring it. Put it back before I set it on fire.”
Gwen sighed, returning the knit to its clothes rail. Her pulse was a frantic, stuttering thing. She was an O’Dorchaidhe; her life was a blueprint of prestige and bloodline preservation. Choosing Will was more than a deviation; it felt like a structural failure. She was drawn to him—to the way his resonance hummed like a live wire and the way he looked at her as if she were a person rather than a prize—but she knew it didn’t match the script.
“I’m just meeting him to talk,” Gwen insisted, reaching for a dark, charcoal-grey skirt. “He’s the Chosen One. I get it’s not an obvious match. But this could be good for me. He’s going to make the history books, Sloan. You know that’s exactly where I want to be.”
“Clooney 2.0,” Sloan reminded her sharply, leaning against the wooden frame with her arms crossed.
Gwen stiffened. Two years ago, her father had practically bribed her to stop seeing Clooney. Her mother had coordinated ‘chance’ encounters with boys whose bloodlines were as pristine as they were boring. Sloan was right that Gwen had gotten frustrated with Clooney’s rebellious takes. That hadn’t stopped Gwen from prolonging that relationship out of spite, just to prove she couldn’t be controlled.
Now, a darker thought crept in, cold and oily. Was she drawn to Will because he was the ultimate act of rebellion? Or worse—was she chasing him because he was a legend? Was he just the rarest trophy on the shelf, the ultimate way to prove she could outshine every other Ink by taming the most wild, prophesied power in the world? The thought that she might be that shallow made her stomach turn.
“Will is… something else,” Gwen murmured, finally holding up a royal-blue cashmere sweater-dress with a cowl collar.
“He might be more powerful than a nuclear bomb, but he’s still an underdog,” Sloan said, her voice dropping into that dangerously soft tone she used when she was being the most honest. “I know you, Gwen. Sooner or later, you’ll realize you like climbing the ladder more than you like the view from his side of the wall. You need a man who’s just as hungry for the throne as you are. You’re going to get bored, and then you’re going to get cruel.”
The words stung because they weren’t entirely wrong. Would she eventually realize it wasn’t worth sacrificing all her plans to chase a feeling? Even a feeling as deep and tempting and wildly kaleidoscopic as Will Clark?
Sloan sighed, snatched the royal-blue dress, and paired it with a tailored, camel-coloured wool coat. She stepped back, squinting at the combination. “Better. It says, ‘I am effortlessly comfortable, and I look this good for me.’ But we both know that’s a lie.”
She sat Gwen down at her vanity, grabbing a brush. Her movements were practiced and gentle, despite the disapproval radiating off her.
“If even a hint of this gets out, we are finished,” Sloan warned, meeting Gwen’s eyes in the mirror. “One whisper and Estelle will tell everyone you have a ‘Vapour fetish’ just to deflect from her own insecurities. Charlotte will use it as hard proof that you’ve lost your edge, and probably join team Fawley to eviscerate your reputation. Isolde will drop you as a protégé before you can say ‘let me explain my brilliant plan.’”
“I know the stakes, Sloan.”
“Do you? Your parents would stop paying your tuition. They might even shun you. They want a useful scion, Gwen, not a scandal.” Sloan fetched a crystal jar filled with dried petals—her go-to for beauty charms—and began turning Gwen’s straight strands into loose, elegant curls. “There are easier ways to rebel. Dye your hair pink. Cast another curse. Don’t date the one boy prophesied to destroy your family’s crazy uncle.”
“That’s a gross oversimplification,” Gwen said, though a shiver of dread raced up her spine. The Red Letter’s warning—The Rider comes for all those who threaten the Circle’s legacy—felt very real in the quiet room.
Sloan stopped brushing. She rested her hands on Gwen’s shoulders, her gaze softening in the reflection. For the first time all day, the frantic social-climbing energy vanished.
“You’re going to get hurt,” Sloan whispered. “And when you do, I’m going to have to be the one to hide the body and lie to the Council about where you were.”
Gwen reached up, placing her hand over Sloan’s. “You’ll really do it? You won’t tell Estelle or Charlotte?”
Sloan rolled her eyes, but she didn’t pull away. “Estelle is a gossip. Charlotte is a snake. I’m your best friend, you idiot. If you’re going to ruin your life, I’m at least going to make sure you’re wearing the right shoes when you do it.”
A wave of relief washed over Gwen, so potent it almost made her dizzy. The doomsday clock in her head—the one that had been ticking toward social execution since the kiss—suddenly paused. She wasn’t alone. Not completely.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Sloan had crafted a look that was effortlessly chic: the blue deepened the colour of her eyes, and the wool coat gave her a soft, approachable silhouette she rarely allowed herself.
“Go try your trial date,” Sloan sighed, giving her a supportive pat as she stood up. “No one will hear a word from me. Go pretend to tutor the Chosen One. And for heaven’s sake, don’t let him buy you a cheap muffin. If he can’t afford the artisanal sourdough, he’s not worth the scandal.”
Gwen grabbed her bag, her fingers lingering on her signet ring before she tucked her hand into her pocket. She felt like a spy crossing enemy lines, terrified of what she might find—and even more terrified of how much she wanted to find it.
“I’ll let you know the score tonight,” Gwen promised.
As she stepped out into the cool, mist-heavy air of the evening, heading toward the south side of campus, the anxiety remained, but it was edged with a bright, sharp spark of anticipation. She was heading toward a catastrophe, but she was walking toward it by choice.
***
The Double Trouble Cafe was a neon-soaked rebellion against centuries of Cairn-Gait tradition. While the North side was a proud monument weighted with dusty tomes and guttering beeswax, this place vibrated with the industrial hum of high-end espresso machines and the upbeat, synth-heavy pulse of a Vapour playlist. It was a disorderly mashup of chrome and reclaimed oak, smelling of roasted beans, scorched sugar, and the damp, woolly scent of students seeking a sanctuary where bloodlines mattered infinitely less than a decent Wi-Fi signal.
