His footsteps draw closer. “Celeeeessste…”
He’s close, and I smile, thinking I might be able to scare him if I jump out. “Boo!” I shout.
He turns toward me and stumbles backward.
“Celeste, your skin… You… Your body…” He sounds horrified as he points at me with a shaking hand.
I look down to see what he’s pointing at. But I see nothing but droplets of water. And I start to scream.
“I’ve been researching—we’vebeen researching, Gavrail and I, trying to find answers. Any answers.” The words tumble out of me faster than I mean them to, but I don’t dare stop. Not now. “But as far as I know, it’s never been documented before—a Magick actually being able tobecometheir element.”
His expression is a perfect storm of fear and wonder—like he’s watching something impossible yet undeniablyextraordinary unfold before him. Disbelief melts into something deeper. “This is…” He runs a hand through his hair, breathless. “Shit, Cel… This is incredible. Why would you hide this? Why would youwantto?” Then he pauses, stepping toward me slowly, eyes soft and steady—like I’m something fragile and wild that might vanish. “Youare incredible, Celeste. There’s nothing you could ever show me that would change how I see you,” he says quietly, reaching for me.
The way he’s looking at me mends something inside me I didn’t know was broken.
“Thank you.” His hand is at my waist, the other arm pulling me closer, his voice low and reverent. “For trusting me with this. For telling me.”
There’s a knock at the bedroom door.
“We’re busy!” Noa growls at the interruption.
The knock comes again—more persistent this time, impatient.
Noa exhales hard through his nose. “Just… stay here, Cel. I’ll tell them to go away.”
He strides to the door, and I don’t miss the way his posture changes—protective, edged—before he wrenches it open. “Finn, go awa?—”
He stops.
Gavrail stands on the threshold, glaring back at him.
The tension is immediate.
Gavrail’s storm-gray eyes lock on Noa with barely disguised disdain. “Is this a bad time?” he says, his voice sharp enough to draw blood, slicing through the air. “I’m looking for Cel—” He looks past Noa, sees me, and whatever expression I wear makes something crack in his composure. He barges in without waiting for an invitation.
His eyes flick between us—the remnants of Noa’s shock, the guilt painted on my face, the shimmer of my magick still in the air—and his face falls.
“You told him?” The words are laced with betrayal, bitter and rumbling with unseen thunder. His voice is low, but I see it in his eyes—anger. And there, right behind his lethal gaze, a flicker of fear. Not for himself. But for me.
Noa stiffens. The air crackles between them like static.
And then Gavrail moves.
He slams Noa into the wall, forearm pressing hard across his throat. The impact echoes, shaking books loose from the shelf.
“If you tell a soul—if you betray her—if she ends up on someone else’s leash because of you,” he snarls, eyes brimming with restrained fury, “I will fucking end you.”
The shadows in the room start to stretch toward them.
“Gavrail, stop! This wasmychoice!” I shout, throwing myself between them, hands on both chests, trying to pry them apart.
Noa yanks Gavrail’s arm down—but I see his other hand twitch, fire blooming over his knuckles.
“No—Noa! Gavrail! Stop, please!” My voice cracks, raw and desperate.
This isn’t how I imagined it would happen—the two men I’ve loved, past and present, now both knowing what I’ve kept hidden for so long. On the brink of killing each other.
I thought telling Noa would feel like a release. A weight lifted. But instead, panic coils tight in my chest and fear floods in like water with no drain, the magick I’ve spent already weakening me.
