Page 19

I sink onto the chair opposite him without realizing, mouth dry. "He said something about phases. Obsidian rites. Sacrifices. Personal artifacts. I—I didn’t understand half of it."

Caspian’s lips curl faintly at the corners, something dark and sweet and sad flickering through his eyes.

"He’s courting you the old way," Cas murmurs. "Properly."

I shake my head, swallowing. "Explain. Slowly."

Caspian nods, setting the book aside and folding his hands in his lap.

"There are three phases," he says. "The first is what he started tonight—Observation. Presence offerings. Which is why he brought the flowers. One alive, one dead. He’s telling you what you are to him. Both. Always."

My stomach flips.

He continues, voice quiet but steady. "Second phase is Recognition. You’ll get gifts. Small, specific. Things that mean something to you or him. He’ll start orbiting closer—showing up, standing too near, waiting for you to notice."

I frown, pulse thudding in my throat. "And the third?"

Caspian meets my gaze evenly. "Integration. He’ll ask for something from you. Something you wouldn’t give anyone else."

A beat.

"He’ll make you choose."

My mouth goes dry. "Choose what?"

He doesn’t answer immediately, gaze slipping past me like he’s staring down a memory.

"Your bond will settle," Caspian says finally. "But only after you give him something that matters more than the bond."

I stare at him, something hollow and sharp unraveling low in my stomach.

Caspian’s lips twitch, the barest hint of amusement softening his features. "You look terrified."

I huff out a breath. "That’s because I am."

He leans back, the shadows cutting softer across his face now. "Don’t be. He’s formal, sure. Terrifying, absolutely. But if Orin’s decided he wants you—"

Caspian’s gaze flicks over me, something almost fond behind it.

"—he’ll tear the Hollow down to make you understand it."

I don’t run from the room, but it’s a close thing.

My feet move on instinct, down the hall, down the stairs, out of the quiet of Caspian’s study and into the rest of the house where the walls breathe a little louder, where laughter echoes faint from the kitchen, where something mundane might shake this strange ache out of my chest.

I still don’t know what the hell just happened upstairs.

My fingers twitch at my sides, phantom impressions of the rose stems still imprinting my skin. The way Orin had looked at me—like I was an equation he’d already solved, like I was both the offering and the altar—still hasn’t left me.

It’s not that I don’t like Orin. Gods, that’s not it at all.

He’s... magnetic in the way only someone impossibly old and unknowable can be. He’s always been there, quiet and composed and terrifying in a way that doesn’t require volume. Like he’s been watching the world end again and again, and still chose to sit next to me at dinner without saying why.

But I never thought— I never assumed he wanted me. Not like that. He’s never flirted. Never made a pass. Never touched me longer than was necessary. Not like the others—Silas, Elias, Riven—they were fire and hunger from the start. Messy, reckless, unavoidable.

But Orin? He was safe. Cold. Brilliant. Beautiful, sure—absurdly so, with those perfect cheekbones and that eternal you-don’t-know-me stare—but still just... there. My friend. My advisor. My ghost.

And now? Now I’m swoony. And I hate that word. But I am. Floaty in a way I don’t trust, like I’ve been drugged on poetry and old gods. Like I’m walking on the edge of a spell I didn’t agree to cast. Because now I don’t know what to expect from him. And that scares me more than any prophecy ever has.