Gwen’s chunky loafers tapped a dull beat against the modern concrete sidewalk. Above, the Highland horizon was a bruised plum crowned in gold, the sun drowning in a sea of mist that turned the iron streetlamps into hazy, glowing orbs.
Her stomach felt like a nest of agitated vipers. An O’Dorchaidhe was a creature of candle and shadow, and she felt uncomfortably exposed in this world of electric light and over-processed steam.
Then, she saw him through the condensation-fogged glass.
Will was tucked into a corner booth, the flickering neon sign behind him casting a saffron halo over his dark, unkempt curls. He was fidgeting—adjusting his glasses, smoothing the front of a dark sweater that was mercifully free of plaid, and checking the door every few seconds. A warm, traitorous tingle of relief bloomed in Gwen’s chest. He was just as overwhelmed as she was.
She caught herself smiling—a genuine, soft expression—and instantly killed it. She schooled her face into a mask of bored elegance just as a boisterous group spilled out.
“Gwen?”
She froze. Standing in the centre of the sidewalk, holding a cardboard tray of steaming cups, was Clooney.
The air between them instantly went stagnant. They hadn’t spoken alone since she’d walked away from him two years ago—a breakup dictated by her father’s disapproval and their own escalating debates on ‘legacy versus progress.’ Seeing him now, his dark hair damp from the mist and his cheek dimpling with a familiar, hesitant smile, felt like a ghost-ache under her skin. Her Ink-approved experiment with rebellion.
“Clooney,” she said, her voice a fragile crystal.
“You’re a long way from the North Wing, Gwen,” he said, stepping closer. His friends called out to him, but he waved them off, his gaze lingering on her tailored camel coat and the soft, loose curls she’d traded for her usual restrained braid. “About the hearing… I know it was an ambush. The Board is leaning on Alistair to end the ‘Vapour problem’ quietly. My Aunt Penny is just as bullheaded as your father when it comes to optics.”
Gwen glanced over his shoulder. Through the condensation-fogged glass, she saw Will. He was frantically trying to tame his hair in a darkened reflection of the window. An unbidden smile tugged at her lips. A smile tugged at her lips—unbidden and dangerous.
“It’s been a while,” Clooney said, his voice dropping into that low, intimate register that used to make her feel protected. “I know first-year is a dogfight, but maybe we could catch up? Every time I see you in the Sanctuary, you look like you’re ready to hex anyone who breathes your air.”
Gwen eyed his tray—a half-sweet oat milk macchiato and an Americano. He was still the peacemaker, still the boy her parents had tried to buy her away from. There was a lingering, comfortable gravity to him, but it felt like a period piece—a quaint nostalgia belonging to a girl she no longer was.
“Don’t let your coffees cool, Clooney,” Gwen said, her eyes drifting back to the saffron glow reflected on the cafe window.
“Fuel for our pre-competition strategy session,” he said, lifting the tray. Then, his expression sharpened. He stepped closer, his hand finding her elbow and nudging her a step back—away from the entrance, into the shadows of the concrete siding. “I know it’s none of my business, but… You should be careful, Gwen. Getting close to Will Clark is a lightning rod. The Thornes are looking for any reason for expulsion. And they’ve got Catriona’s vote.”
The warning struck a chord. Gwen thought of the strange iron baubles she’d seen Alistair, Isolde, and Catriona wearing lately. The three most likely to have penned the Red Letters were the three marking themselves as ‘apart.’
“Even if the Thornes wanted to, they can’t expel anyone,” Gwen said, her voice resetting to the rigid, prideful script of an O’Dorchaidhe. “Besides, Alistair and Isolde both know that being openly anti-Chosen One is bad for their image.”
Clooney leaned in, his voice a firm, urging whisper. “Alistair, Isolde, and Catriona are making moves. While you were in the infirmary, Alistair had one-on-ones with me, Heather, and Sean—trying to sway our votes. Convince us that having Will Clark at Cairn-Gait is a security risk.”
Gwen’s mind raced. The O’Dorchaidhes and the Thornes were the only Ink bloodlines who still carried the relevancy of royalty. Clooney was a Vane—Inks that were never the king, but always the kingmaker. For Alistair to lobby him so aggressively was a desperate move.
A foolish miscalculation. Clooney had been championing Vapour and Newblood equality since he first learned the words.
“That’s not like Alistair, or Isolde,” Gwen admitted.
“It’s the population change,” Clooney continued. “This is the first year Inks aren’t the majority. And they know it’s Alistair’s last year as Circle Chairman—last chance to hold the line.”
“That population shift is decades in the making,” Gwen countered, her brow furrowing. “The Thornes aren’t that naive.”
“But they sure petitioned for no Chosen One at Cairn-Gait—or at least the Thornes on the Board did,” Clooney said with a haughty, bitter grin.
Gwen felt ice-water in her veins. “The Board knew the Chosen One was attending this year?”
Clooney nodded. “They’ve known since mid-summer. My Aunt Penny gave me the heads up.” His eyes tightened. “Your dad didn’t…?”
A wave of nausea hit her. Her father was on that Board. He’d known. He’d let her walk into the Sorting blind, let her handle the fallout of the historical reveal of a prophesied boy alone. It wasn’t just a secret; it was a test. He’d sent his canary into the coal mine to see if the gas would kill her first.
“The Thornes want everyone to believe Will Clark is a risk,” Clooney said, shifting his coffee tray. “But I say bigots are the risk.”
A bitter smile broke her. It was almost nostalgic. Even two years after their breakup, Clooney found a way to drag her into a conversation about Ink corruption.
“Don’t… get too caught up with Will Clark, okay?” he warned, reaching out.
She stepped back, away from the shadow of the side wall and into full view of the Double Trouble’s wide front window. It was a declaration of a boundary he no longer had permission to cross. “I’m not afraid of the Thornes, Clooney,” Gwen said.
