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I recognized that look in her eyes—the desperate need for a space that was truly safe, truly hers. I’d worn the same expression just days ago when I discovered my uncle couldn’t enter my rooms, despite holding a Council seat. The protections didn’t think he was “family” enough. That small victory had felt like my first real breath in years.

“Everyone should have one safe place,” I said finally, the words carrying more weight than I intended. Something shifted in her expression—understanding, maybe. Or recognition.

She studied me for a long moment, then nodded. The door closed with a whisper of ancient magic, sealing her into her sanctuary. My portals showed only darkness where her rooms should be—the protection spells already at work.

Despite myself, I opened another window to watch her door. Just to observe, I told myself. But there was something intriguing about her. The way she noticed things others missed, like the dead knight in the armor. Or perhaps it was how she’d flinched at certain sounds as we walked, a reaction I recognized too well.

Wisp curled up beside my desk, her knowing eyes fixed on the portal. My familiar had always been good at sensing when something—or someone—might be important. Even now, her attention remained fixed on Marigold’s door with unusual interest.

Uncle wouldn’t like it. He’d be with the Council as usual, already viewing her as a threat to their control. I should stay away, focus on my studies, be the proper heir he demanded.

But as I finally closed the portal, that expectation felt… different. Like something had shifted.

And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to fall back in line.

6

Marigold

For a longmoment after Keane left, I just leaned against the closed door, my hand still tingling where I’d touched the skull sigil. The magic had felt…right. Like coming home, if home was a place you’d never been but somehow remembered.

No one can enter without your permission.

After years of living in apartments with broken locks and paper-thin walls, where every strange footstep in the hallway made me hold my breath—the thought of having a space that was truly secure made my throat tight. Especially after Elio’s cruel tricks and Cyrus’s barely contained rage. But then there was Keane…

I touched my lips, remembering the taste of the chocolate croissant he’d given me. Such a small thing, but it meant something. The way he understood what I needed—without making me say it out loud. He wasn’t like the others. I just couldn’t figure out why.

I forced myself to breathe, to really look at my new rooms. Like something out of a storybook—except this time, I wasn’t the maid scrubbing floors. I was the girl with power in her blood.

Magic thrummed through the walls, flowing like water through invisible pipes. I could feel it. Pure, alive.

And the tower’s magic, or the wellspring’s or whatever it was, made my own power surge in response, and suddenly every dead thing in the building seemed to wake at once. Their whispers filled my head—mice and rats and birds that had lived and died in these walls, all trying to welcome me at the same time.

“Quiet,” I whispered, overwhelmed.

My fingers found my ring without thinking, twisting the silver band on its chain. The chaos settled slightly, like turning down the volume on too many voices.

Dust lay thick over everything—coating the furniture like gray snow. But dust didn’t bother me. I’d cleaned plenty of other people’s messes. This one, at least, was mine to tackle.

“Hello?” I called softly, feeling slightly foolish. But now that I’d managed to quiet the chorus of dead things to a manageable level, I wanted to properly introduce myself. Mom would think I was nuts, talking to the shadows, but it felt right.

Nothing appeared, but the room itself seemed to stir, like a cat waking from a long nap. Dust motes swirled in patterns too deliberate to be random.

A single skeletal mouse emerged from the wall, delicate as lacework bone. Its tiny skull tilted as it crept forward on needle-thin limbs, joints clicking softly with each step. Bits of shadow clung to its ribs like scraps of fabric, twitching like whiskers as it sniffed the air.

Unlike the overwhelming wave of welcome from earlier, this felt… manageable. Familiar.

Maybe I was learning how to hold it—this power, this place.

I moved through the space slowly, taking in everything with fresh eyes. The main room reminded me of a living room—if living rooms came with velvet armchairs, carved tables that looked like they were grown from the forest, and a fireplace of black stone that drank in the light.

The magic here hadn’t left. I could still feel it in the air—thick and alive, pressing against my skin like mist from a waterfall. Not hostile. But not passive, either.

The study made me pause in the doorway. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, crammed with leather-bound books with titles likeAdvanced Magical TheoryandNecromantic Creatures. A large desk dominated one wall, its surface bare except for a fine coating of dust.

Years of silence pressed against my skin. They’d said that no one had sat here since my father was a student, learning to wield the magic that now surged through my veins with too much force. I suspected it hadn’t been so hard for him, since he grew up in this world.

I went back to my suitcase where I’d left it in the living room, and pulled out my box. Collecting little things—a feather, a pretty rock, a pendant—had been my habit for as long as I could remember. Nothing expensive, nothing stolen, just whatever pretty things I could find, buy, or trade for. After dumping out my pockets a hundred times, Mom had finally caved and got me a carved wooden box from the thrift store to keep “my treasures” in. I turned it over in my hands and smiled, then took it into the study and placed it on the dusty desk.