Page 18

DEREK

S he’s gone.

Not, like, gone gone—no missing posters or interdimensional abductions. Her bunk’s still made, her boots still at the door, her scent still clinging to my shirt.

But she’s not here.

Not since everything shifted under our feet and I touched her like I couldn’t breathe without it and she kissed me like she finally figured out what I’d been trying not to say for weeks.

And then this morning?

No note or snarky insult tossed over her shoulder.

Just… air.

Empty and too damn loud.

I’ve checked the gardens. The mess hall. The Grove. I even made up a reason to bother Thorn, who raised one very unhelpful brow and said, “Give her space.”

But space doesn’t feel like caution.

It feels like she ran.

And I have no idea why.

I’m standing in front of her cabin now like a jackass. Like a cursed version of a boyfriend I never let myself be.

Her door’s shut.

I don’t knock.

I just stare.

Because if I knock, and she doesn’t answer, I might burn the whole forest down just to find her.

My chest’s tight. My jaw aches from clenching.

I haven’t felt like this since Rowen.

Since loss had a voice and teeth.

I turn and walk. Fast. Toward the ward field. Toward the one place I can hit something without it bleeding.

Reed catches me halfway there. Kid's got a training staff and more questions than sense.

“Hey, Derek! You seen Hazel? She was gonna show me the trick with the sparkle rune and the exploding ink and?—”

“No.”

He freezes.

I don’t stop walking.

I need to hit something.

I need to bleed.

I need to understand why she’d give me a night like that and then disappear like none of it meant anything.

Because it meant everything.

To me.

We didn’t just kiss.

We burned.

Her hands in my hair. My name in her mouth. Her magic curling around mine like it was made for it.

And gods, I let it happen.

I let myself hope.

Like a fool.

I make it to the ward stones. Line up. Throw the first rune at the training dummy so hard the air splits.

Then another.

My vision blurs.

The runes flare, catching on the dummy’s shield charm and sparking in protest. I don’t care. I throw harder.

Faster.

Until my pulse is all I hear.

I don’t know if I’m mad at her or at me.

Because I was the one who let the walls down.

The one who whispered her name like a prayer.

I wanted forever and didn’t say it out loud.

And now?

She’s gone.

“Derek.”

I spin.

Hazel.

There.

At the tree line.

Wearing that same oversized sweater she always steals from the laundry before it finishes drying. Wind in her hair. Guilt in her eyes.

“You vanished, ” I say. Not loud. But sharp.

She flinches.

“I needed air,” she says.

“For a whole damn day?”

“I panicked. ”

Silence.

“I woke up and you were still there,” she adds. “And I… I didn’t know what to do with that.”

I take a step forward. “You think you’re the only one terrified?”

Her eyes shine. “I thought if I stayed, I’d ruin it.”

“You think running fixes it?”

“No,” she says. “But it’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

I move to her in two strides, stop just close enough to feel her magic prickling against mine.

“I’m not letting you run this time,” I say, voice low.

She swallows. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“Maybe not,” I say. “But I’m not walking away.”

She stares at me.

Breathing hard.

And I swear, if she turns now, I’ll follow her into whatever fire she lights.

Because I’m already burning.

I’m sitting behind the ward cabin, sharpening my blade like it’s going to tell me how to fix this.

The steel sings with each stroke. Clean. Predictable. Unlike the wildfire that calls herself Hazel and the storm she left behind in my chest.

“Hey.”

I don’t need to look up.

Milo.

I keep working. “Shouldn’t you be hexing cookies or something?”

“Already did,” he says, climbing onto the overturned bucket across from me. “They taste like pickles now. Reed cried.”

I grunt.

He watches me for a beat, then says, “You make people run, you know.”

My hand stills.

“I’ve seen it,” he continues, voice maddeningly calm. “The way you get all... tense. Like feelings are a disease and you’re afraid you’ll catch them.”

“Go play, Milo.”

He ignores that. “She came back, you know.”

“I noticed.”

“Barely. You didn’t even look at her at dinner.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“She thinks it is.”

That cuts deeper than it should.

I set the blade down. “What do you want, Milo?”

He leans forward, elbows on knees, expression older than it should be. “You could just ask her to stay.”

I don’t answer.

Because the silence is safer. Because admitting what I want is like inviting the knife to my own throat.

“You think pushing her away protects her,” he says. “But maybe it just makes her feel like she was never worth keeping.”

My chest tightens.

“She’s scared,” Milo adds. “But she still came back. That counts.”

“Yeah?” I say, finally meeting his eyes. “And what if I come closer and she runs again?”

He shrugs. “Then maybe you let her. But at least she’ll know you wanted her to stay.”

We sit there in the dusk light, the weight of too much unsaid hanging between us.

“She talks about you, you know,” Milo says, quieter now. “Even when she’s mad. Even when she’s trying not to.”

I close my eyes.

Of course she does.

Because Hazel Blackmoore doesn’t know how to let go. Not really.

And gods help me, neither do I.

“She’s not like the others,” I say, barely a whisper.

“Nope,” Milo says. “She’s better.”

He hops off the bucket and starts walking away.

Pauses.

Looks back over his shoulder.

“Ask her to stay,” he says. “Or don’t. But stop making her feel like leaving’s the only way to keep herself whole.”

And then he’s gone.

And I’m left alone.

With a dull blade, a bruised heart, and the ghost of what it would feel like to ask her.

To choose her.