Gwen’s eyes darted to the window. Will had seen her now. He was half-risen from his seat, his expression a mix of hope and wary, defensive caution as he noticed her caught in conversation.
“Someone’s waiting on me,” she said, her posture as rigid as a blade. “Thank you for the warning. I have to go.”
She didn’t wait for his reply. She dodged around him, the scent of his cologne—vanilla and smoky wood—evaporating as she pushed through the heavy glass door of the cafe.
Inside, the transition was total. The air was a tropical heatwave of roasted beans and burning caramel. The clatter of porcelain, the clunk of metallic ice shakers, and the hiss of milk wands created a modern symphony. For Gwen, every chrome surface was a mirror reflecting her own exposure.
Will was already half-risen from his seat, his eyes locked on the door as if he expected her to turn around even now. When she finally reached the corner booth, he nearly upended a sugar shaker in his scramble to pull out her chair. The intensity in his gaze—a mix of raw relief and shimmering heat—made her skin hum beneath the blue cashmere.
“You came,” he said, his voice a low, breathy rasp that cut through the cafe’s clatter. “I almost thought… well, I thought you’d come up with a reason not to.”
Gwen draped her camel coat over the back of the chair, the weight of Clooney’s warning and her father’s test still pressing on her shoulders. She sat, sliding her knees under the off-kilter table, delicately rearranging her perfectly curled strands over her shoulder, and draped her coat over the chair.
If her father wanted to test her, if the real traitors in the Circle wanted to stop her, she’d rise to that challenge.
“An O’Dorchaidhe keeps her word, Clark,” Gwen said. She looked down at the steaming flat white waiting for her, the foam swirled into a perfect heart. “And I see you managed to listen to instructions. Both the coffee and the wardrobe. I’m impressed.”
Will sat back, a slow, nervous grin spreading across his face. He’d traded the Highland plaid for a dark, form-fitting sweater that made his shoulders look unfairly broad. “You look… incredible, Gwen. That blue. And your hair… It’s nice.”
Gwen’s heart did a slow, dizzying roll. She was acutely aware of the eyes on them—Vapours whispering behind laptops, a table of Newbloods staring over their lattes. The social suicide Sloan had warned her about was happening in real-time. With the lightning rod right in front of her and the storm building around her, she wondered if getting struck would be worth it.
“That was a Council person, right?” Will asked, his gaze flickering toward the window where Clooney had stood. The excitement in his eyes dimmed, replaced by a wary, defensive concern. “Is that a problem? Did something happen?”
Gwen’s manicured fingers tapped the porcelain mug. Nearly scalding, but she liked it hot. “No,” she said, taking a deliberate sip, the bitter espresso and velvety foam coating her tongue. She didn’t break eye contact, watching the saffron neon in the reflection of his glasses. “Just one more person telling me to be careful.”
He frowned, his shoulders braced and tight. “Careful? Of what? Not—”
“We can talk about threats later,” Gwen interrupted. The foam heart remained perfectly intact as she set the cup down with a soft clink. Will looked ready to derail the evening into a strategy session, so she reached across the table, her fingers grazing the back of his hand.
The contact was electric. Will went still.
“I want to get to know you,” she whispered, her voice dropping into a murmur that didn’t reach the curious ears at the next table. “The basic stuff. The things that aren’t written in a prophecy.”
Will leaned forward, his elbows on the table, closing the distance until they were in their own private pocket of space. “Should we really be talking about favourite colours when there are ‘threats’ we should talk about?” he asked quietly.
“Blue,” she volunteered, her eyes locked on his. “I like blue.”
Will’s gaze travelled down to the cowl of her dress, lingering just a second too long to be casual. “You do look amazing in blue,” he agreed, his voice low.
She drew her hand back, withdrawn to trace the porcelain handle. He let out a begrudging exhale, slumping back into the creaky chair as he realized she wasn’t going to budge. As an O’Dorchaidhe, her obstinacy was effortless.
“I don’t have a favourite colour. But,” his voice dropped into a playful, velvet challenge, “maybe it’s blue now.”
Gwen rolled her eyes, but a small, genuine smile escaped.
“Since I’m not allowed to talk about anything threatening,” Will said, tapping the wood of the table nervously. “What’s left? Isn’t your personality basically sixty percent curses and forty percent O’Dorchaidhe brand management?”
“I have hobbies, Clark,” Gwen countered, feeling a prickle of defensiveness. “I’ve won three national riding competitions. I study the linguistics of ancient chants. I—”
“Those aren’t hobbies, Gwen. Those are credentials,” Will laughed, and the sound was so warm it made the industrial cafe feel cozy. “Do you do anything for… fun? Like, actual, zero-stakes, non-productive fun?”
Gwen opened her mouth to argue, then paused. “I listen to music.”
“I already know you don’t listen to anything from this century,” he teased. “Name one song that’s been a hit this year.”
Gwen felt a flush of heat that had nothing to do with the coffee. “Lorde?”
“That’s an artist, and not… I have no idea if she has a current hit.” Will groaned, though his eyes were bright with affection. “Have you even seen a movie from this decade?”
“I watched Howard Vane’s new documentary, Curses of Chernobyl,” she said proudly. “That came out this summer.”
Will stared at her for a beat, then burst into a genuine, head-back laugh. “Gwen, that is literally just more work! You’re watching the David Attenborough of magic and calling it a night out.”
“It’s very well-documented,” Gwen defended, though she was struggling to keep a straight face.
“I’ll check it out,” Will offered, leaning in again. The playfulness in his face shifted back into that intense, focused heat. “Only if you let me introduce you to something that doesn’t involve a bibliography. A movie with explosions. Or a song with a beat you can actually dance to.”
“I don’t dance,” Gwen said, her voice softening until it was barely a note over the lo-fi thrum of the café’s bass.
“Yet,” Will whispered.
