“Because I’m curvy,” I say. “Lucian—he said he saw me in this magical mirror thing. The Crimson Eye. And he knew my blood would be…valuable to him.”
“Wow,” Sophia whispers. “That’s crazy.”
“Yeah—that’s the other thing,” Hanna adds. “They love curvy women over there. Worship them, really. Which is why—” She swallows. “Which is why I nearly got my soul siphoned away.”
That opens the floodgates.
Questions fly. Overlapping voices. Shock, disbelief, fear.
“What do you mean, siphoned?”
“Like—permanently?”
“Are you okay now?”
“Did they hurt you?”
We’re at Tasha’s house for almost three hours, talking, explaining, backtracking, and explaining again. A few of the more practical members—Naomi, and Yelena—ask hard questions. They need timelines…proof…logic.
So we show them.
Hanna brings out the clothes Lucian sent her home in—fabric far too luxurious to be anything she bought herself. I lay out the token Whistler accidentally left behind, watching it glint strangely under the light.
“This thing opened a hallway where my bedroom door used to be,” I say quietly. “I walked through it and left this world behind.”
The room goes silent.
“So…” Naomi says at last, rubbing her arms. “Are you ever going back?”
I hesitate.
“I mean,” she continues gently, “it sounds like you got pretty close to your vampire guy.”
“To Lucian,” I correct again, automatically. My cheeks get hot with a blush. “And no. I’m not going back.”
Lucia frowns.
“That sounds final.”
“He didn’t try to stop me leaving,” I say, forcing the words out evenly. “In fact, it was his idea that I come back with Hanna. He said I’d wanted to leave from the beginning.”
“And did you?” Tasha asks.
I don’t answer right away.
“I did to start with,” I say at last. “But, well…he grew on me. The whole place grew on me.”
“Well,” Hanna says, shivering, “I know I never want to go back. I can still see that skull mask when I close my eyes.”
“You were literally being stalked by Death,” Mari murmurs, looking horrified.
“Exactly,” Hanna says. “Which is why I’m done. No more Shadow Realm for me—ever.”
We talk a bit longer, until yawns start spreading and people start glancing at their phones, muttering about early mornings.
I don’t mention that I don’t have a job waiting for me. I don’t want pity—not tonight. I’ll worry about everything tomorrow—today is almost over and I’m so, so tired.
On the drive back home, I try to push everything out of my mind…especially the way my heart still aches when I think of Lucian.
