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AUTUMN

A utumn had faced down wailing spirits, restless children still clinging to cribs long turned to dust, and one particularly chatty poltergeist who wouldn’t shut up about his ex-wife’s meatloaf. But this ?

This was far worse.

Couples Night at Pines & Needles wasn’t loud or pushy or even particularly intimate—not in the conventional sense.

But the way Rowan and Markus had arranged the store with low candlelight, enchanted music that shifted depending on the emotional temperature, and antique chairs arranged in soft, unspoken circles made her skin itch in a way she couldn’t explain.

There was too much feeling in the air. It hung like steam on the windows, clung to her clothes and skin.

“Relax,” Dorian murmured beside her, voice deep and low. “You’re not gonna get hexed for being grumpy.”

“I’m not grumpy,” Autumn muttered, adjusting the sleeves of the charcoal cardigan that, just like the majority of her sweaters, was too big for her. “I’m… aware. That’s all.”

He grinned, brushing his arm gently against hers as they moved toward the back of the bookstore. “You’re adorable when you’re lying to yourself.”

She stopped walking. Glared. “Say that again, bear boy.”

“You’re adorable,” he repeated, slow and steady, teeth gleaming in the soft lighting. “Also beautiful. And mildly terrifying. I like the mix.”

She wanted to be annoyed, to snap at him but her mouth twitched. She hated how easily he got to her.

Rowan—Markus’s softer half—was waiting for them with a tray of herbal cocktails and a book that shimmered faintly under the lamplight. He wore his usual cozy-cottagecore-meets-witchy-sophisticate ensemble, his long scarf draped like it had been arranged by moonlight itself.

“You two ready?” Rowan asked gently, voice lilting like a song only trees would understand.

“Define ‘ready,’” Autumn said.

Rowan offered his a look that said you asked for this , even though she absolutely had not.

The magical book between them—its cover aged, its spine humming faintly with old energy—was part of an old spell Markus had rescued from the haunted archives below their shop.

It read not your name or your story, but your heart’s quietest truths .

The things you weren’t ready to say out loud.

The things that lived between moments and glances.

Couples who participated got one reading each.

Autumn sat stiffly beside Dorian on the love-worn velvet settee as Rowan placed the book between them.

Dorian’s hand brushed hers. “If I catch on fire, will you still pretend to date me?”

“No,” Autumn said flatly. “I’ll dump your ashes in Everglen Creek and make it look like an accident.”

He smiled, wide and unbothered. But it bothered her because the more time she participated in this facade, that she spent at Briar Hollow, the more she felt like this wasn’t pretend anymore. Like she wasn’t going to be able to fight off what was changing inside of her much longer.

Rowan placed a single fingertip on the corner of the book. “Breathe in. Think of what you want most but haven’t said. And this, this will ignite a much need conversation for this session for every couple.”

The room seemed to still. The candle beside them sputtered, then glowed a deep amber, rich like sap. The book fluttered open.

Autumn held her breath.

“You want to stay, but you’re afraid you’ll be asked to become someone you’re not.”

The words inked themselves onto the page in elegant script, glimmering faintly like they’d been dipped in starlight.

Autumn froze.

“You want to protect him, but you aren’t even sure how to protect yourself.”

The words stabbed like needles. Not cruel—just true . And that hurt worse.

She couldn’t look at Dorian.

The page turned now addressing him.

“You want her to see what you see when you look at her.”

“You want her to believe it’s real.”

“You’d wait forever if she needed you to.”

Her throat tightened. She wanted to speak, to laugh, to deflect like always.

But she couldn’t.

She could only sit there, in the middle of this bookshop filled with candlelight and soft jazz and strangers’ knowing eyes, and feel it.

The weight of it. The realness.

“Dorian,” she said, voice low.

He turned toward her, expression open, unguarded.

She licked her lips. “This isn’t fake anymore, is it.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not.”