Heat crawls up my spine.
Theo’s hands fall back to his sides, but he doesn’t step away. He remains close, close enough that our sleeves brush when I shift my stance, close enough that his presence feels like an anchor I didn’t realize I needed.
“I’m not trying to read you against your will,” he says gently. “But you are… loud, Liam. Not with words. But with everything else.”
My mouth parts, maybe to defend myself, maybe to argue, and then closes again because I can’t find a single lie convincing enough to offer.
Theo’s expression softens, though his eyes can’t fully land on mine. “It’s all right,” he says. “I’m not judging you.”
His fingers twitch at his side, like he’s resisting the urge to touch my face again.
Another breath passes between us, warm and charged.
“Harper isn’t the only one who needs someone,” Theo adds quietly. “And I think you know that.”
The admission hits deeper than I expect.
A deliberate clap breaks the fragile quiet between Theo and me, soft yet sharp enough to feel like a stone dropped in still water. We both turn toward the doorway. Harper stands there, framed by lamplight, leaning her weight into the doorframe with an air of casualness that doesn’t quite land.
“Wise words, Theo,” she murmurs, her tone thin and brittle around the edges. “Truly.”
The sight of her steals the air from the room. Her cheeks are flushed far deeper than natural warmth would cause, and her eyes, usually alert and guarded, are glazed with a faint shimmer that catches the lantern glow in a way that sets every alarm inside me blaring. The slight tremor in her stance, the too-bright gleam in her half-smile, the haze softening the violet of her irises…
Firelda root.
A tightening takes hold in my chest. Theo feels it too, his posture shifts immediately, the latent tension in his shoulders returning as he tilts his head more precisely in her direction. There’s a moment where he almost seems to brace himself.
“Harper…” I whisper gently, carefully, as though approaching a creature frayed by too many close calls. “How much did you take?”
She dismisses the question with a languid wave of her hand, the gesture loose and unfocused, nearly missing its mark. “Enough to get through the night,” she says lightly, though the wobble in her voice betrays the fragile state beneath. “Or morning. I can’t say I’m keeping track at this point.”
Her gaze flicks between us, not quite landing until a heartbeat too late. She is stretched thin, angry, raw, trembling with a barely contained magic simmering under her skin. Still, she presses onward as if none of this instability matters.
“So,” she continues, pushing herself away from the doorway with more force than coordination, “where has Sebastian run off to?”
Theo and I share a look that lasts only a fraction of a second, but Harper notices it instantly. Her mouth curves, not quite into a smile, but into something sharp, something that warns us she’s prepared to dig her way through any wall we put in front of her.
“Either you tell me,” she says softly, taking a few unsteady steps into the room, “or I find out another way.”
The sweetness is forced. The control in her voice is brittle. Beneath it all is an edge that makes the lantern flames feel suddenly too hot.
Theo shifts forward an inch, carefully choosing each word. “Sebastian said-”
She cuts him off with a sudden sharp laugh that makes my stomach twist. “Now, now. I’ve had a horrid night.” Her eyes grow heavier, pupils drifting wider as she steadies herself on the nearest shelf. “And I would absolutely love to step beyond Vireldan’s walls for a while. Breathe somewhere that doesn’t reek of rules and stares.”
Her smile stretches, soft and unfocused, a haze settling over her features that is far too familiar from the days before Locke rescued us. She’s not euphoric, she’s untethered. Reckless. Barely holding on.
“Harper,” I say carefully, stepping toward her without thinking. “You shouldn’t be out here like this. You shouldn’t be-”
She flinches at my tone, then scoffs under her breath and shakes her head, hair falling wild around her shoulders. “Please, Liam. Spare me. I’ve endured enough lectures for one lifetime.”
Theo listens more than he speaks, his breath subtly catching when the air around Harper crackles faintly, hermagic brushing the surface, unstable and restless. He straightens, every line of him alert.
“You’re burning through your magic,” he says with quiet urgency. “I can feel it. You aren’t steady, Harper.”
She turns her head toward him, strands of hair sticking to her cheek in unruly waves. “Then that’s all the more reason to go somewhere it won’t explode inside four stone walls, isn’t it?”
The words are playful, but behind them lies an undercurrent of desperation, of someone trying to outrun something clawing at her insides.
