FOR: Piper Bellamy.
No note. No warning. Just the weight of something carved out of my family’s past.
I haven’t opened it. I’m not sure I’m ready to.
A subtle shift of air behind me tells me Slade is standing in the doorway long before he speaks. The room warms the way it always does when he enters, shadows stretching around him as though he’s the gravitational center of even the light.
When I turn, snow melts along the shoulders of his coat. His hair is wind-tousled, eyes dark and steady, carrying that quiet heaviness I’ve been trying—and failing—to ignore.
“Not opening the shop today?” He asks, voice low and even.
“I didn’t sleep well,” I answer, shaking my head, and fussing with a jar that needs no fussing. “Or at all.”
“That makes two of us.”
It lands deeper than it should. He doesn’t sleep—not in the human sense—but the way he says it makes my chest tighten.
“Slade…” My voice softens. “About the other night. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“You reacted to fear,” he says gently. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“But I hurt you.”
His gaze shifts—steady, open, unexpectedly unguarded. Something inside me stumbles at the look. “Piper,” he murmurs, “you didn’t hurt me. You frightened yourself. And that unsettles me far more than anything you said.”
My fingers curl against the counter, grounding myself in the familiar warmth of polished wood. “I wasn’t frightened.”
“You were.” His tone is calm, not accusatory. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. But ignoring it doesn’t stop the curse from moving.”
My eyes drift, almost of their own accord, to the parcel on the island. He follows the motion.
“What’s inside it?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know. Rhea’s contact sent it.” My voice drops. “She said she’d found something connected to the curse.”
Understanding flickers through him. He steps closer, slow and deliberate. “You’re afraid to open it.”
“I am not afraid.” The lie rings clear the moment it leaves my mouth.
His expression softens—not pity, not triumph, just understanding. “You don’t have to be ready,” he says. “You only have to stop treating the truth like it’s something waiting to hurt you. You’re stronger than you think.”
The words settle in my chest with a warmth that feels like both comfort and challenge.
I reach for the parcel. My hand hesitates, then brushes the linen. The fabric yields as if warmed by countless hands before mine. Something hums beneath it—soft, patient, aware.
“Piper,” Slade warns quietly, “whatever is inside will recognize you. Your blood. Your magic. You won’t be able to undo that.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” His voice deepens—not ancient, not fearful, just thoughtful. “Because this isn’t Bellamy spellwork. It’s older. Wilder. Whatever Veda reached for when she turned from my ancestor—this may be the first clue to what it actually was.”
My breath cools in my lungs.
“Do you think she bound herself to something?”
“I think she reached for a force she didn’t fully understand,” he says. “Something outside the coven. Outside the realms. Something primal. And whatever it was… we won’t know until we read what she left behind.”
The word primal hangs between us like a distant storm.
