He lifts my hand and presses his mouth against my knuckles. Then he turns my hand palm-up and looks at it with his death-sight, his eyes shifting to that pale silver that means he's seeing beyond the physical into the layers of essence beneath. "The dark threads are denser than they were a month ago," he says. "Your aura is still dominant, still pink at the core, but the ratio has shifted. The darkness is taking up more space."
"How much more?"
"Enough that I can see the difference since last time I looked. Not enough that you're in danger today."
"But eventually."
"Eventually." His thumb traces my palm again. "Mother Nature said a lifetime. She didn't say how long that lifetime would be."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's not meant to be. It's meant to be honest. We have however long we need to," Harlow says.
"You don't know that."
"No. But I know that every day we've had since the battle has been a day those students got to practice their essence without fear. Every class you teach, every bond you demonstrate, every student who walks out of this sanctuary knowing their magic isn't a curse, that's a day the darkness bought. It doesn't matter if we have fifty years or five. The cost was worth paying."
The man I first fell in love with years ago, my stepbrother, a Magila, and the one person I knew I could count on is still here. Still beside me. I lean into him as his arm comes around my shoulders, tucking me into his chest. Two fingers lift up my chin, my lips meeting his as the darkness pulses through our combined essence. For a moment, I choose to forget everything else than just Harlow.
But this isn’t a secret we can keep, not when it involves all six of us. "I need to tell the others," I say.
"Tonight. After dinner. Let them have the afternoon."
I narrow my gaze at him, wondering why there’s a spark of amusement in his expression. "That's unusually sentimental of you."
"I contain multitudes." His mouth twitches. "Also Jade is making that stew again and I want to eat it before everyone gets upset."
24
Three Years Later
Skye
The cottage sits just off the eastern edge of Phoenix Sanctuary's grounds, close enough to see the main building's towers through the trees, far enough that the noise of six hundred students doesn't reach the front porch. I found it three months ago, an abandoned groundskeeper's residence overgrown with ivy and listing slightly to the left. Jade took one look at the kitchen and declared it ours. Ambrose had ownership contracts drawn up within the hour.
It's become something we didn't know we needed. A place to be ourselves without the weight of being the six who saved the world. Students see us as symbols. Faculty treat us with deference that borders on reverence. The cottage is where Jade burns dinner and Harlow leaves his boots in the doorway and Ambrose falls asleep at his desk with contract threads still glowing between his fingers.
It's where Rumi meditates in the garden at dawn, his golden aura carrying its dark threads in a balance that looks almost peaceful from the outside. Where Stellan and I argue about curtains with an intensity that suggests neither of us has ever had the luxury of arguing about something that doesn't matter.
The cottage also serves a practical purpose. The main building's classrooms work for most students, but some of the new arrivals need more space, more quiet, more individual attention than a standard session provides. The ones whose essence manifests in ways that scare them, the ones who've been hiding for so long that being told their magic is welcome triggers panic instead of relief. We teach them here, in the cottage's converted sitting room, where the windows look out on the garden instead of a corridor full of other students.
Today I'm working with a young man named Eli whose essence defies classification. It manifests as sound, a resonant hum that vibrates through everything he touches, shaking objects off shelves and cracking windows when his emotions spike. He arrived at the sanctuary two weeks ago with cotton stuffed in his ears and his hands wrapped in cloth to muffle the vibrations. He hadn't voluntarily spoken in three years because his voice amplified the effect.
"Try again," I say. "Let the hum build. Don't suppress it."
Eli closes his eyes. The hum rises, filling the room with a vibration I can feel in my teeth. The dark threads in my bonds resonate with it, which shouldn't happen but does, the darknessinside me responding to his essence with a frequency that makes my chest tighten. The window behind him rattles in its frame and a cup on the side table begins to slide.
"That's good," I say. "Now pull it back. Don't cut it off, just reduce the volume."
He tries. The hum drops, wavers, then spikes. The cup shatters. Eli's eyes fly open, horrified, his hands coming up to cover his mouth as though he could shove the sound back inside.
"The cup doesn't matter," I tell him. "We have a lot of cups."
"I can't control it."
"You can't control ityet. There's a difference."
Jade appears in the doorway with a dustpan before I need to ask, sweeping up the shards. He catches my eye as he passes, checking in through the bond. I'm fine. The darkness spiked when Eli's hum resonated with it, but it's settling back to its usual persistent hum. Jade nods, and disappears back toward the kitchen.