The word was a promise, a gravity that Gwen found herself leaning into. For a fleeting second, the neon saffron light didn’t feel like an exposure; it felt like a cocoon. She couldn’t forget the expectations and the plans that made up her identity. But as she sat in the neon saffron glow, she realized Will was right. She didn’t know how to have fun.
“What do you do for fun, Clark?” she asked, her curiosity finally overriding her caution.
“Watch movies,” he said, shrugging.
Gwen frowned. “Watch movies,” she repeated. It was so… Ordinary.
“My uncle has a huge collection. Old VHS, DVDs, mostly. It was free to enjoy,” he said, his expression flickering with a brief, defensive shadow. “Not all of us can afford riding lessons, O’Dorchaidhe.”
A small, bitter smile touched her lips. “You remembered that, did you?”
“I remember a lot about you,” he murmured, his gaze dropping, brightening with a mischievous glint before snapping back to her eyes. “I’m a quick study.”
“Planning to write my biography?” she asked, her wit returning as a shield. “I’m sure the Chosen One authoring my greatest hits will make a best-seller.”
He laughed, a warm, resonant sound that made the industrial space feel intimate. “I’m just glad I can make you look good.”
Will reached across the table. His hand met hers behind the ceramic fortress of the coffee cup. The contact offered a jolt of resonance that flushed her signet ring’s tourmaline with a deep, bruised violet light. She felt his power thrumming beneath his skin, vast and unmapped, and wanting her to come closer.
Then, the bubble popped. She heard a sharp, digital click across the cafe.
Gwen’s head snapped toward the sound. A girl three tables over was half-turning away, her phone still raised, her friends erupting into a frantic, muffled giggling.
Gwen’s mind was white-hot panic. Her stomach did a slow, sickening roll. How much did they see? The hand-holding? One photo on a message board and the tutor cover story Sloan had asked her to maintain would disintegrate into ash.
Gwen half-rose from her seat, her eyes narrowing. She targeted the amateur photographer with a withering glare. The student’s phone slipped in her hands, her face going pale as she felt the weight of an O’Dorchaidhe’s undivided, lethal attention.
The girl looked away, terrified, but the damage was done. The image existed.
Gwen felt the walls closing in. She felt exposed, ashamed, and—most frustratingly—terrified of her father’s reaction.
She had to delete that image. She had to make it disappear. She had to.
“Gwen.”
Will’s voice was firm, pulling her back. He stepped in front of her, physically blocking the room’s view of her face. He was a shield, standing between the princess and the vultures.
“Let’s go,” he said.
She glanced down at the last dregs of her flat white, the foam heart now a distorted blur.
“I can’t keep avoiding practice,” Will said, his voice dropping into a loud, staged projection. He was giving her the script. He was protecting her Ink dignity even as she showed him how much she dreaded being associated with him. “If I don’t get these incantations right, Prospero is going to have my head.”
Gwen caught the lifeline. She shrugged on her camel coat, her movements sharp and robotic. “No more studying here,” she said, her voice a notch too loud for the small space. “All this neon is giving me a headache, and your progress is underwhelming, Clark.”
The door chimed behind them, leaving the heated cafe with gawkers and gossipers for the biting, mist-heavy chill of the October night.
Will let out a long, ragged sigh once they were a safe distance down the sidewalk. He kept his hands in his pockets, his posture drooping.
“That was a bad way to end a date,” he muttered, looking at the cracked pavement. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… Maybe this was the wrong way.”
Gwen looked at him. He looked defeated, like he’d expected the night to end in a disaster and was only surprised it took this long. He hadn’t hesitated to protect her reputation, and now he was stepping back, assuming the chance she’d offered was gone.
Gwen felt a surge of something hot and defiant. The O’Dorchaidhe in her wanted to run back to the North Wing and forget she ever tried this. But she was more than that one name. More than one thing. She wasn’t a benevolent princess happy to wave at camera flashes. Gwen was a girl who wanted to have more fun.
“We’re not done yet, Clark,” she said, launching into a hurried, purposeful step. Her chunky loafers clicked rhythmically against the stone. “Come on.”
Will scrambled to match her pace, his confusion growing as they approached the tram station. “Where are we going?”
“The defence practice rooms,” she answered sharply.
“Right now?” he asked, a small, wary smile beginning to tug at his mouth. “Gwen, remember what I said about having fun? Zero-stakes?”
“Revenge is fun, Clark,” she said, her voice a low, wicked whisper.
Will’s eyes widened. He tripped slightly over a loose stone, but he didn’t look away.
“It’ll be fun,” she said, “to practice the ‘bad’ kind of magic Eddow doesn’t want me to show you.”
“You know I’ve already got two strikes, right?” he asked, his voice dropping.
“Absolutely,” Gwen said, turning back toward the castle. “No curses. Just safe, clean revenge. And try to stay at least one step away. We have an image to maintain, after all.”
He stepped closer—exactly half a step away—and followed her into the dark.
***
Deep in the bowels of the West Wing, the vaulted caverns of the Defence Practice Room echoed with a dense emptiness. The fresh hint of smoke and candle wax mingled with the static ozone of a thousand spent hexes and herbs left to rot in the stone cracks.
Gwen had briefly left Will to fetch ingredients from the Store Room, and when she returned, the ritual circle he’d attempted looked less like a geometric conduit and more like a lopsided potato.
“Again,” she commanded, pointing to the chalk. “Resonance follows the path of least resistance, Will. If your circle is a mess, your intention might as well be gibberish. I’d rather not accidentally erase the last twenty-four hours of my memory because you can’t draw a curve.”
Will groaned, but there was a playful spark in his eyes as he knelt to re-draw the line. “You’re a harsh mistress, O’Dorchaidhe.”
“I’m an effective one,” she countered. She began stripping a sprig of thyme, the sharp, herbal scent cutting through the dampness of the cellar. She scattered the green flecks at twenty-four precise points along the chalk-ring. “This is a Sterling-family special. Sloan’s family are masters of changing the way things appear. She used this all the time before… She stopped after she accidentally erased a photo she liked from existence.”
