Page 18

18

JACKSON

T he air outside her building feels like it's been dipped in oil.

Heavy. Tense. Like the whole damn block is holding its breath.

I haven’t slept. I’ve been driving in circles. Listening to the seer’s words claw at the inside of my skull.

She’s already dying inside trying to protect you.

And she will burn the world to keep you safe.

I don't know what I expect when I pull up to her place. A door slammed in my face, maybe. Silence. Fury.

But not this.

Not her opening the door before I can even raise a fist to knock.

She just... appears. Staring at me like she knew I was coming the second I turned the corner. And the worst part? I think she did.

Her eyes are wide. Shadowed. Lined with something that looks a hell of a lot like fear.

“Sera,” I start.

“Get in,” she says, grabbing my arm, yanking me inside with more force than her frame should allow.

The door slams shut behind us. Locks on its own.

The air in here is charged.

Not with anger. Not with grief.

With magic.

The kind that hums beneath your skin like it’s rewriting your DNA. The kind that makes your teeth itch.

I step back from her. “What the hell is going on?”

She’s already pacing. One hand in her hair, the other crackling with faint shadow-light, her robe half undone and her bare feet making soft thuds across the floor. Her face is pale. Not from exhaustion. From panic.

“I felt you,” she mutters. “Before you pulled up.”

“What does that mean?”

“I felt you. Not your presence. Not your damn heartbeat. You.”

“Okay,” I say slowly, “you’re gonna have to back up and explain before I start throwing furniture.”

She stops pacing. Meets my eyes. And her voice drops to a whisper. “There’s a bond forming.”

I blink. “A what?”

“A magical bond.”

She looks like she might break in two just saying it.

“Okay,” I say again, a little more breathless this time. “Explain. Slowly. Like I’m not in the middle of a metaphysical panic attack.”

“It’s not supposed to happen,” she says, running her hands over the sharp elegant features of her face. “It’s not real. It’s a legend—one of those ‘oh, that happened in the old world’ stories you don’t think twice about. Two souls. One source of magic. The bond forms through proximity, trust, shared power, sex?—”

I blink. “Wait. So sleeping together?—”

“Was a mistake,” she snaps.

“Oh.”

She winces. “I didn’t mean—no, I did , but not like—shit.”

I hold up a hand. “Let’s not spin out here. Are you saying we’re... bonded? Like, what, a magical marriage?”

“No,” she breathes. “Worse. This is what the Brood was talking about. This is what Black Sun wants. You’re the key, Jackson. And the more you’re with me, the more this thing forms.”

“But I didn’t do anything?—”

“You didn’t have to,” she says. “That’s the worst part. You are the key. You don’t need to activate anything. Your existence is enough.”

We both go still. The silence between us stretches. And I feel it then. Like a thread strung tight between us. Buzzing. Alive.

My skin starts to hum. My stomach twists like something’s pulling taut just beneath the surface. I glance at her, and she’s feeling it too—eyes wide, lips parted, like the air’s suddenly too thick to breathe.

“This isn’t normal,” I mutter.

She takes a step back.

“I need to break it,” she says. “Now.”

Her fingers flicker with dark energy, and she starts muttering under her breath, in that language I don’t understand—the one that tastes like fire in the air.

“Wait, hold up,” I say, stepping forward. “What happens if you break it?”

“If I’m lucky? Nothing.”

“And if you’re not ?”

“I bleed. You might too. Maybe worse. But if we wait—if it seals—it’ll be more than likely permanent. ”

The fear in her voice snaps my chest open like a crowbar.

Not for her. For me.

I reach out, grab her hand before she can finish the spell.

And the magic between us snaps.

Just a flicker. A ripple. Like a rope being pulled taut at both ends.

She stares at our hands.

“You feel that?” I whisper.

She nods.

And then she says the one thing I never expected.

“I don’t think I can do it.”

“Break it?”

She shakes her head slowly. “No. Let you go.”

Jesus Christ.

My throat tightens.

“Sera—”

“Don’t,” she says. “Because I’ll let you say something stupid, and I’ll believe it, and it’ll make all of this worse.”

I should run. I know that.

But I don’t.

I step closer. “Maybe I’m the key. Fine. Maybe I’m the blade they’ll use to split you open and resurrect your nightmare. But I’m still here. And I don’t want to leave.”

She looks like she might cry. Or kiss me.

Or both.

And I don’t care which anymore.

“I didn’t know,” she whispers. “About you. About any of this. I didn’t know it was real. ”

“Neither did I.”

She nods. Swallows hard. “But it is. And we can’t let it get completed. We just can’t or else I don’t think that there’s any going back.”

And for the first time since I met her, Seraphine Nightshade looks scared.

Not of the world. Not of Black Sun.

Of me, what I mean. Or what we’re becoming.