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“You don’t like to use shadows, do you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“The grimace on your face as we were coming up here.”

I sigh and throw my head back. “Every time I use them for my own devices instead of my mother’s, it’ll get easier. At least I hope it will. I think that’s why I always used my thorns. They felt more mine than anything I got from my parents, even though that’s not true. They were never mine to keep at all.”

Rosalina takes my hand, and we continue through the ruined observatory.

We walk together beneath the open dome, our steps quiet. Everywhere we look, the observatory is falling apart. We pass under a collapsed arch where carvings run up the inner wall, faint and moss-eaten. I pause, brushing my hand across the stone.

“What is it?” she asks. “Constellations?”

I squint at the markings. “No, I don’t think they’re star maps. They’re…diagrams.”

She steps closer. “Like a spell?”

“Like biology.”

The carving spreads like a web, thin lines connecting trees, stars, animals, and shadowy silhouettes of fae. There’s no written language, only images flowing from one to the next. A bird is drawn, half in flight, half in flame. A vine curls around a rib cage. A fae’s hand cups a star.

“It’s a cycle,” Rosalina says. “The fae here weren’t just stargazing. They were…studying connection. Maybe even drawing power from it. It reminds me of the mural in the library and of things my mother spoke of.”

I nod. “Everything is linked. Everything is part of something else.”

She trails her fingers down the wall as if she’s tracing a memory, then looks up at me. “Like you’re a part of me.”

“And you’re a part of me.”

We keep walking. Past more murals, across a broken walkway, over ivy-stolen benches, until we reach the end of the observatory. There’s a rounded platform with the base of the telescope still standing, though the glass and gold have long since collapsed. The structure has hollowed out into a cradle of stone, half-covered in moss and vines, open to the sky above.

“Is this what I think it is?” she asks.

“It used to be the main telescope. But now?” I gesture to the stone and the spill of starlight pouring down through the open roof. “Now it’s a perfect place to rest.”

Rosalina moves first, stepping over the broken ledge and dropping into the curved space. The moss gives just enough under her weight. She sighs and stretches out, hair fanning around her face.

I join her, and we lie shoulder to shoulder, both of us looking up at the stars.

“You think what we saw on the wall is true?” she asks quietly. “That we’re all tied together like that?”

“It would explain a lot. How you can feel so many different things. Why your magic doesn’t only grow but connects.”

She exhales through her nose. “It’s a nice thought. Not having to carry everything alone. Mother made it sound draining, but that diagram felt like a circle.”

I turn my head toward her, enough to see the starlight catch in her eyes. She’s already watching me. And when she leans in, slow and unhurried, I don’t stop her.

Her lips find mine, warm and certain, tasting like home and something I’ve wanted for far too long. The world slips away. The stars blur, and the wind grows quiet. All I know is the kiss, how it begins tender, almost reverent, then deepens as her fingers slide along my jaw and draw me closer.

I kiss her back. The way she sighs against my mouth undoes me entirely. Gods, I hope we can win this. I hope I get a million more moments like this with her. She shifts, swinging one leg over my hips and settling above me, straddling my thighs. My hands move to her waist. Rosalina pulls away just enough to look down at me, hair falling around her face in dark waves. Her cheeks are flushed, lips pink from kissing.

“I want to try something.” She places a hand over my chest.

My heart knocks once, hard, against my ribs. I reach up, brushing a thumb along her jaw.

“You can try anything,” I say.

And I mean it. Whatever it is. I’m hers.