“And this is safe?” Will asked, looking up at her from the floor.
“It would be draining for most,” she said, her voice softening as she watched him. “But not for you. You have enough raw power to fuel a time curse.”
“I guess if Sloan can do it…”
“Sloan is better than she lets people think,” Gwen said, her tone snapping back to a sharp, defensive edge. She regretted it instantly and turned to her stash of amethysts to hide the flush in her cheeks. “She’s a little like your pal Cal.”
Will’s hand paused on the chalk. “You noticed that? Bryn said it, too. That sometimes it’s like… He doesn’t try to prove people wrong about him.”
“Some people choose to challenge expectations; some find it more comfortable to merely meet them,” Gwen said. She lit a stick of incense, the smoke curling around her like a grey ribbon as she paced the circle counter-clockwise. “Sloan likes being seen as simple. It’s a luxury. She doesn’t have to waste energy proving herself with things she doesn’t care about.”
“And Cal?”
“Cal knows everyone judges him by his last name before he even opens his mouth,” Gwen said, her feet meeting the amethyst points with practised, rhythmic grace. “It’s a tragedy, really. When Inks hear ‘Whitley,’ they don’t think of a lineage of remarkable alchemists. They think of a single snake-oil salesman whose watered-down potions caused thousands of deaths. He’s the legacy of a man who turned magic into a scam and got a lot of innocent people killed.”
Will froze. “Thousands?” he repeated, his voice barely a whisper. “I get why he doesn’t talk about it.”
“The Circle cast the Whitleys out because they were a liability,” Gwen said, completing her twenty-fourth lap. “They considered casting out the O’Dorchaidhes once, too. When the Hollow Lord was… active.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“It was too complicated,” she answered simply. “It’s the difference between banishing the Prince of Wales and some cousin twenty-three times removed from the throne. We were too woven into the tapestry to be ripped out without ruining the whole cloth.”
“So there are levels,” Will summarized, standing up. “The O’Dorchaidhes are at the top, so they get away with more.”
The phrasing stung, a sharp reminder of the divide between them. Her eyes dropped to the floor. “I don’t… get away with everything, Will.”
Will crossed the circle in a few short steps. He touched her arm, his fingers warm even through her cashmere sleeve. “I know,” he said softly. “If it were that easy, we’d still be at the cafe.”
Gwen laughed, though it lacked any humour. “Maybe not. The neon was a lot.”
She gripped his sleeve and tugged him into the centre of the circle. The air within the chalk lines felt pressurized, humming with the static of his proximity. “Since it’s an image of me we’re erasing, you need to focus on what I look like. Exactly like I am right now.”
She guided his palms to her face. Will’s hands were warm and hesitant. He cupped her cheeks, his thumbs tracing the line of her jaw. Gwen’s breath paused a moment; she could already feel the rumble of his violet-hued resonance reaching out.
“I think I’ve got the visual down,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to her lips before dragging itself back to her eyes.
“Focus,” she whispered, her heart thudding inside her ribs. “Remember the intention. The photo.”
“The photo,” he repeated, though his eyes said something else entirely.
“The words are simple. Imaginem evanescere.”
He repeated the phrase, his voice a low vibration that satisfied something deep. They began the chant, voices intertwining as they spoke the Latin twenty-four times.
With every repetition, the room grew hotter, candle flames rose, and the shadows at the edges of the room stretched thin. The amethyst stones rattled against the stone floor, a frantic, percussive sound like chattering teeth. The shredded thyme began to glow with a pale green light before evaporating into fine, silver dust.
Then came the resonance.
Gwen felt it first as a tingle at the base of her skull—her own gilded, precise threads of power weaving outward. Then Will’s power rushed over her like a raging, violet river, vast and terrifyingly deep. She felt her gilded threads floating inside the violet flood.
The sensation was addictive. It was a total, visceral loss of control.
The spell reached its crescendo—a silent, psychic pop erasing all digital and physical traces of the photo—and the room went still.
Gwen opened her eyes. The incense had burned out. The amethysts were dull. Cold, thin air seemed to rush back into the cellar, filling the space where their resonance had offered a blinding, shared heat a moment ago.
Will’s hands remained on her cheeks for a heartbeat too long to be accidental, his thumbs tracing the line of her jaw with a reverence that made Gwen’s lungs feel tight.
She was safe. The evidence was gone. She could keep him in this dark, warded corner of her life for a little while longer—long enough to figure out if she was falling for him or just falling apart.
Gwen gently caught his wrists. She didn’t pull his hands away, but she didn’t let him draw her closer, either. She needed the distance to remember the script.
“Did it work?” he asked.
“Yes,” she murmured, her voice sounding small in the vast, vaulted room. “One less scandal to ruin my life.”
Will’s brow furrowed, his hands finally dropping to his sides, though he didn’t step out of the circle. “Is it really that bad? I mean, I know I’m a Vapour, but we were just having coffee. It’s not like we were casting a curse—again.”
Gwen turned away to gather the dull amethysts, the movement a calculated way to break the heavy intimacy of his gaze. She felt the weight of her secret date like a physical bruise.
“At least the Circle will never see it,” she said, her back to him as she swept the silver thyme dust into the shadows.
“The Circle wants a photo of you at a cafe?” Will teased, though his voice lacked its usual brightness. He was watching her every move, trying to read the tension in her shoulders.
“Not the Circle, exactly, but whoever is writing those Red Letters,” she explained, finally turning back to him.
Will stilled, motionless with sudden dread. “Why would the person writing the Red Letters care if we’re seen together?”
Her fingers twisted her signet ring, the silver metal biting into her skin. “A Red Letter was left on my bed,” she confessed, her voice quiet, her throat tightening. “Apparently, the ‘Ink traitor’ mention in the public letter was too subtle, so they needed to threaten me in private, too.”
