Page 92 of The Messengers of Magic

Chapter Sixty-Five

I t was sounds that reached her first, the faint hum of the heater, the ticking of the clock on the stove, and a voice, deep and melodic, saying her name.

“Adelaide?”

Her eyes fluttered open.

The light in the room was too bright at first, white and disorienting, making her squint.

But slowly, shapes sharpened into place.

She found herself staring up at the cracked plaster ceiling of the bedroom in the flat above the Feather Thorn.

She would have recognized it anywhere: the lightning-bolt fracture that ran the length of the room, splitting it clean in two.

Blinking a few times, she tried to wipe the lingering sleep from her eyes.

She didn’t remember falling asleep here last night; her mind felt foggy and slow, like it was slogging through water.

Then, like a dam breaking, the memories came.

The journal, Pen’s touch, the birthmark.

The terrifying realization that she was one of these biblical monsters.

But then, cutting through the swirl, was the feeling of his arms catching her as she fell.

She bolted upright, and the room swayed around her.

“Whoa there, take it easy,” the voice said, smooth and warm, with a lilting cadence that belonged to another era. There was something old-fashioned about the way he spoke, gentle, composed, a formality of a time long past.

She turned, and he was there. Pen. Not a flicker, not a shadow, not a scrawl on fogged glass. Him. Sitting beside her in the bed, rubbing her back with quiet familiarity.

But how?

She blinked again, her mind skipping. She remembered the watch, the feeling of it in her hands, but the rest was only fragments, like pieces of a broken mirror, shards of light and motion. And then Pen’s face, his hands, catching her before the dark took over.

“Pen?” she breathed, as though saying his name might break the spell.

He nodded, smiling. That smile… he was the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on, not because of the angles of his face or the way the sunlight haloed his hair, but because she’d seen who he was inside long before she ever saw his face.

He was dashing, yes, but it was his soul that made him beautiful.

Joy spread across her face, sudden and wide, and she dove at him, her arms wrapping around him, burying herself in his warmth with a fierce, grateful hug.

He caught her effortlessly, cradling her against his chest, his grip firm yet gentle. She breathed him in, pine, citrus, the trace of worn cologne she’d come to associate with corners of the bookshop. A hint of cinnamon, too, like home, baked into the scent of him.

He was here. Warm, solid, real. He was here, with her, in her time.

“But how?” she asked, tilting her face up to his, disbelief softening into wonder.

“It was you,” he said simply. “Everything changed the moment you took the watch out of the bag. There was this rush of wind, a bright light. Then I was there, catching you as you fell.”

His voice was music to her ears, smooth and rich, and she drank it in, letting it steady her.

“I don’t remember,” she murmured.

“I’m not sure you were fully there,” he admitted. “It was as if something had taken over your body and you were in a kind of trance.” His gaze flickered to the nightstand, where the journal of John Dee rested, a closed question waiting to be answered.

She followed his eyes, then reached for the book, flipping to the page about the Nephilim.

“So… am I one of these creatures?” she asked. “One of these demons?” Her voice cracked.

Pen reached out and gently took the journal from her hands, setting it aside.

“No,” he said firmly. “You are most certainly not a demon or any kind of creature. I think you must be a distant descendant of one, yes. That you must carry the divine magic of the angels in your blood.” He looked at her, eyes shining.

“But know this, you’re human. And whatever power brought me here, it wasn’t darkness, it was you.

How else would I be sitting here with you right now? ”

She looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers as if they might reveal some hidden truth. Then she met his gaze again.

“Did I fix it?” she asked. “Did I destroy the watch? Did I mend the rip in time?”

Pen’s expression darkened, shadows flickered behind his eyes, and he didn’t answer right away. His gaze drifted past her, into the hallway.

“No,” he said at last, his voice quiet. “But you ended the time loop for me. You brought me back.”

He wore a smile, but there was something behind it, a weight of something unspoken. Still, he squeezed her hand, holding on as if grounding himself in the moment.

“And for that,” he continued, his voice turning softer, “I will forever be grateful. Because this, right here, you, were worth all the years of solitude.”

As she looked at him, the world itself seemed to hush; even time, that fickle companion, held its breath as if it, too, had been waiting for this very moment.

She had dreamed of this: the warmth of his arms, the sound of his voice, the voice she had longed to hear so many times.

For the sheer wonder of being together, two souls sharing the same space in the same reality.

The moment hung between them, stretched thin, fragile as spun glass. Adelaide met his gaze, and the world beyond them blurred, lost to the pull of something far greater than time or circumstance.

She reached for him, fingertips brushing the line of his jaw, then sliding into the soft waves of his hair. He leaned into her touch, and the way he did, like it steadied him, like he needed it, made something deep inside her twist with need.

She searched his eyes, not lost in their color but in the soul behind them.

The man who had waited. The man who had endured.

Then she drew him in, her lips finding his.

A slow, burning heat unfurled inside her, more than just passion.

It was nothing like she’d felt before, not the longing or lusting of a first kiss, but one born of return. A reunion of what had always belonged.

He had felt it too; she knew in the way he trembled against her touch, in the sigh that escaped him when their mouths met, in the reverence with which he touched her.

The way his hands moved over her like he was committing the shape of her to memory, not just her body, but her presence, her being.

He pulled her closer, breath catching at her temple. ”I’ve dreamed of this…” he whispered.

His fingers traced the curve of her back, and she shivered, not from cold but from the warmth of him, the way his fingertips brushed her skin, leaving sparks in their wake. She sighed against his lips, drinking him in like something holy.

“You deserve nothing less than worship,” he murmured in her ear, and the words struck so deep she nearly wept. His lips traveled lower, mapping her neck with quiet devotion, as if painting her into his memory for a lifetime to come.

“I’m yours, Pen,” she whispered.

She saw the fire light in his eyes, felt it in the way he stilled for half a heartbeat. “And I’m yours,” he said, voice hoarse.

He kissed her then, fiercely, hungrily, as longing gave way to fire. Layers slipped away, buttons undone, fabric falling to the floor until there was nothing between them but the warmth of their skin and the unspoken ache of something sacred.

A golden shimmer pulsed through the room, flickering light at the edges of her vision as he laid her back softly on the bed. She swore she could feel the universe tilt, shifting to make space for them.

And when they came together, their bodies entwined, souls blazing, lost within each other, it was as if the world itself folded back. The flickering light surged, rising a brilliance so pure it could have been the opening of the heavens.

For one breathless instant, as they reached their peak, they slipped free of time. There was no before, no after, just this: two beings bound together in love, in magic, in something deeper than flesh. The beginning of a love that burned like a star being born.

When the light faded, leaving them tangled in the hush of the aftermath, she lay nestled in his arms, pressing a hand to his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath her palm.

He was real. Here. Hers.

She thought of what she was, a creature between worlds, neither wholly human nor fully angelic.

A being shaped by fate, by blood, by forces beyond her understanding.

And yet, if being a Nephilim had led her here, if it had given her the power to bring him back, then she would have chosen to be one a thousand times over.

She was no longer afraid of what she was.

She was his.

And he was free.