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“Then dinner’s ready,” Elias finishes behind me, popping a grape in his mouth. “Honestly? Just accept the chaos. It’s how we know we’re still alive.”

I don’t answer. I’ve survived a lot, blood rites, celestial hunger, centuries of being loved by sins. But nothing, not even Lucien’s Dominion, terrifies me like Caspian wielding a skillet in the name offoreplay cuisine.

The stone path that leads to the academy grounds winds up the slope like something pulled from an old storybook,moss-edged and worn, the stones sunk unevenly into the earth as though Riven carved them with his hands and dared the land not to shift.

He laid each one himself. Thirty years ago. Didn’t ask. Didn’t wait. He just took a pickaxe, bare arms, and that barely-contained fury he calls love, and built something permanent. Something that would last.

Even now, the imprint of him lives in every uneven crack.

The path rises, surrounded by wildflower riots that have only gotten bolder with time. Summer paints the air in heat and honey. The trees, older now, thicker at the trunks, arch overhead in a canopy of fractured light, dappling everything in gold.

And the flowers.Gods, the flowers.They’ve taken over.

It started with Ambrose, twenty-eight years ago, deciding that the front steps needed “something intoxicating,” which meant night-blooming jasmine and white belladonna. Then Orin planted moonflowers. Caspian added roses, of course, because subtlety is dead and buried beneath a bed of red petals the size of dinner plates.

Now it’s obscene. An entire hillside of color and scent and soft movement, like nature forgot how to be quiet.

The academy looms ahead, vast and still regal, but less austere than it used to be. The stones are darker now, ivy climbing higher than regulation allowed. The banners are gone. So are most of the rules. The old gods that used to walk these halls don’t bother with appearances anymore.

It’s summer. The students are gone. And in the hush left behind, the land has reclaimed itself, lush, alive, quietly feral.

I follow the path in boots that crush petals underfoot, hands curled in the fabric of my hoodie. The weight of Lucien’s text presses behind my ribs. He never sends messages like that, not unless something’s unraveling and he needs it sewn back tighter.

Blackwell’s office is built into the oldest part of the academy, behind the east tower, where the stone turns nearly black from age. There’s no number on the door, no brass plate. Just a thick slab of wood older than any of us, engraved with a single mark burned deep into the grain.

I climb the last step, reach for the iron handle, and push. The door swings open with a slow groan, deliberate, ancient hinges dragging the moment wide, and I step into the oldest room in the academy, where shadows fall differently.

Blackwell sits behind his desk, posture a weapon in itself. Always has been. His suit today is dark charcoal, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and the chain of his watch gleams like a threat beneath the dim light spilling in from the tall, narrow windows. The scent of tobacco clings faintly to the air, unlit, just memory. He doesn’t look up.

Lucien’s seated in the chair to Blackwell’s left, one leg crossed, spine sharp against the leather back. His jacket is off, sleeves pristine, collar closed tight like he’s resisting the urge to speak with his teeth. His gaze locks on mine the moment I enter. Not an invitation. Not warmth. Something else.

Then,him.

Theo.

Sitting across from them, too casual, one arm thrown over the back of the chair like he belongs here, like this isn’t the most dangerous room on the continent. Those same too-pretty blue eyes find me instantly. He grins.

“Hey, stranger.”

My body goes still. He shouldn’t be here. Not insidethisplace. Not seated between gods and old power, like it means nothing.

Lucien watches me. Not a flicker of reaction. Not a word.

Blackwell finally lifts his gaze, slow as molasses spilled in winter, and gestures to the only empty chair in the room.

“Luna,” he says, voice all gravel and precision. “Sit.”

I don’t move. Yet. My gaze never leaves Theo. And he’s still smiling like this is the beginning of something I won’t see coming.

Lucien

The stone beneath my boots still hums with residual Dominion. I’ve let it bleed into the marrow of this place, let it root into the floors of Blackwell’s office like vines grown from command. I sit in the chair opposite him, back straight, hands steepled, not for comfort. For precision. For restraint.

Across the room, Theo lounges. He takes up too much space with that body of his, long, lean muscle stretched into calculated indifference. Shirt sleeves rolled, collar undone just enough to suggestintimacy,though nothing about him is soft. His jaw is shadowed with stubble, his hair tousled just so, like he woke up tangled in someone else’s sheets and came straight here. He always dresses like temptation’s been distilled into his wardrobe.

But he doesn’t move like he’s trying to impress anyone. He just watches. Like the world is already his, and we’re all trying to catch up.

The door opens. And Luna walks in. Her presence shifts the axis of the room, the way it always does. Not through force. Not through performance. She doesn’t need to try. She justis. And that’s enough to make the ancient magic embedded in the wallspause.