Flash—
Bree surrounded by faces I can’t quite focus on, confusion written across her features. She reaches for something—someone—but her hands pass through empty air.
Flash—
Bree standing before a kneeling crowd. They look at her like she’s everything they’ve been waiting for. She accepts their worship like it’s natural, earned, right.
Flash—
Black Ether curling around Bree’s ankles, drawing her in. Her face flickers between expressions—vulnerable one moment, commanding the next.
Flash—
A bed, soft murmurs in the darkness. Rhett’s face in gentle light, watching Bree with adoration I’ve never seen from him. She moves with fluid certainty that makes my chest tight.
Flash—
Bree in the darkness, dirty and broken with tears streaking down her cheeks as she embraces…
Flash—
Bree leaning close; a wordless warmth grazes my skin. I want to follow, and I don’t know why.
The fragments come faster, overlapping and contradicting each other. Different versions of Bree—wounded and whole, uncertain and commanding—both equally real, both equally impossible. They flicker like competing flames, each image warring with the next.
Then they shatter.
I jolt back into myself with a gasp that tears from my throat like a sob. My heart pounds against my ribs, head splitting from the effort of processing visions that make no sense. Sweat sticks my shirt to my chest despite the cool night air.
What the hell was that?
I sit up, gripping the edge of my bed until my knuckles go white. The fragments feel important—prophetic—but I can’t piece them together into anything coherent. Was I seeing Bree’s future? Someone else’s? Multiple possibilities bleeding together?
And why did some of those images feel so wrong? Like looking at Bree in moments that didn’t match who she is?
My door creaks open without a knock.
“You look like you saw a ghost.”
Jace leans against the doorframe, spinning a blade between his fingers with casualness that suits him. His golden hair is mussed like he just woke up, but his green eyes are sharp.
“Drop it,” I snap, though the words come out rougher than I intended.
He raises an eyebrow, unbothered by my tone. “Well, that’s convincing. Nothing says ‘I’m fine’ like snarling at concerned friends.” The blade vanishes up his sleeve with a practiced flick. “Wanna try that again?”
I drag both hands through my hair, trying to center myself. The vision fragments still pulse behind my eyes like afterimages, making it hard to focus on the present.
“Just a nightmare,” I lie.
“Right.” Jace pushes off the doorframe and steps into my room uninvited, golden eyes scanning my face in a way that makes me uncomfortable. “And I’m the Queen of England. Come on, Theo. I’ve seen you after regular nightmares. This is different.”
He’s not wrong. Jace might hide behind humor and irreverence, but he notices everything. It’s what makes him dangerous with thoseknives of his—and what makes him impossible to lie to when he’s actually paying attention.
“It’s nothing I can explain,” I say finally. “Just… fragments. Images that don’t make sense.”
“About Bree?”
The question hits something in my chest. “Maybe. I don’t know.” I look up at him, weighing how much to share. “Have you noticed anything… different about her lately?”
