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Sophia closes her book and joins me in the living area, her eyes darting between me and Victoria.

“I talked to Aerix,” I say, deciding to get straight to the point. “I asked him to make sure you stay here, to keep you both protected.”

Victoria stands slowly, her face flushing with anger. “You what?”

“I think it worked. He seemed open to helping?—”

“Save it,” she snaps. “I don’t need your pity or protection.”

“Why can’t you just accept that I’m trying to help?” I ask, genuinely confused.

“Because we’re not your handmaidens,” Sophia says quietly. “We’re not here to serve you, or to make you feel better about being his favorite.”

“I never said you were,” I protest, but the guilt gnaws at me, anyway.

“It doesn’t matter how you meant it,” Victoria says. “That’s how it is. And I refuse to spend another night with the reminder of what’s waiting for me when the prince decides he only wantsyou.”

She tosses her hair over her shoulders and storms toward the door.

“Where are you going?” I ask, tension swirling in my gut.

“Anywhere but here,” she says, not bothering to look back.

Sophia follows, pausing briefly by the door. “I’m going to stay with Elijah for the night,” she says softly, her cheeks turning pink. “We’ve been... talking.”

“Sophia, I really didn’t mean to?—“

“I know,” she cuts me off, giving me a sad smile. “That’s what makes it worse. You don’t even see what you’re doing.”

And then they’re both gone, the door closing behind them with a heavy thud that echoes in the suddenly empty suite.

I stand there for a long moment, the weight of what just happened settling over me. Part of me wants to run after them, to explain, to make them understand. But another part—the part that felt Aerix’s name being carved into my skin, that tasted my own blood on his lips—knows they’re right.

I’ve chosen a side. And that side is with him.

He’s the only one who can keep me safe here. He’s the only one who cares about me. Wholovesme.

With a heavy sigh, I change into my nightgown, then pause, unable to resist checking the mark one more time.

Aerix Nightborne.

Not even his title. Justhim.

I should go to bed. But I’m too restless, my mind racing with everything that’s happened. So, I wander to the art supplies Aerix gave me a few weeks ago, grab a sketchbook and pencils, and settle onto the window seat. The moonlight streams in, bathing everything in a soft, silver glow that reminds me of the frost that forms when Aerix’s magic spirals out of control.

Flipping open to a fresh page, I begin to draw, my pencil moving almost on its own.First, his eyes—infinite, dark, and hungry. Then his face, the sharp angles and perfect planes that shouldn’t be possible. The curve of his mouth when he smiles, that rare, genuine expression that makes my heart flip.

One drawing becomes two, which becomes five, then a dozen. I lose myself in the process, capturing moments I don’t want to forget: Aerix eating breakfast with me in the bunker, the two of us riding on Nyx’s back through the woods, his pulling me out of the Night Court’s moat and declaring me as his, him feeding from me for the first time, his wings unfurling around us in bed, his hands as he held the dagger and carved his name into my skin.

Some pages I leave half-finished: a wing with no body, a hand reaching for something unseen, a set of eyes without a face—secret corners of my heart waiting for him to fill them.

I’ll tell him he can add to it. Let him trace his own lines and scribble his own shadows. He can complete the drawings I’ve left unfinished, then return it to me.

And I’ll do the same, back and forth—a conversation in art that never has to end.

ZOEY

I losemyself in the sketches, the hours slipping away as I record every precious memory of Aerix. My fingers ache from gripping the pencil, but I don’t stop. Each stroke anchors me more firmly to him, to us, and to what we’ve become.