Will’s eyes flashed with immediate, re-alert intensity. The boy who had been laughing about her lack of fun hobbies was replaced by the Chosen One, whose magic was a hair-trigger. She felt the spark of it flare in the room. “Is this the ‘threat’ you were talking about earlier?”
She shrugged one shoulder, desperate to shake off the dread gripping her. “It’s just another warning to add to the pile.”
Will’s face went dangerously pale. “Who else is warning you, Gwen?”
“It’s not a problem,” she said, her voice softening. She reached out, offering what she hoped was a comforting touch on his arm, but her own fingers were trembling. “Sloan reminded me that being involved with you is a social disaster. Clooney, the Council member you saw me talking to—he pretty much said the same thing. It’s only the Red Letter that threatened anything fatal.”
His hands shook as he looked down at where she had touched him. “Gwen, they’re threatening you because of me?”
His voice was a deep, pained rasp that echoed off the cold stone of the practice room. “Does that mean… The Dullahan only targets Vapours and Newbloods, right? They wouldn’t send it after you. You’re Ink. An O’Dorchaidhe.”
“I think we’ve proven we can handle the Dullahan showing up,” she said, her chin lifting with that sharp, O’Dorchaidhe pride. It was a shield she’d worn since birth, but tonight, it felt thinner than usual.
Will didn’t look comforted. He looked like he’d finally realized the many ways the Romeo-and-Juliet of it all made Cairn-Gait into a stage scripted for tragedy. It was safer for the Montagues and Capulets to stay on their own sides of campus.
The Chosen One mantle was a liability. He stepped back, the heels of his sneakers scraping against the stone, as if the physical distance could somehow insulate her from the storm he carried.
“Barely surviving accidental encounters and being targeted are two different things, Gwen,” he whispered. “If I’m the reason you’re getting threatened…”
“You’re not the reason,” she said, her voice cutting through his self-pity. She stepped into his space, her hand snaking up to cup his face, forcing his verdant eyes to meet her icy ones. “You are not at fault for the actions of jealous cowards. I know you hate the title, Clark, but you are the Chosen One. No one on this earth has enough power to tell you who you’re allowed to be friends with. You’re the one who changes the world. Don’t let it change you.”
“But what if I change it for the worse?” he whispered, his breath hitching as her thumb brushed his cheekbone.
“Not possible,” she said. She grabbed the hem of his dark sweater, pulling him toward her. “Even if I didn’t know how ridiculously good you are, there’s a prophecy. You’re ‘the Light that burns away the Shadow,’ remember? It’s written in the stars, Will.”
Will scoffed, a bitter, hollow sound. “Everyone talks about the prophecy like it’s a fairytale. The simple story of a good Vapour defeating the wicked, blood-obsessed Hollow Lord. But Eddow told me the rest. The part they keep out of the textbooks.”
Gwen’s hand stilled. “There’s more?”
“Eddow said the prophecy isn’t a promise of victory. It’s a choice.” Will’s fingers curled into white-knuckled fists. “The Chosen One’s ‘light’ has the power to either burn away the shadow… or become the centre of a new ‘eclipse.’”
A chill that had nothing to do with the cellar floor raced down Gwen’s spine. An eclipse. Studying divination had never interested her… But she’d come across more than a few tangled predictions reading about ancient curses. Too often, every syllable was a double-edged sword.
“Eddow also said he only made you my tutor so I could use you,” Will confessed, the words spilling out like a confession. “To study your family’s methods so I’d know what to avoid. He told me to keep my distance.”
A solid pound of dread dropped into Gwen’s stomach. Blood drained from her face. She felt humiliated. Eddow had never intended to let her earn his trust. She’d been a pawn every time she stepped into his office. A cautionary tale. As the blood relative of the Hollow Lord, she was just another O’Dorchaidhe that could go dark.
“He thinks getting close to an O’Dorchaidhe was the first step toward the eclipse,” Will added, his voice trembling with shame and frustration. “After we cast that curse… Gwen, I felt how much that magic wanted to consume. It felt like me. I realized Eddow isn’t scared for me. He’s scared of me.”
He looked haunted, a boy drowning in a destiny he never asked for, marked by obsidian branches that hummed with a restless, hungry power.
Her embarrassment at Eddow’s judgment melted into a searing, white-hot fury. How dare they all label her as the ‘dark influence’ just because of someone else who shared her name?
Gwen placed her hand on Will’s neck, her palm sliding over the shuddering, enthralling cold vibration of the curse-mark. She leaned in until their foreheads almost touched.
“I am many things, Will Clark—but I am not an expert in fairytales,” she said, her voice dropping into a low, unwavering melody. “However, I do know dark magic. I know that what you felt wasn’t ‘evil.’ It was magnitude. You’re not bad, Will. That’s not you. Impossible.” His hand squeezed hers. “You’re… like an engine, and people like Eddow are just terrified because they don’t know how to drive you.”
He searched her face with a desperate intensity, needing her version of the truth to be the one that took root.
“Most people think dark magic is about cruelty,” she said, her fingers sliding down the rough wool of his sleeve to his shoulder, exposing the obsidian marks. “It’s not. It’s about the refusal to be limited by someone else’s fear.”
She stepped back, her hand sliding down his arm to catch his fingers, her skin sparking against his. She led him toward the centre of the vaulted room, where the air felt thick and pressurized, still vibrating from the selective-erasure spell they’d cast moments before.
“Can I show you?” she asked.
Will’s grip tightened on her hand. “Show me.”
***
Gwen set about preparing the space. She called for a hobgoblin to fetch her list of spell ingredients, and he returned a moment later, hauling a tray of heavy black beeswax candles, a fresh branch of blackthorn, dried white chrysanthemum, and a mortar filled with powdered Lapis Lazuli. The Defence Room was stocked for ordinary charms, but Gwen had wanted her own supplies—the kind of ingredients that smelled of old earth and ancient, unyielding power.
