Blair didn’t answer.
Maya called again.
And again.
On the fourth try, Blair picked up, voice barely audible.
“He’s gone.”
Maya was quiet for a beat too long. “Gone how?”
“I unsummoned him.”
A long, stunned silence.
Then: “You what?”
“I had to,” Blair whispered. “He was going to disappear, eventually. I just beat the magic to it.”
“You didn’t beat it,” Maya snapped. “You let it win.”
Blair swallowed. “I did it to protect him.”
“Bullshit,” Maya said, voice rising. “You did it to protect yourself from hope. Because if you let yourself believe something could last, and it didn’t, it would wreck you.”
Blair said nothing.
“You didn’t even let him stay,” Maya said, her voice low.
“I couldn’t,” Blair started, then she stopped. What did she want to say? I couldn’t wait? I couldn’t hope? I couldn’t let him prove me wrong?
Her voice cracked, quiet and raw. “I couldn’t handle him leaving on his own.”
“Does it feel better now that you controlled it?”
“No,” Blair said, with her heart in her throat.
Later that night, Blair sat on the floor beside the cold wax pool of a long-dead candle.
There were no spells this time. No glitter. No magic.
Just her. Her hoodie. Her grief.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to.”
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and glanced at the doorway, half-hoping it would open.
But nothing happened.
Not yet.
10
Devil’s Night
Blair hadn’t really slept in two days.
Not since she woke to the cold side of the bed, empty, silent, haunted by the scent of smoke and sugar and something wild. Fading. Like a ghost who didn’t want to leave, but had.
