Jack stops walking and turns to face me fully. His hands frame my face with infinite gentleness, such a contrast to the violence he just unleashed on my behalf.
“He will never touch you again,” he says, and the certainty in his voice makes my chest tight. “No one will. I promise you that.”
I lean into his touch, letting myself believe it. Letting myself accept that I’m not alone anymore, that someone has my back. Quite literally. And to make that even more wonderful, that someone is Jack. The most magnificent person in all the world.
“Take me home,” I whisper.
“Already on the way,” Jack says, and guides me towards the waiting car that will carry us back to our flat, our bed, our life together.
Away from courts and politics and the ghosts of who I used to be.
Toward a future where no one will ever call me rhocyn again.
Chapter thirty-four
Jack
The abandoned warehouse smells of rust and damp concrete, with an underlying chemical tang that makes my nose itch. It’s not exactly the sort of place I imagined saving the world would be planned, but I suppose top secret supernatural meetings can’t be too picky about venues.
The fluorescent lights overhead flicker intermittently, casting everything in harsh, unsteady shadows. The cold seeps through the concrete floor despite the space heaters someone dragged in, and I can see my breath when I speak. It’s the sort of bone-deep chill that comes from buildings left empty too long, where warmth never quite manages to penetrate.
We’ve been here for hours, clustered around a collection of mismatched tables and chairs that someone dragged in from various sources. Maps, charts, and what I can only describe as magical diagrams cover every available surface, weighted down with stones and coffee mugs to keep them from curling.
Empty takeaway containers and coffee cups mark the passage of time. Someone brought sandwiches hours ago,but most remain untouched. The urgency of our situation seems to have killed everyone’s appetite.
The group assembled here represents perhaps the most remarkable alliance in history. Silas sits at one end of the makeshift conference table, his pale hands gesturing as he explains something about dimensional anchor points. Ninian perches on a crate nearby, occasionally offering soft-spoken corrections in his musical voice. Cai is flanked by his two husbands, Kirby’s red hair catching the light as he leans over a particularly complex diagram, while Harlen traces patterns in the air that leave glowing trails.
Eerie and Arin huddle together, the tylwyth’s musical language creating a constant background harmony as Arin translates. And Ned, the vampire, takes careful notes despite claiming not to understand the magical theory.
Dyfri moves between them all like a conductor directing an orchestra, asking questions, offering suggestions, synthesising information from multiple sources. I watch him work and feel a familiar flutter of pride. My husband, the brilliant strategist who somehow makes sense of chaos. The man who can take fragments of ancient magic, vampire lore, dragon rider techniques, and tylwyth wisdom and weave them into something cohesive.
As for me? I’m completely lost.
The magical theory flies over my head like fighter jets, impressive, but incomprehensible. I understand that they’re trying to do something unprecedented, something that requires precision and power on a scale never before attempted. Beyond that, I might as well be listening to a conversation conducted entirely in mathematics.
All while my phone sits heavy in my pocket. It’s off, but I can still feel all the missed calls. Dad and his aides freakingout that I punched a fey duke. But I have no regrets. I’d do it again. I’d do it a thousand times.
But now is not the time for gloating or dark pride. This conversation is important and I need to try and follow it.
“The resonance frequencies need to align across all seventy anchor points simultaneously,” Kirby is saying, his fingers dancing over what looks like a three-dimensional mathematical equation that hovers in the air above the table. “If we’re off by even a microsecond, the entire lattice collapses.”
Silas nods grimly. “Which is why Cai’s ability to weave and channel power is crucial. He can link all the anchor points through his connection to the dragons and create a unified casting.”
I understand perhaps every third word of what they’re discussing, but the general concept is becoming clear. They’re trying to weave a spell of unprecedented complexity, something that will simultaneously seal seventy different portal anchor points scattered across the globe. And Cai, apparently, is the linchpin that makes it possible.
“I could have stopped all of this,” Cai says quietly, staring down at his hands. “When the prophecy first spoke of sealing the portals. I could have prevented the invasion entirely.”
Harlen reaches over to squeeze his shoulder. “You made the right choice then, and you’re making the right choice now.”
But I can see the regret eating at Cai despite his husband’s reassurance. The knowledge that he could have saved millions of lives, prevented a multitude of suffering,stopped the fey invasion before it began. All he would have had to do was sacrifice the man he loves.
Looking at Kirby, seeing the way he and Harlen orbit around Cai with complete trust and devotion, I think I understand the choice. Some things are more important than duty. Some people are worth more than the world.
“The power requirements remain our primary concern,” Ninian says, his voice barely audible above the hum of the fluorescent lights. “Even combining all our resources, all the dragons and riders, all the tylwyth refugees, the vampire covens who’ve agreed to help...” He trails off, shaking his head.
The numbers don’t lie, even if we all wish they would.
Kirby pulls out what looks like an ornate calculator made of crystal and gold, his fingers flying over symbols I don’t recognise. Numbers appear in the air above it, glowing soft blue and shifting constantly as he adjusts variables.