She arranged the candles and petals in sprawling geometry, narrating her actions and reasons to her anxious pupil.
“We’re not casting curses today, Will,” she said, her palm open as she stepped into the centre of the arrangement. “We’re just stepping into the grey. Textbooks call these ‘forbidden,’ but usually, they’re just difficult.”
Will’s expression flattened, his skepticism obvious. He studied the geometric pattern woven in chalk inside the circle and watched her pinch piles of Lapis dust onto the floor.
“Scared, Clark?” she teased, though her own pulse was far from steady.
“Of you? Definitely,” he muttered. But he stepped into the circle anyway, the distance between them shrinking until she could feel the quickened rise and fall of his chest.
“It might feel intense. It won’t hurt—not more than a pinch,” she whispered, her gaze locking on his. “Don’t fight the flow.”
She took his arm, her touch lingering as she rolled back his sleeve. With the sharp edge of a blackthorn twig, she drew a thin, silver line across his forearm. A single bead of crimson welled up. Will flinched, a flash of wounded accusation in his green eyes.
“The Sanguis-Vinculum,” Gwen murmured, rolling up her own sleeve to reveal the pale, unmarked skin of her inner arm. “In the histories, they call it a blood-bond. The Hollow Lord used it to torture Newbloods and Vapour sympathizers. But before the Inks were conquerors, we were healers. They used this to pull the death out of a patient. Or, at least, buy more time by sharing the weight of a wound.”
She pressed her forearm against his. Skin-to-skin, the contact was a heated jolt of electricity. She began the incantation—a low, rhythmic pulse of Latin that felt like a second heartbeat thudding in the room.
Threads of inky smoke erupted from the contact point, wrapping around their fused arms like living, thorny vines. Will gasped as the sting in his arm vanished, his eyes widening as the cut sealed itself before his eyes. On Gwen’s arm, an identical red line blossomed, stinging with a sharp, cold fire.
“Your burden is mine now,” she breathed, showing him the transferred injury.
Will looked at the red line on her porcelain skin, then back at his own arm. “What if I stub my toe later? Do you just start limping in the Great Hall?”
A smirk touched her lips, breaking the tension for a fleeting second. “It’s temporary, Clark. An hour at most. I’m not planning on carrying your bruises through finals. But do you see? It isn’t ‘bad.’ It’s the magic of not letting someone suffer alone.”
Will frowned, his eyes searching hers, searching for the catch. “But the Hollow Lord used it to hurt people.”
“Yes,” she confessed, her voice dropping a raw octave. “Inks used it to make normies suffer in their place. It was wrong. But the magic didn’t choose that. Horrible people did.”
Will took her arm, thumb brushing beside the scratch. He wasn’t convinced. He still saw too much potential for misuse.
She stepped closer, her chest nearly brushing his. The scent of him—coffee and cool mist—was overwhelming in the small circle. “Trust me with one more. The Umbra-Veritas. The Shadow Truth.”
Will’s eyes slightly widened, his jaw tensing. “Pretty sure the textbook called that an interrogation spell. You want to trap me in a void?”
“There’s no trap. We’re entering the spell together, mutually,” she said, her voice a silken persuasion. “It strips away pretense. It’s also way faster than twenty questions.”
Will let out a dry, nervous laugh. “You know twenty questions, but not how to use Cloud storage? You really are something, Gwen.”
She ignored the jab, guiding him to the floor. They sat cross-legged, knees touching, a bridge of heat in the freezing vault. She opened her palm, where two honesty seeds—Lunaria annua—waited. She plucked one and swallowed first. Will copied her with a wariness.
“Repeat every word exactly as I say it,” she instructed. She reached up, her cool fingers framing his jaw, and guided his forehead down until it rested against hers.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered. “Picture a void. Not as a hole, but an endlessness. Like the ocean beyond a horizon.”
As they spoke the words in unison, the liquid shadows seeped from the corners of the room, drenching every surface, drowning the floor, the candles, the walls, and the stone until there was nothing left but the two of them, glowing with a soft, internal resonance in an impenetrable silence.
Gwen felt the sudden, overwhelming rush of him. Connecting to Will’s resonance in the void was like stepping into a thunderstorm. His magic was massive—an abyssal ocean of violet light that felt terrifyingly freeing. For a moment, she didn’t have to control the movement; she could just drift in the current of him.
The spell’s compulsion took hold—a warm, inexorable pressure at the back of her throat that demanded honesty. In the void, her own nervousness erupted into golden sparks, shooting across the dark like dying stars, criss-crossing in a fading lattice over them.
Then came Will’s truth. She felt a cutting, cold anxiety—a cage stretched thin around the immensity of his power. But in the void, the bars dissolved like paper stripes soaked by the tide, the storm-tossed ocean of his magic spilling into the endless void, vast and hungry, seeking to meet her own.
“So,” Will’s voice echoed in the void, sounding both impossibly far and inside her own mind. “How does this work?”
“We ask. We answer,” she said. In the shadow-truth, their resonances made their skin glow like candle flames. “Ask me anything, Will. The void won’t let us lie.”
Will’s anxiety hummed like a minor chord in the dark, manifesting like sparks of violet static. He looked at her, his expression hardening under the weight of the question that had been festering since the Sorting.
“Do you think Inks are better than Vapours?” he asked.
Gwen felt a hot, agonizing pressure in her throat. She tried to swallow the answer, to shroud it in the diplomatic phrasing of a Council member, but the spell lunged.
“Yes,” she whispered, the word feeling like a splintered shard of glass. “Inks naturally have deeper resonance reserves. They’re capable of more. I don’t think that gives Inks an excuse to be cruel.”
“You still think you deserve more than Vapours?”
“I do deserve more,” she said. The heat of shame rose to her cheeks, the undisguised truth tearing through her. “Studying magic is all I do, and I deserve to be recognized for that. Magic superiority is the only thing that matters to me. My purpose is to be great—at any cost. After you defeat the Hollow Lord, I’ll beat you, publicly, and prove that I deserve to be remembered.”
