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Frustration crashes through me.

This is pointless!

With each second that passes, it builds. I don’t even know what I’m trying to do, let alone how to do it. It’s like being handed an instrument I’ve never seen and expected to play a symphony in a language I don’t speak, with an audience waiting for perfection. I’m fumbling in the dark while Sacha watches with those unnerving black eyes, measuring every failure.

Whatever magic exists in this world wasn’t meant for me. I don’t belong here. I’m an intruder, an anomaly, not someone who can command forces I barely comprehend. Whatever brought me here, I clearly don’t understand it and probably never will.

“It’s not working.” I open my eyes. “I can’t do this.”

“You’re thinking too literally.” Sacha’s gaze stays fixed on me. “Magic doesn’t respond to intellectual effort. It responds to will, to emotion, to the parts of ourselves we keep hidden.”

“I don’thave magic.”

His lips curve slightly. “Evidence suggests otherwise.”

I close my eyes and try again, imagining those threads snapping. Still, nothing changes. My head throbs with the effort, and my arm aches from holding the same position.

I’m not made for this. I don’t belong in a world that runson magic. I’m just a woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, yanked from one world to another without warning or explanation.

“This is useless! I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“It reacted to your presence, your touch.” His voice remains calm. “Perhaps it will respond to stronger emotions as well. Your frustration. Your anger. Try channeling that instead.”

I take a deep breath, then another, drawing on emotions I’ve been barely holding back since I arrived in this world. The helplessness of being torn from everything I know. The confusion of appearing in a desert that shouldn’t exist. The isolation of being the only person from my world, with no one who understands what I’ve lost. The desperate clawing need to escape this place, to gohome, to reclaim the life that was stolen from me.

All of it, every suppressed tear, every swallowed scream, every moment of fear I’ve refused to show, I pour into the invisible threads binding Sacha. My muscles tighten with the effort, teeth grinding as I channel rage into the magic that never asked my permission before rewriting my life.

The air around us sharpens, temperature plummeting so fast my next breath stings. Cold pours through our joined hands like liquid nitrogen, spreading outward from our palms in waves. Something crackles, the sound brittle, like ice forming across a frozen lake.

When I open my eyes, I gasp. Tendrils of frost bloom in the air between us, delicate crystalline patterns hovering for a heartbeat before dissolving into mist. Beautiful and terrible at once.

“It’s working.” His voice is tight. “Keep going. Don’t stop now.”

I push harder, rage churning through me, trapped, torn from my world, caught in something I never chose. The energy building between our hands intensifies, climbing my arm, flooding my chest. My skin prickles, cold needles of ice forming and vanishing with each heartbeat. The room narrows around us, shrinking to this moment, thisconnection, this silent battle against forces I can barely comprehend.

And then …

Something snaps.

There’s no warning. It breaks all at once—a rupture, violent and absolute. The sound cracks through the chamber. The floor bucks beneath us, stone heaving like it’s alive.

Sacha’s grip turns crushing. A strangled sound escapes him—half gasp, half something worse—as his whole body seizes. His head jerks back, tendons straining along his neck, jaw clenched so tight I think he might shatter it. His eyes fly wide, then roll back, whites exposed. It’s not just pain I’m witnessing, it’s agony beyond expression, beyond sound.

The pulse of energy stutters, then surges again, blue light blazing so bright it sears the air. For one breathless second, Iseeit—the binding, alive and glowing, wrapped around every inch of him like superheated wire. Then it detonates outward, showering blue-white sparks that vanish before they hit the ground.

Sacha staggers backward, as if struck, tearing his hand from mine. He catches himself against his desk, knuckles white where they grip the edge. His chest heaves, breaths ragged and shallow. Sweat beads across his forehead, sliding down temples gone pale as death. Hiseyes, always so sharp and controlled, are wild now, unfocused, pupils blown wide with shock.

For the first time since I met him, the mask has shattered completely. This isn’t the sharp-tongued prisoner, or the cold strategist. This is Sacha without armor—exposed, stripped bare by something even he didn’t see coming.

“Are you okay?” My hand is still half-raised, fingers curled in air that no longer holds his.

He straightens slowly. His eyes find mine and hold, disbelief written across every line of his face.

“The binding.” His voice is barely audible, hollowed out and hoarse. He stares down at his hands. “It’s … changed.”

“Changed how? Is it broken?” My voice shakes. Adrenaline is still surging through me, the ghost-sensation of that terrible snap still vibrating in my bones.

“Not broken. Altered. I can feel it loosening.”