And her body—her traitorous, perfect body—leaned into him like she thought so too.
Every instinct screamed at me—to tear her from his arms, strip his touch from her skin like it burned.
But I let the moment pass. Barely. My shadows curled at my fingertips, itching to lash out.
Not yours anymore.
But the lie tasted like blood.
Now, though, her posture is tense, lost in thought. I watch the way she shapes the water into a herd of dancing horses, mesmerizing as they gallop across the icy lake. Beautiful. Graceful. Like their maker.
I step out of the shadows beneath the pines. The winter air off the lake is biting, but warmth gathers in my chest. When I speak, my voice only startles her slightly.
“I’ve always loved watching them dance.”
Her magick settles, the horses dissolving back into rippling water.
She doesn’t need to look. I know that gaze—lost in the expanse of water, listening to something older than the two of us. I wait, breathing slow, letting the hush return and her magick still before saying anything more.
I step closer, her scent curling into me like rain. Wild jasmine after a storm—fresh, unruly. Vanilla and amber lingering on skin I still remember tasting. And beneath it all, water—cool, clean. A warning. A memory. A pull I’ve never outrun.
“What’s it saying?”
I know the answer before she gives it.
“She’s remembering,” she murmurs.
I nod. Because water always remembers.
Both curse and fantasy wrapped in one.
She turns toward me then, her dark hair spun gold at the edges in the afternoon sun. The sight of her hits like a gut-punch.
She looks like someone you aren’t meant to touch. And likethe last place that ever felt like home.
I nod toward the sun-warmed stone, asking her to join me. She hesitates before nodding and coming to sit on the rock beside me. My shadows stir around me, restless, like wolves readying for a hunt.
I notice she’s twisting her ring—myring. The sapphire and diamonds glint like they are part of the ice-flecked lake in front of them. It’s something I’ve watched her do countless times. And I can’t help but feel like it’s a claim I’m staking. Even if she doesn’t know what that ring actually means.
Under my skin, my shadows ripple, and I fucking hate how much I want her. How even now, after she chose him, my body still thinks she’s mine.
And if that isn’t a fucking liability, I don’t know what is.
I try to distract myself and her with memories of us. That time we used her mom’s earring to fish. The broken swing we mended. We fall into an old rhythm—story after story tumbling out—because words are safer than looking at her.
Every laugh is a reminder of who she was and who she’s become. In the afternoon light, I see both, and my heart fucking burns with the loss and return of her.
I study the way her shoulders finally relax, how her fingers trail the vapor rising from the warm stone below them.
Finally, I break the quiet. “About earlier. The Grotto.”
She tenses. I don’t need to ask what she’s thinking—that flash of shadowmire.
“It felt… alive.” Her voice is low, contemplative.
I don’t answer right away. I can’t tell her how it felt when our magicks merged, whatIfelt. Only that it was something ancient. Something powerful. Something that was and has always only been ours.
The words and world hang between us, heavy with the promise of safety and destruction.