Will flinched. In the void, he could feel her hunger—a cold, calculating ambition that saw people as positions on a board. It was an ugly, barbed thing, and it made the gold of her resonance flare like victorious fireworks.
“I knew you were competitive, but… I didn’t…” He looked at her with a sudden, gnawing hurt. “Is that all I am to you? Potential?” he asked, his voice racking. “A way to make a name for yourself?”
“No,” she exhaled, her fingers curling as the spell forced the deeper truth out, raw and bleeding. “You make me feel something other than the need to win. With you, I… want to… be free. To stop caring. About everything. I’m so tired of caring what everyone thinks.”
His eyes softened, and a smile twitched at his lips.
“But then I get away from you for five minutes,” she said. She traced the shattered mark below his collar, too overwhelmed to meet his eyes. “And I remember how all the things I think I want are… not you.” She swallowed. “Sometimes I hate that you make me want to be someone different.”
He captured her hand, stopping her obsessive tracing.
“I… liked you since the second I saw you,” Will said.
She dared to look at him. The sternness of his frown almost made her regret it.
“Then you said the shit about being elite or limited, and I knew I had to hate you.” He smirked, a bitter twitch of his lips, and then his gaze dropped. “But I didn’t. You made that impossible when you showed off how incredible you are. And saving me was a nice touch.”
Gwen felt the prickles of golden starbursts exploding silently.
“Something about you makes it easy to be myself,” Will confessed. “It’s the only time I don’t feel like I’m breaking things.” Will’s breath shuddered. The void pulled his truth out next.
“I’ve felt like a monster since I was eleven,” Will confessed, his breath shuddering. The spell was pulling at him now, dragging the trauma from the depths. “The night my power came out, I almost levelled the house. My aunt was lucky to get out. Every year, it got worse. Harder to keep in. More accidents. More mistakes. I don’t feel like a hero.”
He looked at his wrist, where the beads of his bracelet rattled with a violent, unstable violet. “I’m the reason they’re dead, Gwen. My parents. These Dullahan attacks. It’s all following me. I’m not the hero everyone wants. I’m a curse that someone put a title on to make it feel less like a death sentence.”
Gwen didn’t hesitate. She rolled onto her knees and laid her hand on his shoulder. The contact sent a shockwave of gold through his violet storm.
“You are not a curse,” she said, her voice a low, fierce command. “I’ve faced a real curse with you. You didn’t hesitate to help. You’re not some eclipse, Will. I think… You’re exactly everything right about magic.”
The unexpected honesty stunned them both. A bloom of pink heat rose to their skin, visible in the dark like a second resonance. Will laughed, a weak, breathless sound that turned into a genuine, tragic grin.
“I guess you mean it, since you said it in here,” he whispered, rising taller than her in the dark. “If only it were easy for you to be this nice to me out there.”
It stung Gwen. She knew with agonizing certainty that it wasn’t just his truth, it was hers.
“I’m not nice, Will,” she said, moisture pricking her eyes. “I’m an O’Dorchaidhe. I would never give up my legacy just to be ‘nice.’”
“I know,” Will said, his thumb brushing her cheek, stopping a tear streak. “I should probably care about that.”
The void began to pulse with a rhythmic, thrumming heartbeat—the synchronized frequency of their combined magic drowned all the reasons this couldn’t work. The friction of the last weeks, the rivalry, the warnings, and the sheer, forbidden heat of their proximity finally snapped like a frayed tether.
Will’s hand found her waist in the darkness, his fingers sinking into the cashmere, pulling her flush against him. “I don’t care if you’re ‘bad’ for me,” he said. “With you, I don’t feel like I’m performing for a prophecy. I just feel… like it’s okay to be me.”
“Connecting to you,” Gwen breathed, her heart slamming against her ribs, “is the only time I’m not playing a part.”
Will tilted his head, his lips finding hers in the absolute dark. The kiss wasn’t gentle; it was a collision. It tasted of salt and smoke, a desperate, claiming heat that made Gwen’s head spin. For a heartbeat, Will seemed overwhelmed by his own audacity, his hands trembling against her waist before he suddenly pulled back, his breath hitching in the space between them.
“Maybe we shouldn’t—” he began, his voice a ragged wreck.
Gwen didn’t let him finish. She reached up, fisting her hands into his dark sweater and dragging him back down to her. The obsidian fracture that climbed from beneath his collar was like ice under the heat of her skin. She wanted to dictate the terms of this surrender. She kissed him with a predatory hunger, her tongue tracing the seam of his lips until he groaned—a low, vibratory sound she felt in her core.
But as the violet light flared brighter, the power dynamic shifted. Will’s hands, once hesitant, grew firm. He slid one hand up her spine, his fingers tangling in her silver-blonde curls with a possessive strength that made Gwen’s knees go weak. She had spent her life being the master of her world, but as Will pressed her back into the velvety darkness, she realized she loved the feeling of being undone by him.
He was the storm, and for the first time in her life, Gwenhwyfar O’Dorchaidhe wanted to be carried away.
His kisses moved to the sensitive column of her throat, hot and demanding. Gwen let out a soft, broken sound, her head falling back. He pulled back, his forehead resting against hers, both of them heaving for air in the spice-scented mist.
Will let out a short, breathy laugh, his green eyes dark with wonder. “I’m not going to lie, Princess,” he whispered, his thumb grazing her swollen lower lip. “I half thought if I kissed you again, the universe would correct itself and turn me into a frog.”
Gwen’s eyes snapped open, a flash of her usual steel returning, tempered by a heat he’d never seen before. She wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, her voice a low, dangerous silk.
“Shut up, Clark. And kiss me again.”
She didn’t give him the chance to argue. She claimed his mouth once more, drowning out the world and all thoughts of threats and prophecy.