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“Because it’s protected.” I pulled out a single sheet of paper—a fragment of notes in my mother’s elegant script about “concerning magical resonance” and “stabilizing unstable magic.”

She scanned it quickly, her expression guarded. “What is this?”

“Something I found in Mother’s study. About how magic is supposed to be controlled.” I watched her carefully. “When was the last time you saw Keane’s portals shine proper silver?”

She stiffened. “Not since trials.” Her fingers traced the words on the page. “When our magic worked together…”

“Exactly.” I let my illusions drop completely, something I hadn’t done in years. “The way you make us question everything we were taught about control.”

Her breath hitched. “His magic started changing after that. But why?”

“I don’t know. Not really.” The half-truths I’d planned died on my tongue. “But I think… I think they’re afraid of how naturally our magic works together.”

She turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. “Why are you really showing me this, Elio?”

“Because I’m tired of performing. Of pretending I don’t see what’s happening to him.” I moved closer, drawn by the way her magic reached instinctively for mine despite everything I’d done to her. “Because I need you to understand how sorry I am. For all of it.”

“It’s not enough,” she whispered, but she didn’t pull away. “Just being sorry doesn’t fix what you did.”

“I know.”

Echo’s scales blazed brighter, wilder—like Marigold’s magic was pushing into mine, like mine was answering.

We both felt it.

Her fingers twitched, like she wanted to recoil, but didn’t. My own breath came too fast, my illusions slipping further than I’d ever let them in front of someone else.

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” she whispered. But she wasn’t moving away.

Neither was I.

“We have to figure out what they’re doing to him,” she said finally. “And if you’re still on their side, I don’t need you.”

Something in my chest twisted. “I’m not.” It wasn’t entirely true. Not yet. But I wasn’t Marigold’s either. I was somewhere in between, for the first time in my life.

We stood there under the endless sky, holding onto a fragile trust built on shared fear and genuine remorse.

It wasn’t forgiveness. Not yet. But maybe it was a start.

44

Marigold

Keane appeared inmy doorway just before midnight, his magic feeling wrong in a way that made my skin crawl. The sight of him tugged painfully at my heart. Beneath the mechanical coldness of his movements, I saw a flicker of someone I still recognized. The boy who had kissed me under the stars. The one who had traced magic through the air like it was a story waiting to be written. The boy who had loved me.

But something was off. Scout hissed. The dead things wailed.

“Please,” Keane whispered, his voice brittle but almost familiar. “I need your help in town. I think… I think I can fight it. But not alone.”

I wanted to believe him. Stars above, I wanted to believe him. But his magic felt wrong, distorted somehow. Like it wasn’t quite his anymore.

I reached for him anyway, my fingers trembling. Maybe if I touched him, I could pull him back.

He flinched away from me. “Meet me at the old mining warehouse. Quickly,” he said, then turned and walked stiffly down the stairs.

The wrongness in his magic lingered long after he’d gone.

I moved through Wickem’s grounds quickly, wrapping my jacket around me over my pajamas. The dead things whispered urgently as I slipped past the wards and into town, their voices sharp with warning. I ignored them. How could I refuse Keane? How could I not try to save him?