And in the smallest corner of my chest, the dragon inside me gave a slow, unmistakable stir—like recognition.
5
ARTEMIS
I woke with my heart doing that annoying fluttery thing it only did when my brain decided to ambush me with feelings before coffee.
Great. Fantastic. Love that for me.
This was why I didn’t trust mornings.
I shoved my face deeper into the pillow, hoping it would smother the memory forming in my mind, but no. The universe saidabsolutely notand served me a perfect mental replay of last night’s chaos, featuring:
A thunderstorm.
A ruined wet floor sign.
A man who was illegal levels of handsome.
Said man looking at me like I’d personally rescued his long-lost puppy and then lost it again.
Which was deeply unfair. I had not consented to that level of sincerity.
I groaned. “Why am I thinking about this? I have work to do. A missing book to find. A manuscript draft currently consisting of—what word count am I up to? Right.Zero.”
Zero words. A record, even for me.
I dragged myself upright and blinked around my bedroom. Same cluttered coziness as always: books stacked like geological layers, plants doing their best to thrive, and my journal on the nightstand, lying open where I’d left it… on a blank page.
I picked it up, stared at the untouched paper, and waited for inspiration to arrive.
Nothing.
Not even a flicker.
“You’re useless,” I told myself.
The journal didn’t disagree. In fact, its voice sounded suspiciously like my mother. I snapped it shut before it could say anything else.
I set it down with a sigh that felt too big for my body. I wanted so badly to write something worth reading, something brave and alive that made people feel. But every time I tried, my brain spiraled into lists and perfectionism and the quiet fear that I wasn’t made for anything remarkable.
Which—fine. That was typical.
