Page 50 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)
The Beautiful Cage
~GWENIEVERE~
C onsciousness returns in fragments—the rhythm of movement that isn't mine, voices floating through the fog of exhaustion, the particular warmth of being carried that makes me want to sink back into sleep rather than face whatever new trial awaits.
But the voices are too interesting to ignore.
"—how is he able to manifest?" That's Zeke, his musical tone carrying genuine curiosity rather than his usual feline certainty.
"I'm not sure." Gabriel's voice, but different from when he speaks through me.
This is external, independent, his own vocal cords rather than borrowing mine.
"One minute I was in a room witnessing Nikki and Nikolai in the midst of a crowd, then I was in this trial room watching their little frisky moment. "
Frisky moment? My mind tries to process what I missed while unconscious, but Atticus's sigh interrupts the thought.
"If you think your sister biting Zeke to save his life is frisky, I'm glad you haven't seen the aftermaths of each of our bonds."
There's amusement in his tone, but also something protective—as if he's shielding the intimate details of our connections from external observation.
Gabriel's response is dry enough to desiccate water.
"And where do you think I've been all this while when stuck in my sister's body?"
The silence that follows is profound. The kind of quiet that comes when everyone simultaneously realizes something they should have considered but desperately didn't want to.
Gabriel's dark chuckle fills the void.
"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.
"You stayed within me," I say, not bothering to pretend anymore. My voice is rough from sleep or trials or maybe just from the weight of understanding. "Letting the years go by because... you were afraid of the world outside?"
He considers the question with the kind of honesty that only comes when all pretense has been stripped away. His shoulders rise and fall in a shrug that tries for casual but achieves vulnerable.
"Your wickedness was never out of cruelty."
The words are soft, meant for me alone despite our audience.
"You did it to blend. To survive in returning to an academy we'd all forgotten. But outside of the school walls, through the years of my entrapment, your heart was the purest... a sense of safety."
He pauses, and I see him swallow, the motion oddly human for someone who's existed as passenger in someone else's humanity for so long.
"I knew if I came out...what would that accomplish?"
The question hangs between us all, requiring no answer because the answer is obvious. He would have been alone. Separate but unprepared. A prince without a kingdom, a twin without his other half, a soul with no body trained to contain it.
Gabriel nods at our silence, understanding in the gesture.
"I was willing to remain forever entrapped if it meant protecting your heart."
The confession makes my chest tight with emotions I don't have names for. He stayed not because he had to but because he thought I needed protection. My brother, trapped by the same curse that trapped me, choosing imprisonment if it meant keeping me safe from complete isolation.
"But now you have men who love you..."
He gestures to my companions—Mortimer still supporting me, Atticus watching with crimson concern, Cassius surrounded by protective shadows, Zeke observing with feline intensity. Each of them has proven their devotion in different ways, through different trials.
"And I guess..."
He trails off, looking back at the golden door with longing so profound it makes my heart ache.
"You found someone you wish to protect," I whisper, understanding flooding through me with the force of revelation.
Gabriel wants to save Nikki.
Not just as collateral salvation, not just because she's important to me, but because she's important to him .
"I guess so," he whispers, more to himself than to us.
The admission seems to strengthen something in him. He straightens, shoulders squaring with purpose that's entirely his own rather than inherited from our shared form.
"I'll return when I need to."
Before anyone can argue, he disappears.
Not gradually but instantly, there one moment and gone the next, leaving only the lingering scent of shadow and flame that marks where he stood.
All eyes turn to me.
The weight of their attention makes me suddenly hyperaware that I'm still being carried on Mortimer's back like a child who fell asleep on a long journey.
The position should be embarrassing, but there's something comforting about it too—being cared for without having to ask, being supported when exhaustion made standing impossible.
"Let me help you down," Mortimer says gently, already shifting to lower me to the ground.
My feet find the floor—solid here, as if proximity to Nikki and Nikolai's trial has stabilized this section of the labyrinth.
I sway slightly, muscles protesting the return to bearing my own weight, but I'm steadier than expected.
The rest, however brief, has restored more than just physical energy.
"Feeling better?" Cassius asks, his shadows reaching out to steady me without actually touching—ready to catch but not assuming I need catching.
"Much," I confirm, rolling my shoulders experimentally.
The exhaustion that had pulled me under earlier has receded to manageable levels. My bonds pulse with steady warmth. Each one feeds strength into me, not draining but sustaining.
I turn to look at the golden door properly, taking in details that were harder to appreciate while pretending to sleep.
The flowers aren't just beautiful—they're familiar.
Fae flowers, the kind that grow in the Summer Court that Nikki would have known as a child. The vines form patterns that might be decorative or might be Fae script too ancient for me to read. The golden light pulses with rhythm that matches heartbeats, but two different tempos, slightly off-sync.