I walk into Noa’s bedroom and find him studying at his desk, books and papers spread out around him haphazardly. He’s leaning over, lips pressed against the end of a pen, knuckles tapping against the smooth wood surface.
“I need to show you something,” I say as I shut his door behind me and cross to the center of the room.
Noa looks me up and down, a slow smirk tugging at his lips. “Cel, anything you want toshowme, I’m always ready for,” he says, voice low, eyes gleaming with that familiar seductive tilt.
I take a step back.
Noa stops, a brow arching in silent question. He studies me now, cocking his head in that way he does before a duel—calculating, trying to read the terrain before he moves.
“If I show you this… you have to promise me that it stays between us.”
“Okay…” There’s hesitation. He hears the weight behind my words. And we both know—Noa doesn’t do well with secrets.Wedon’t do well with secrets. They’ve tried to break us before.
“No—I need you to promise me. This… this is important.”
He stands up from his chair and leans back against his desk, hands at the edge behind him. The teasing slips away. His voice softens. “Cel, I promise. You can trust me. You canalwaystrust me.” He looks at me—through me—before nodding just once. “Show me.”
I cross the room to the slightly raised platform in the back, my steps slower now, heavy with uncertainty. I stand beside his bed. And suddenly—I’m terrified. Terrified of what hemight think. Of what this will mean. Terrified that, once again, there’s something I’ve hidden. Something I’ve kept from him.
He steps toward me, concern etched on his face.
I take a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm the riot of my heart.
Just breathe, Celeste.
Except it’s Gavrail’s voice that flashes in my head at that moment.
I close my eyes, and just like I did ten years ago, the first time it happened, I let my thoughts slow… let the water within me rise and take hold. I feel my body begin to soften—my edges blurring. Mist under sunlight.
Until I am no longer flesh and bone, but a thousand glistening droplets suspended in midair.
They hover, holding the shape of me—a shimmering echo, translucent and fluid. Light refracts through me, casting ribbons of color across the room. In this moment, I exist somewhere between seen and unseen.
Noa stumbles back.
His stance shifts in an instant—shoulders squared, feet braced, muscles taut like a coiled spring. Ready to defend. He’s not seeing me. He’s seeing something unknown. Something impossible. Something that shouldn’t exist. Instinct overriding recognition.
Because he’s right.I shouldn’t exist.
But I do.
His chest rises and falls in sharp breaths, his eyes wide, searching. “You… You’re… Celeste?” The name chokes out of him like a prayer—like a curse. As if saying it aloud might anchor him, might make sense of what he just witnessed. But even he doesn’t believe it. Not yet.
I begin pulling myself back together. Every droplet is drawn inward, cells aligning, my form returning. It’s slow, and it costsme. Like it always does. I feel drained. Hollowed out. Just a little…less.
He stares at me, panic in his eyes. Worry. But also—curiosity. Awe.
I finally speak again, my words slow and measured. “You know that I’m capable of elemental fusion. Thatweare. But this… this is something different. I’ve been able to do this since I was a child.”
I pause, the past a pathway leading me to the present. And suddenly I’m thirteen again—pine needles under my feet, cold air in my lungs, Gavrail’s voice counting by an old oak tree.
“One… two… three…”
I run away to hide, desperate to win this time. Not the boulder—too obvious. Not the orchard—he always finds me there. I panic. Not fast enough. Not clever enough. Then I see the old hunter’s blind—just two crumbling walls and a thatched roof. I run barefoot across the forest floor, heart pounding.
“Ten!” Gavrail calls out.
I duck into the blind,splinters scratching my arms.
