Page 130 of Academy of the Wicked: Year Three

"Vampires are so cocky."

The word choice makes Atticus splutter, but it's Cassius who voices what they're all thinking, his tone genuinely concerned rather than mocking.

"Wait, so you've basically been trapped within Gwenievere this entire time?"

Every moment. Every kiss. Every intimate exchange of blood or touch or whispered promise. Gabriel has been there for all of it, unwilling witness to connections that weren't his, passenger in moments that should have been private.

I don’t know whether to feel scared, embarrassed, or plagued with dread.

"It's not necessarily like being trapped, per se." Gabriel's voice carries complicated emotions—not resentment exactly, but something adjacent to it. "It's just that I can't simply leave."

"That's the same thing," Atticus points out, and I can hear his discomfort with the situation. The vampire who values control above all else, realizing he's had an audience he never knew about.

But Mortimer, ever the scholar, cuts deeper.

"It's a trap if one wishes to escape. However, you didn't want to leave."

The observation hangs in the air like accusation and absolution combined. Not trapped but choosing to remain trapped. The distinction matters in ways that change everything about how we understand our shared existence.

Movement stops.

I feel whoever's carrying me—Mortimer from the particular heat and the way his muscles move—pause mid-stride. Through barely opened eyes, I can see we're in another corridor of the labyrinth, but this one is different. Less chaotic. More purposeful, as if the dimensional collapse has solidified into something navigable.

"We're here," Gabriel says quietly.

I lift my head slowly, not wanting to reveal I'm fully conscious yet but needing to see what has everyone suddenly silent.

The door before us is nothing like the others we've encountered.

Where Atticus's door was dark wood and violence, where Cassius's was living shadow, where mine was simple functionality—this door is art.

Golden light emanates from within the wood itself, as if the door was carved from crystallized sunshine. Flowers bloom across its surface—not painted or carved but actually growing, their petals opening and closing in rhythm like breathing. Vines twist through impossible patterns, their leaves catching light that doesn't exist, creating shadows that should be there but aren't.

It's the most beautiful thing I've seen in the Academy. Perhaps the most beautiful door I've seen anywhere.

"Out of all the chaos," Mortimer murmurs, his chest rumbling against my back with the words, "this room has the prettiest exterior."

Gabriel approaches it slowly, his hand not quite touching the surface, as if afraid contact might shatter the illusion of beauty.

"When a cage is so beautiful on the inside," he says, and his voice carries the weight of personal experience, "why would you want to leave to an outside world that's filled with cruelty?"

The words are meant for the door, for whoever waits behind it, but they're also confession.

This is why he stayed within me—not because he couldn't leave but because leaving meant facing a world that had already proven its capacity for cruelty through Elena's betrayal.

A soft sound draws my attention.

Grim floats beside Gabriel, the tiny reaper's usual manic energy subdued into something almost gentle. With movements that seem impossible for a creature of death, Grim begins manifesting roses—not red but black, edges touched with silver like moonlight on water.

The roses rain down on Gabriel in a gentle shower, and Grim does a little dance, spinning his tiny scythe like a baton rather than weapon.

"Grim is trying to cheer you up," Atticus observes, and there's fondness in his voice for both the reaper and the prince he's trying to comfort.

Gabriel's smirk is small but genuine—perhaps the first real expression I've seen from him that isn't performance or defense.

Then his eyes meet mine.

He knows I'm awake. Has probably known the whole time. We share too much space for either of us to truly hide from the other.