Page 21 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)

He crosses his arms and closes his eyes, the gesture somehow making him look more cat than human despite his current form.

"You're asking the wrong question."

I think for a moment, parsing his meaning. Understanding arrives like dawn—gradual then sudden.

"You already know how." The revelation feels like swallowing lightning. "What you want me to say is whether I wish to pursue it."

His smile returns, eyes still closed as if the conversation bores him despite his obvious investment.

"Your sister would if it made you happy."

The truth of it resonates through our shared existence. Even now, unconscious and child-formed, Gwenivere wonders about this. I can feel her thoughts like whispers against my consciousness— wanting my happiness even if it means separation, wanting my freedom even if it means loneliness.

We've been together so long that independence feels like another kind of death.

But perhaps some deaths are doorways.

"But Nikki and Nikolai are genuinely one person," I point out, needing to understand all angles. "They're not twins."

Zeke doesn't answer immediately, which itself is answer enough.

"I'm wrong?"

His eyes open, purple and gold dancing in irises that shouldn't be able to hold both colors simultaneously.

"That final answer is in the roots of Year Four."

The words land like prophecy.

"Year Four? Not in Year Three?"

He shakes his head slowly, each motion deliberate as calligraphy.

"Year Three is of Inferno Flames and the land of dead. So what do you expect the final year to be surrounded by?"

My eyes widen as understanding crashes through me like a tide.

"The land of the living. Of perfection. The environment that will complement the one struggling in these lands that are opposite."

I look back at Nikki with new understanding.

She suffers here because this realm opposes her nature.

But in a realm that enhances rather than diminishes...

"The final year involves the Fae at their peak."

Zeke nods with satisfaction of a teacher whose student finally grasps the lesson.

"Exactly."

The world sways.

No—I sway. The drain of holding time makes itself known all at once, vision blurring at edges like watercolors running together. My form shifts uncontrollably—child to adult and back again, unable to maintain stability.

"Time's up," Zeke observes with characteristic detachment. "I suggest you make your decision."

"But—" I start, looking to him for more answers, more time, more something.

He's already a cat again, dropping to the ground with liquid grace. Without acknowledgment of our conversation, he pads back toward the others, tail high with feline satisfaction.

I frown at his retreating form.

"I don't like that cat."

But even as the words leave my mouth, I know they're not entirely true.

Zeke sees too much, knows too much, involves himself precisely as much as necessary and not an inch further.

It's irritating.

It's also exactly what we need.

He'll have a stronger connection with my sister eventually. I can feel it in the way their magic resonates even while she sleeps—darkness and mystery finding harmony in ways that will complicate everyone's dynamics.

"So annoying being in the midst of my sister's love life," I mutter, but the complaint lacks heat.

Because maybe…I can start my own.

Love?

The word feels foreign in my mind. I've observed it through my sister's experiences, felt the secondhand warmth of connections that weren't quite mine. But my own love? Independent, chosen, reciprocated?

The possibility terrifies and thrills in equal measure.

I take a step, my form solidifying into adult configuration. This feels right for what needs doing—child-hands too small for the task ahead.

I lift Nikki's frozen body, and immediately grunt at the weight.

"She's heavy."

Not physically—the Fae are built like dancers, all lean muscle and hollow bones. But her presence carries weight. The pressure of potential futures, the mass of unresolved pasts, the density of connections that might reshape everything we thought we knew about our curses.

I begin walking back to the group, each step requiring more effort than the last. Time wants to resume its normal flow. Reality presses against my hold like water against a dam, seeking cracks through which to pour.

My teeth grit with effort. Eyes close for a moment, hoping I can pull through.

Please. Just a little longer.

Something responds—not my power but an echo of it. Sister-strength flowing through shared channels, supporting without overwhelming. It gets easier, though not easy. Enough to make it back to where the others sleep around their strange purple fire.

I lay Nikki down carefully in her spot, taking time to arrange her position naturally. She needs to think this was a dream, a nightmare dissolved by waking. The truth would be too much right now—for her, for me, for whatever fragile possibility exists between us.

I'm about to leave when I sense eyes on me.

Not the sharp awareness of adult perception but something softer.

Curious rather than suspicious.

I turn to find child-Gwenivere watching me.

Those impossible eyes— mirror of my own but holding different truths —study me with understanding that transcends her apparent age. We share a look that carries conversations too complex for words.

I try not to feel embarrassed, but warmth travels to my cheeks regardless.

Being caught in an act of caring feels like exposure of something meant to stay hidden.

My sister's gaze shifts from me to Nikki, then back. The evaluation is clear even without words— putting pieces together, solving puzzles I didn't know I was creating.

Then she does something that stops my heart.

She puts one small finger to her lips. The universal gesture of conspiracy, of secrets kept.

My secret is safe with her.

She leans back down, snuggling against Cassius with the trust of someone who knows they're protected. His shadows respond even in sleep, wrapping around her like armor made of night.

That's when I realize—time is still frozen.

But it's not my doing anymore.

It's hers.

My sister holds the temporal pause now, giving me time to retreat with dignity intact. Giving me space to process what just happened without the weight of maintaining magic I shouldn't be able to access.

I try not to smile, but the expression escapes anyway.

Small. Private. Real.

As I turn away, preparing to fade back into the space between spaces where I exist when not manifested, I whisper words meant only for her.

"Thanks, sis."

It's acknowledgment. Gratitude. Promise of reciprocity when she needs her own secrets kept.

I begin to disappear, feeling the pull of void that serves as my room in this shared house of flesh and bone. But just before I fully fade, time resumes its normal flow.

Nikki's gasp echoes through the realm—sharp, surprised, alive .

The sound follows me into darkness, and I carry it like a talisman.

She lives. She breathes. She continues.

And maybe when the time comes for choices about separation and independence, about who can love whom when bodies and souls don't align conventionally, she'll choose to continue with me.

The possibility shouldn't make my heart race. I'm centuries old, have witnessed love in all its forms through borrowed eyes. I should be beyond such simple reactions.

But I'm not.

Because this isn't observed emotion or secondhand experience.

This is mine.

The feeling terrifies me more than any trial we've faced. Because trials end in victory or death, both absolute states with clear resolution.

But love?

Love is messy. Complicated. Requires independence I don't yet have and faith I'm still learning to build.

Yet as I settle into the void between manifested moments, I find myself planning. Considering. Hoping .

Year Four will come.

The Fae realm will test us all, but it will also offer opportunities. If Nikki and Nikolai truly are split like us— or if they can become so —then possibilities exist that seemed impossible moments ago.

I think of her golden eyes wide with fear and regret. The reaching hand.

The weight of her in my arms as I carried her back to safety she doesn't know she needed.

I think of my sister, keeping secrets for a brother she's only beginning to know as independent entity rather than internal voice.

I wonder of Zeke's knowing smile and cryptic hints about futures that haven't been written yet.

And in the darkness that serves as my home when not walking the world, I allow myself one moment of pure, impossible hope:

Maybe caged birds can learn to fly after all.

The thought carries me into something like sleep—not true unconsciousness but the suspended state I exist in when not manifested. But for the first time in centuries, it doesn't feel like prison.

It feels like waiting.

And for someone who's been the eternal observer, waiting for my own story to begin doesn't seem so bad.

Especially when golden eyes and reaching hands suggest that story might not be one I have to write alone.

Love , I think again, tasting the word like wine aged in barrels of possibility.

It still feels foreign.

But maybe foreign is just another word for new.

After centuries of same, new sounds like exactly what I need.