He stepped closer, cutting off the space between us, and the shadow around him thickened, coiling like it used to.
“Last time you came for me,” he said quietly.
The words felt wrong. Too polished. Too rehearsed.
“I came because it was the right thing,” I said. “Not because of you.”
His laugh was low and dismissive. “Tell yourself that if it helps.”
Anger sparked inside me. “You don’t get to rewrite my choices.”
“And you don’t get to rewrite mine,” he countered. “I won’t sit quietly in your Academy while the Priestess circles. I won’t be your project.”
“You aren’t a project,” I said. “You are a responsibility.”
His brows lifted. “Listen to yourself.”
The world shuddered, the edges of the dream flickered between the Hollows, Stonewick’s familiar lines, and Shadowick’s impossible angles. The shift made my stomach drop.
“This is exactly why she is right about you,” Gideon said suddenly.
The words hit too cleanly.
“Who?” I asked, though I already knew.
“The Priestess,” he replied, and now the smile was wrong in a way that made my skin crawl. “She always said you’d try to cage what you couldn’t understand.”
Ice slid down my spine.
“You haven’t talked about her like that,” I said slowly. “You never have.”
He shrugged. “People change.”
“No,” I whispered. “This isn’t change.”
His gaze sharpened to a predatory expression. “
You could’ve chosen differently, Maeve. You still could. All of this, Stonewick, the Academy, the rules, you cling to them because you were afraid of what you’d be without them.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” He stepped closer again, and the air hummed with old magic, heavy and seductive. “You feel it too. The pull. The understanding. You and I were never meant to play by their other people’s rules.”
My heart hammered. “Stop.”
He didn’t.
“You should’ve come with me,” he continued, voice velvet-smooth, echoing with something that felt borrowed. “You always should’ve been with me. You and I could have rewritten everything. Together, we could have out-tricked the Priestess, and maybe the Priestess saw that. Maybe she is right to push you.”
The realization hit like cold water.
This wasn’t Gideon.
Not fully.
I took a step back, shaking my head. “You wouldn’t say that.”
His eyes darkened. “Wouldn’t I?”
