Page 116 of Claimed By the Mothman

The Lustrum turned its gaze to Nell. The air changed. The light deepened. Every eye blinked in unison.

And you,it whispered,who reached for love instead of unraveling— who stood before the unknown and chose—you are no longer the vessel left behind.

It extended a filament of light—neither hand nor limb, butgesture—toward her.

You are Anchor.

Something shifted behind her eyes, and a flare as radiant as a star bloomed in her chest. It spread through her body, deep and wide as a root system. And with it, came awakening.

She gasped. She could see them. The threads of possibilities. Not futures, but choices, each one suspended in light, like morning dew on a web.

“I can feel them,” she whispered. Tears began to roll down her cheeks at the beauty of it all. “All the paths. All the ways they can break, and how to hold them together.”

Together, you are Dyad,the Lustrum sang. Two souls, one resonance, woven into a pattern you forged with your own hands.

The light spilled outward, and for a heartbeat they saw the threads beneath reality, gold and violet and red, spooling out into the dark, into the Greymarket, intoeverything.

Where you go, the pattern will shift. Where you speak, it will echo. Where you love, it will grow.

The Lustrum turned to Sig once more. A breath caught in the curve of his wings that stretched fuller now, filled with a new light that was not there before.

Harbinger that was,the Lustrum said,her heart will ground you, and her joy will give you choice.

She will steady you and allow you to fly higher.

The Lustrum turned to Nell, and the weight of its gaze nearly brought her to her knees. She staggered, breath catching in her throat, but she held.She held.Because that, now, was her purpose.

Anchor that is, his wings will take you further than you ever imagined. Where he flies, your heartbeat will echo. Where he chooses, your will shall steady him.

Light spilled out from the Lustrum, wrapping around Sig and Nell, their bond, deepening it in colors that had no name in the human language, but shimmered like water catching the sun for the very first time.

The Lustrum folded slightly, like light bending around gravity, and in the deepness of its core, Nell saw a small, faint, familiar flicker of opal light. Her throat tightened, and she smiled.

Go forward. Shape what comes next. We will be watching.

Light cracked like a bell through the chamber. The Lustrum exhaled, vast and final, and began to pull away. The edges of reality began to fold back into something closer to form, to flesh, to time.

Nell’s arms curled tighter around Sig, and his wings wrapped gently around her shoulders. The bond shimmered in the space between them. They were together—now and always.

Chapter 25

They found themselves kneeling on the lobby floor of Greymarket Towers, wrapped around each other, the echoes of the Lustrum ringing through their bodies.

Sig looked down at Nell—and saw her, truly. She was radiant, luminous in a way that had nothing to do with light. Something glowed beneath her skin now, soft and wondrous, as if she was threaded from within with the patterns of time.

She looked up at him—and saw everything. The weight of wings that no longer meant warning. The ache of devotion written in posture and stillness. She met his gaze and offered something wordless in return: recognition, welcome,yes.

Nell laughed, voice cracking into a sob, and kissed him with everything she didn’t have words for. When they pulled apart, breathless and wide-eyed and stupid with wonder, she cupped his jaw with one hand.

“If you ever walk into a man-eating liminal space again without me,” she said in a shaking voice, “I will murder you myself.”

Sig’s brow furrowed, all grim sincerity. “You just barged in there wearing nothing but a robe.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And yetyou’rethe one who nearly disincarnated like a jackass.”

“I was trying to protect you.” His wings gave a tiny, twitchy flutter.

Nell rolled her eyes, but her voice was soft with relief. “And how’d that work out, genius?”