Catlyn stood in the circle of sigils like a queen in exile. Feet bare. Hands at her sides. And light—coiled beneath her skin like a blade pressed flat.
Her voice flowed, the rhythm familiar, like singing an old song. But when she looked up, her breath caught in her throat.
Above the crowd, on a narrow, shadowed mezzanine, a figure caught her eye. Half hidden, but unmistakable.
Darren. Leaning against the rail, arms folded, gaze fixed on her.
A jolt of panic shot through her at the thought that a fan might wander up there and spot him. But the balcony was barely lit, with no bookshelves in sight—only a few cardboard boxes visible through the railing. A storage space.
Relief came, but it was brief. Because her next realization was worse: she had to keep reading her own words about Lucen—with him watching. The thought made her skin tingle in a way she wasn’t quite sure she liked.
Her voice still carried through the room. Apparently, her mouth had kept going on autopilot while her mind wandered. Thank god.
Lucen watched her from the shadows of the sanctum, eyes narrowing. She hadn’t yielded in four days. There was defiance in the way she held herself, even now. Even here.
The words hit differently with him there. As if she were reading directly to him, not the crowd. As if every line wasn’t just a story, but a secret she laid bare. Every inch of her went tense with awareness. What was he still doing here?
She caught a faint shift in his posture when Lucen whispered,“You belong to me.”
In her mind, she replayed the dark flash in his eyes as he saw her turn around in his T-shirt. Heat crawled up her neck, and she kept her eyes firmly on the page, even though she knew it by heart.
She drew a quiet breath and kept going.
The audience didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. They were reverently leaning in, as if she were quoting scripture. One girl in the front row mouthed along with her, eyes shining. Emma let it ground her. Let herself sink back into the connection with her readers until she reached the final lines.
“Maybe I belong to you,” Catlyn said, breath rough. “But you just proved that you belong to me, too.”
Emma let the pause hang in the air before closing the book with a soft thud. Applause burst like a wave, warm and sincere. She finally dared another glance upward.
The balcony was empty.
A hollow tug pulled at her chest, the disappointment taking her by surprise.
She clasped her hands over her stomach, telling herself it was just a convenient place to rest them. That it had nothing to do with pulling his T-shirt closer against her skin.
“Okay,” she said, leaning into the mic. “Let’s do a Q&A, shall we?”
A hand shot up in the second row. A girl in a faded Supernatural hoodie, practically bouncing in her chair.
“Yes?” Emma asked with an encouraging smile.
“Okay, so...do you think Lucen is actually in love with Catlyn, or is it just obsession?”
Emma ran a hand through her hair, which still felt a little wild. “Honestly, I think being truly, deeply in love with someone is very hard to separate from obsession. So I guess a bit of both? That totally goes for fictional crushes, too, by the way. What do you guys think?”
The room started humming with delighted chatter.
Another hand rose, this time from a boy with dyed blue hair, waving eagerly near the back. She nodded at him, and he bounced to his feet.
“Okay, first of all, the T-shirt—love it! HugeBack to the Futurefan, it’s like, my all-time favorite movie.”
“I know, right?” Emma said automatically, instantly regretting it. She’d only seen the damn movie once, on a bad date. Never liked it since. What if the kid asked her about it? She braced herself for his question.
“So,” he continued, “if you could be any character in your book for a day, who would you be?”
Emma exhaled quietly.Dodged that one.Then she folded her arms over the podium. “Tempting as it is to say, Catlyn, I’d probably pick someone less likely to end up tied to an altar. Maybe Goryn, the innkeeper. He has a really good wine cellar, and no one ever tries to kill him.”
Easy laughter rolled through the crowd, and Emma felt herself relax further.
