Page 22 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)
Little Solstice
~GWENIEVERE~
C onsciousness returns like bubbles rising through honey—slow, thick, inevitable.
I turn over, my small body adjusting against the shadow-cushion Cassius has unconsciously created beneath me. The first thing I register isn't sound but motion—frantic, desperate movement that disrupts the careful stillness of our makeshift camp.
Nikki sits bolt upright, gasping like someone pulled from drowning.
Her golden eyes dart back and forth with the particular panic of those who've touched death and can't quite believe they've returned.
She stares at her extended hand as if it's grown an additional head, fingers trembling with aftershocks of almost-ending.
I sit up, my child-form moving with the particular gracelessness of limbs that haven't quite figured out their proportions. Silver hair falls across my face—too long, always too long in this form—and I push it back with small hands that still surprise me with their diminutive size.
"If you're having an existential crisis, can you be quieter?"
The words emerge with perfect six-year-old irritation, though the vocabulary belongs to someone far older. The disconnect would be jarring if I thought about it too hard, so I don't.
Nikki blinks, her attention snapping to me like I've materialized from nowhere. The panic in her eyes shifts to confusion, then something approaching indignation.
"How can a kid even say existential crisis?" she mutters, still fighting for breath that won't quite come properly.
The thing is—I know what happened.
The knowledge sits in my chest like swallowed starlight, bright and burning and impossible to ignore.
I felt it through the connection I share with Gabriel, through the bond that makes us one despite our desperate desire to be two.
His emotions bled through while I pretended to sleep—the weight of her in his arms, the decision to save what asked to be destroyed, the terrible hope that maybe broken things can choose to heal.
But acknowledgment would mean explaining, and explaining would mean revealing truths we're not ready for. So instead, I choose deflection through obnoxiousness—a child's prerogative that I'm learning to wield like the weapon it can be.
Nikki blinks several more times, as if reality might rearrange itself into something more comprehensible if she just resets her vision enough. When that fails, she huffs with frustration that would be comedic if not for the tears still clinging to her lashes.
"Where's your brother?"
The question lands with weight she doesn't realize she's placing. Brother. As if Gabriel exists separately, independently, free to come and go as he pleases rather than trapped in the cage of shared flesh we've been forced to call home.
I shrug with elaborate casualness.
"I don't know. Last time I checked, we're the same person."
It's truth and lie tangled together so tightly even I can't separate the threads.
We are the same—one body, one fate, one curse to bear.
But we're also devastatingly different, and that difference grows wider with each passing moment in these trials that force us to confront what we are versus what we wish we could be.
Nikki pinches the bridge of her nose, the gesture so perfectly adult despite her youth that it makes something in my chest tighten.
"Never mind," she sighs with exhaustion that speaks of more than physical tiredness. "I'm switching to Nikolai since you clearly have a preference."
I open my mouth to protest—to say that it's not preference but ancestral memory, that the hatred isn't truly mine but inherited like a disease passed through bloodlines. But before I can form words small enough for this child-throat to speak, the transformation begins.
It's not like watching Zeke shift—that fluid transition between forms that speaks of harmony with one's nature. This is deliberate. Calculated. Nikki doesn't become Nikolai so much as she builds him from conscious choice, each adjustment a small death of who she was moments before.
Her features sharpen, jawline becoming more pronounced.
Shoulders broaden while hips narrow. Hair maintains its golden shade but changes texture, becoming something meant to be styled rather than simply allowed to fall.
Even her posture shifts—spine straightening, chin lifting, taking up space rather than apologizing for occupying it.
When it completes, Nikolai sits where Nikki was, wearing simple attire that somehow makes him look more vulnerable than any elaborate costume could.
I want to protest. Want to say that I don't hate her, that it's complicated, that centuries of rage against the Fae can't simply be turned off because I've learned its source. But the words stick in my throat like swallowed stones.
Instead, I pause. The need to rebel, to argue, to maintain the walls I've built—it dissipates like morning mist touched by sun. Something about seeing him choose this form to accommodate my irrational preference makes those walls feel less like protection and more like prison.
