Page 26

26

DANTE

I wake up choking on silence.

My mouth tastes like ash and copper, and my head feels like it got split open and sewn back together with broken glass. I sit up slow, one hand braced against the couch cushion, the other pressed to my chest where it aches like I’ve been stabbed.

Except there’s no blood. No wounds. Just this… emptiness. This hollow.

I blink against the morning light bleeding through the blinds, trying to get my bearings. The loft’s quiet. Too quiet. Like something sacred just got stolen out from under my ribs.

“What the hell,” I mutter.

My voice is hoarse. Raw. I scrub a hand over my face, trying to shake the static behind my eyes.

I had a dream—I think.

Violet.

There were violet eyes. And shadows. A name I almost said out loud, but it slipped away before my lips could form it. My jaw clenches. I dig my fingertips into the edge of the couch like I can claw the memory back out of my skull.

But there’s nothing. Just a hole. And it’s screaming.

I stand, a little too fast, and stagger toward the kitchen, hoping caffeine will do what sleep didn’t. That’s when I see the list.

Crinkled paper. Names. Notes. Allies.

I stare at the writing like it’s someone else’s hand. But it’s mine. I remember writing it. I remember needing to prepare. But why?

Why the hell was I calling in favors? Why was I pulling a war council out of thin air?

The memories come fragmented. Like a mirror dropped in water. A council meeting. Witches. An argument about a threat to the Veil. Something big. Something world-ending.

My chest tightens.

The words flash in my head— “She’ll end it. Or it ends us all.”

She.

I freeze.

The hollow gets louder. There was someone. Someone important. Someone who made the world stop spinning when she walked in. But I can’t remember her face. Can’t remember her name. Just a flash of obsidian hair. The faint smell of crushed violets and thunderstorm. A voice that cut like velvet over blades.

“Shit,” I whisper, gripping the counter.

My hands are shaking.

I walk the loft slowly, like a man trying to retrace the steps of a ghost. There’s an indentation on the pillow next to mine. A hair—long, black, glinting faint purple when the sun hits it just right.

“She was here,” I say under my breath, chest heaving. “Someone was here.” And I cared about her. Deeply. Dangerously. I feel it in the way my soul is still reaching for something that isn’t here anymore.

I lean back against the wall, eyes shut, trying to breathe through the ache.

“She left.”

The words fall out before I can stop them.

I know it. Even if I don’t remember it. She left… and I let her.

Or maybe I couldn’t stop her. Maybe I didn’t even know she was going.

And gods—it’s like something's been carved out of me with dull knives.

Why can’t I remember? And the more I try to remember, the more I seem to keep forgetting.

Why is her name right there on the tip of my tongue—but when I try to say it, it burns?

I punch the wall before I can think better of it, skin splitting across my knuckles.

By noon, I’ve torn the place apart. Looking for clues. A necklace. A note. Anything.

Nothing.

Just that list. Just the ache of something I can’t even remember.

Until I dream again.

And this time, the violet eyes don’t look at me with warmth.

They’re full of goodbye.