"I don't understand any of this," I admit, hating how small my voice sounds. "I just... I need time to think."
"Of course," Thane replies, but there's something in his tone that suggests time isn't something we have much of.
The kitchen falls quiet except for the soft hum of the refrigerator and the sound of my own racing heartbeat.
Everything's changing, and I don't know how to stop it.
I'm not even sure I want to.
Chapter 11
Wes
Everyone's pretending to process what just happened, but the silence in the kitchen is suffocating.
Jace fidgets with his coffee mug.
Rhett's jaw looks like it might crack from the tension.
Gray hasn't moved from his spot by the window, but his knuckles are white where they grip the sill.
And me?
I'm fixating on one thing.
Why didn’t Thane say what I am?
He went around the room like he was reading from some cosmic registry.
Gray—Shifter.
Rhett—Fire Warden.
Jace—Airbound.
Theo—Seer.
Each of them got a title. A classification. Something to hold onto.
Then he looked at meand said... Wes.
Just my name. Nothing else. Like I’m an unfinished sentence no one wants to write down.
Did he not know?
Did he know and choose not to say it in front of the others?
Does Stellan know?
The questions spiral faster than I can catch them, and I feel that familiar emptiness clawing at my chest again. The hunger that food doesn’t touch, that sleep doesn’t ease.
“So...”
Jace breaks the silence, voice strained with forced humor. “Anyone else feel like we just got sorted into magical Hogwarts houses and one of us didn’t make the list?”
The joke falls flat. No one even smiles.
I push back from the table, chair scraping too loud across the floor. “Need a minute,” I mutter, already turning toward the hallway.