"Yup," Nikolai says, and even his voice carries different registers now—deeper, more resonant, designed to command rather than request. "Clearly, you have a vendetta against Nikki but not against me."
I pout, lower lip extending in the universal expression of childish displeasure.
"Maybe."
The admission surprises us both. Not denial, not deflection, just acknowledgment that yes, something about the female form triggers reactions I can't control. Yet.
We sit in silence that stretches like taffy—sticky, sweet, potentially suffocating if extended too long.
The purple-gold fire crackles between us, casting shadows that dance independently of their sources.
Around us, the others sleep with the deep unconsciousness of those pushed past all reasonable limits.
Nikolai sighs, the sound carrying the weight of decisions made and unmade. He pats the ground beside him, the gesture gentle despite the strength in those transformed hands.
"Come here, Gwenivere."
"Why?" I ask, suspicion coloring my child-voice. "I'm comfy with Cassius."
My shadow prince hasn't stirred, but his darkness continues to cradle me even in sleep. It feels safe. Known. Mine in a way few things that have ever been.
Nikolai rolls his eyes with exasperation that somehow makes him seem younger.
"That's obvious. But I'd like to ensure I'm real and not in the afterlife."
The words should be light—a joke about near-death experiences and the uncertainty that follows. But I catch the tremor in his hand as he runs fingers through golden locks, see the way his shoulders carry tension that speaks of barely maintained control.
He's afraid.
Not of external threats or guardian trials, but of something far more insidious—the possibility that survival might have been the dream and death the reality.
I look at Cassius, confirming his deep sleep. His face at rest loses some of its careful control, becoming something softer. Younger. The shadows that usually writhe with conscious intent now simply exist, moving with the rhythm of his dreams.
Making my decision, I crawl over to Nikolai. My child-body moves with the particular gracelessness of limbs that haven't quite figured out their proportions, but I manage to settle beside him without too much difficulty.
His hand comes to rest on my head immediately. Not possessive or controlling, just... present. Confirming. His fingers stroke through silver strands with gentleness that speaks of practice with fragile things.
"So I am alive," he says, and the words aren't meant for me.
They're confirmation to himself, repeated like a mantra or prayer. Alive. Present. Still here despite the universe's apparent desire for otherwise.
He takes a breath that shudders on the exhale, looking away as if the sight of me might break something he's barely holding together.
I pout, tilting my head to look up at him. The angle makes my neck ache, but I need to see his face. Need to understand what storms rage behind those golden eyes.
"Are you scared?"
The whisper escapes before I can stop it, carried on breath that tastes of smoke and possibility.
Nikolai looks back at me, and I see it immediately—the glassy surface of eyes fighting not to spill. He blinks rapidly, trying to clear what threatens to fall, but biology doesn't care about pride.
I frown deeper, standing with the sudden urgency children possess when something must be addressed immediately.
"Why are you about to cry?"
"I'm not going to cry," he argues, but his voice cracks on the denial. "Nor am I scared."
The lie hangs between us like a banner advertising its own falsehood.
"When I'm scared, I cry," I inform him with the particular certainty of childhood wisdom. "Then I feel better."
The memory comes unbidden—sitting in Mother's lap while tears soaked her dress, her hand stroking my hair with the same gentleness Nikolai just showed.
"My Dad doesn't like it," I continue, surprised by the clarity of recollection. "But my Mom said it's good to release your emotions so you let them free and aren't burdened carrying them everywhere."
The memory feels strange—too clear for something I shouldn't remember at all.
These fragments of childhood that were stolen, buried, erased by Elena's cruel magic and our forced merging.
Yet here, in this child-form, they surface like bodies in water—inevitable, undeniable, carrying truths I'd forgotten I'd lost.
It makes me wonder: if I can remember lessons about crying, what else lies buried in the depths of who I was before I became we? Could I unravel the mystery of Elena's betrayal? Understand why she failed our family and plagued us with... whatever this cursed existence has become?
Nikolai stares at me for a long moment, processing my simple wisdom with the complexity of someone who's forgotten that simple solutions exist.
Then a single tear escapes.