“I didn’t think I could feel like this,” she whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like it’s really mine again. My body. My breath.”
“It always was,” I said. “But now? So is your future.”
She nodded, slow and certain, and I knew right then. She would be okay.
Not today. Not fully. Buteventually.
And the first brick of the new life she deserved had just been set.
Krina’s steps were unsteady at first, and Mys helped her take the next.
The tether had only just been severed, and even if her body was whole and unharmed. Dark magic had a way of coating deeply like soot. She leaned slightly into my side as we left the room, her fingers clutching the edge of her shirt like she didn’t know what to do with the weightlessness.
Krina had been bound so long that freedom probably felt unnatural. Keegan, Nova, Twobble, Bella, and Ardetia stayed behind.
But she didn’t ask to stop. She walked beside me and her sister down the corridor, past the old stone archways and firelit sconces, toward the hum of the banquet hall ahead.
Laughter echoed faintly, punctuated by the occasional dramatic groan and clatter of mugs on wood. It was the sound of life. Of women living in their magic, their messiness, their midlives, fully and freely.
I glanced at Krina as we neared the threshold. Her lips were parted slightly, like she was almost afraid to cross into that joy.
“You’re allowed,” I murmured.
She looked at me. “I don’t know who I am without him.”
“That’s the best part,” I said. “You get to find out.”
She exhaled, shaky but ready.
We stepped through the archway into a burst of candlelight and chatter. The long tables were still half-filled with students deep in conversation, nibbling on whatever sweets remained, and trading theories about classes and whose spell had backfired the most spectacularly.
Opal was gesturing with a purple feather quill, arguing animatedly about whether Bella’s fox form had winked at her, and Mara was surrounded by a group laughing over a burned workbook she’d turned into a hat. Someone had enchanted a lemon tart to orbit Vivienne’s head like a moon.
Krina stopped cold.
And then, before nerves could settle back in, Mara spotted her.
“Oh, hey!” she called, waving her in with a flourish. “Did you find the pudding I hid in the tea cart?”
Krina blinked. “You… hid pudding?”
“I’m playing a trick on Twobble,” Mara said with faux dignity.
A few students chuckled, and someone scooted over to make room.
Krina looked at me once more, and I gave her a nod.
The sisters walked forward, and just like that, they were surrounded —not smothered, not examined, butincluded.
A mug of spiced tea appeared in front of her. Someone asked if she wanted extra nutmeg. Vivienne reached for her hand and squeezed it like they’d been friends for years.
I watched her slide into the group, her shoulders still tense but her eyes wide with something like… wonder.
It filled me.
