The vines start to unweave.
Thorns that previously defended now retreat, sharp points withdrawing into stems that are already beginning to separate from their neighbors. The architecture that protected us through rest and emotional release and tender moments of connection begins the graceful process of taking itself apart.
Light filters in from beyond.
External illumination—whatever awaits outside this cocooned paradise—starts to pierce the gaps that are forming as the structure opens. The contrast between the cocoon's warm glow and the cooler light beyond creates patterns that shift and change as dissolution progresses.
Magic continues to flow from Nikolai's hands.
The working isn't finished—won't be finished until the last vine has returned to whatever origin point his unconscious magic summoned it from, until the last flower has closed its petals and released its light, until the protection that served us so well has completed its purpose and allowed us to return to the world waiting beyond.
The flowers begin releasing their final fragrances—concentrated bursts of aromatherapy that make my transformed lungs ache with sweetness too beautiful to bear. Each bloom seems to say goodbye in its own way, offering one last gift of beauty before returning to dormancy.
Grim watches with golden eyes that carry something almost like sadness at the cocoon's ending.
I watch Nikolai work his magic with the particular attention of someone who has just discovered that the person she loves is capable of creating beauty as easily as destruction.
The spell continues its cascade through every vine, every leaf, every thorn—transformation rippling outward from his raised hands with the particular grace that defines well-crafted magic.
Reality reshaping itself according to Fae will and Fae intention.
My bond mate—grief still fresh but determination renewed—demonstrates the power that his heritage provides and his training has honed.
The cocoon continues to open, dissolution progressing with elegant inevitability as the casted spell work.
CHAPTER 17
No Rest For The Wicked
~GWENIEVERE~
The cocoon dissolves.
I watch as the vines and flowers and thorns that comprised our bubbled paradise burst into golden stardust—particles of magic scattering outward in patterns that catch whatever ambient light exists beyond the structure's former boundaries. Each fragment carries the particular shimmer of Fae magic returning to its source, beauty in dissolution that might be worth appreciating under different circumstances.
These are not those circumstances.
The stardust clears.
And reveals absolutechaos.
I don't even have time to register what I'm seeing—don't have time to process the destruction that surrounds us, the figures moving with obvious hostility, the magic crackling through air that smells like ozone and smoke and something that might be blood—before shadow tendrils wrap around my transformed form.
The grip is familiar.
Cassius.
His darkness pulls me upward with speed that steals my breath, yanking my body from whatever position I'd occupied when the cocoon existed. The motion is violent in its urgency, protective desperation manifest as physical force, and I barely have time to register the displacement before?—
BOOM.
Something crashes into the space I just vacated.
The impact sends shockwaves through whatever floor we're standing on—or rather, whatever floor theothersare standing on, since I'm currently suspended in Cassius's protective grip several feet above the destruction. Debris scatters in patterns that speak to significant force, fragments of what might have been medical equipment or furniture or Academy architecture flying in directions that could easily prove fatal to anyone caught in their path.
"You almost fucking killed Queen of Spades!"
Atticus's voice cuts through the aftermath of the explosion with fury that carries harmonics I don't usually hear from him. The blood mage stands somewhere below me—I can see him now, my eyes adjusting to the chaos that surrounds us—his hands raised in defensive position, crimson energy crackling along his forearms in patterns that suggest he was ready to counter whatever attack had just occurred.
