My certainty only makes her angrier.
She storms past both of us, pacing the living room like she wants to rip the walls apart. Rhea watches her carefully, then shoots me a sharp glare—like she’s silently telling me not to make this worse. Finally Piper stops, breathing hard.
“So let me get this straight,” she says. “I either let an ancient curse ruinanothergeneration of Bellamy's… OR I give in to a fated bond I didn’t ask for?” She looks between us, scrunching her nose in frustration when she realizes we’re not contradicting her. “Some Christmas this turned out to be.”
The curse hums through the apartment—sympathetic, agitated, alive.
And for the first time… I see the moment Piper fully grasps the weight of what she carries. The moment she realizes fate isn’t something happening to her. It’s something demanding…fromher.
And the worst part?
She might choose to walk away from me to spare herself the burden.
The lights flicker. The damned amethyst at her throat glows. And the morning begins with one truth beating through my chest…
She will choose. And I will not survive it if she chooses wrong.
Chapter 21
Piper
Twodays.
That’s how long I’ve been avoiding him—long enough that the air in the apartment feels stretched thin, as if even the walls are waiting for us to speak to each other again. I pretend it’s because I’m busy with the shop, or becauseI’m tired, or because the curse still hums through my blood like an unsettled dream. But the truth presses much closer to the surface. I don’t know what to do with everything Slade told me. And everything Rhea added. Or everything I felt at the ball that I’m still trying very, very hard not to think about.
Newt is furious with me. Which is impressive, considering he’s a twelve-pound cat. He sits perched on the arm of the couch—Slade’s side—tail curled primly around his paws, eyes narrowed in a perfect imitation of parental disappointment. Every time I pass, he flicks his tail like he’s pushing me toward the hallway where Slade has been staying.
“You’re being dramatic,” I mutter while bottling rosemary for the apothecary shelf.
Newt blinks with the slow, offended patience of an ancient god.
“I’m not apologizing.” Another blink. “And you can stop trying to guilt trip me with the silent treatment.”
Newt flicks his tail harder.
I sigh. “Fine. Maybe I should apologize.”
He hops off the couch with a triumphant little chirp and trots down the hall toward the guest room—Slade’s room—pausing once to glance back at me as if saying,See? You know what to do.
“Traitor,” I mumble. But he has a point.
The apartment still smells faintly of cinnamon, lavender, and lingering magic from the Christmas-tree flare-up. Every charm feels like it’s waiting to activate. Every candle flame leans toward whatever direction Slade happens to be in. The air thickens simply because he’s in the same room as me.
And for the first time since I summoned him, he hasn’t pushed. Not with words, or touch. And definitely not with that wicked patience that feels like a promise every time he looks at me.
He’s quieter now—present, but giving me distance. It’s the distance that hurts.
In the end I avoid it. Because that’s what I do best when I’m stressed.
Instead, I try to focus on the small tasks in my apartment—the mundane ones I usually love. Refilling herb jars. Straightening my shelves. Rearranging the earrings on my dresser as if their placement matters more than the storm building behind my ribs.
But my attention keeps drifting to the long linen-wrapped parcel waiting on the kitchen island.
It arrived an hour ago, delivered by a courier witch who looked far too relieved to hand it off and disappear. The moment my fingers brushed the string-tied edge, I felt it—an old pulse beneath the wrapping. Not alive, but attentive. As though whatever rests inside has been listening through centuries of dust, waiting for someone with my blood to wake it.
The tag reads:
FROM: Archivist Lyudmila, Prague.
