"You keep telling people you volunteered to find me because I was dangerous," she continues, stepping closer. Close enough that I can smell the forest in her hair, the lingering sweetness of her skin. "But you've never looked at me like I'm dangerous. Not once."
She's right. From the moment I first saw her, standing in that kitchen with mist curling around her feet, I've never looked at her and seen a threat.
I've looked at her and seen everything I thought I'd forgotten how to want.
"No."
"Then why—"
"But I have looked at you like you might ruin me."
The words tear out of me before I can stop them. Raw and honest in a way I haven't been with anyone in centuries. Her eyes widen, lips parting in surprise.
For a moment, we just stare at each other. The hallway feels charged, electric with possibility and fear.
Then she finds her voice, and it's stronger than I expected.
"If you're waiting for me to belong to someone, it's not going to be you who decides that."
She brushes past me, shoulder barely grazing my arm.
And everything changes.
The Ether rises from her skin like liquid silver, wrapping around me with deliberate intent. Not the chaotic hunger I've seen it display before, but something purposeful. But this time, it doesn't curl hungrily. It waits. Watches. Then chooses. Claiming.
It curls along my jaw, threads through my hair, settles against my chest like it recognizes something there. Like it's marking territory.
And it's not the first time.
I remember the attic. The door with the sigil that bloomed under her touch. The way the Ether had reached for me then too, tentative but present. She'd been so focused on the mark, on what it meant, that she hadn't noticed the mist threading toward me. Hadn't seen the way it tested the space between us.
But I had noticed. Had felt the electric pull of recognition.
I go completely still. Not from fear, but from the overwhelming rightness of it.
This isn't random magic responding to proximity. This is choice. Recognition. The Ether claiming me as surely as if she'd pressed her lips to mine.
And this time, she feels it too.
"You shouldn't touch me like that if you don't mean it," I manage, voice rougher than I intended.
She turns to face me, and I can see the confusion in her eyes. The way she's trying to understand what just happened.
"I didn't. The Ether did."
But then something shifts in her expression. Something that looks dangerously like decision.
"But maybe I won't stop it next time," she whispers.
Then she's walking away, leaving me standing in the corridor with silver mist still clinging to my skin like a promise.
I press my hand to my chest where the warmth lingers, where her magic sank into me like it belongs there.
"Not yours yet either," I whisper to the empty hallway.
But I hadn't moved when she touched me.
And worse—I didn't want to.
