“Can I please go get ready?”
She nods, but her focus clings to me as I retreat to my room. The journal feels heavier than it should despite its size, and I wonder if its pages hold the truth of why she couldn’t love me then. Or maybe it’s just more scientific notation and cold observations about the burden growing inside her.
I shut the door before she can say anything else. The journal lands with a soft thud on my cluttered desk, right next to a half-finished report on ward security—one Alexander is probably expecting tonight.
Whatever. It can wait.
I emerge from my room an hour later in a mini dress that somehow manages to be both elegant and scandalous, the blood-red silk enchanted to shimmer with each shift. A gift from Dom, naturally. Father nearly choked on his whiskey when I wore it to the last Blackwoodgala. That small rupture in his carefully controlled world, watching his brilliant daughter become something other than the pristine face of Ellis innovation. Those tiny cracks in his composure are all I can manage these days.
Before Dom, I used to dream of escape. Past the wards, past the checkpoints, somewhere where my name didn’t come with a legacy attached. Silly dreams, really. The kind you outgrow like childhood toys, tucked away with other impossible things.
But Dom . . . he makes Eclipsera seem less like a prison. He sees past the Ellis heir to the girl who just wants to breathe.
Mom’s still on the sofa, staring at nothing with a focus so sharp it makes my skin crawl.
“Luna called earlier,” I say, fastening my favorite blood ruby pendant around my neck. The stone pulses warmly against my skin, already amplifying my magic. “She’s stressed about those job offers. Maybe you could help her decide? You know, since you’re home early and all.”
“Luna will figure it out. She usually does.” It’s the same dismissive refrain they’ve fed her for years. A brilliant, soft-spoken girl, who could rewrite magical theory if they ever stopped obsessing over their firstborn. “The Blackwoods—”
“Please spare me the lecture tonight,” I cut in, sharper than intended. “All I’m asking is one night. Tomorrow I’ll be up bright and early, in the lab like I promised, and you can explain whatever it is you wanted to go over.”
“I’ve been trying to show you, but you only half listen.” A deep sigh escapes her. “And don’t worry about tomorrow. Enjoy your night.”
I freeze for half a second.
No curfew? No lab briefing at dawn?
It means I can spend the whole night with Dom without watching the clock, but something about her tone sets my teeth on edge. Still, I’m not about to argue.
“Thank you,” I say, crossing the room to kiss her cheek.
She stands suddenly. “Aria—”
“Mom, I’m already late, and you know how busy it gets between districts on Friday nights.” I grab my clutch, double-checking for my ID. The last thing I need is some overzealous Darkmoor enforcer deciding to make an example of me, Founding Family connection or not.
“Just . . .” She inhales slowly. “Be careful tonight.”
I laugh, already halfway to the door. “It’s just The Den, Mom. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Aria.” Her voice wavers, and my hand stills on the knob. “I love you. You know that, right?”
“Of course.” I force a smile. “Love you, too. Try not to wait up.”
The last thing I see as the door closes is my mother, standing alone in our too-large living room, drinking in my features as if committing them to memory.
The artificial stars ofEclipsera scatter across my windshield as I guide my hover-car down from Crown Heights. The constellations don’t shift or flicker. They pulse with a symmetry so sharp and precise it feels lifeless. It was enough to make me suspicious, even at twelve when, what started as a school project turned into an obsession. I stole lab time to prove what no one else wanted to admit: the sky isn’t real.
The arcane layer exposed everything. No atmospheric drag, no solar distortion, no static feedback. Just perfectly stacked wards. Illusion built on illusion. Magic can’t mimic the chaos of space, it only fakes it with numbers and containment.
I descend through the city’s vertical spine, moving past the pristine high-rises of Aureum Quarter, through Everreach’s compressed grids, and into the rust-stained mess of the Rift District. Down here, the wards thin and the seams begin to show, magic bleeding at the edges, no longer pretending to be anything but control.
The Den rises from this honest darkness like a beacon, three stories of weathered brick and steel, pulsing with raw energy. Here the city mutates, and rules no longer hold.
I clock at least three Glimmerhunters as I land, their enchanted lenses clicking in my wake. TheWhispersilk’s tabloid freaks prowlthe shadows with their hover-orbs and detection amulets, hunting for the scandals that will fill tomorrow’s society pages. I don’t hide from them, letting them capture this moment. My designer dress is a deliberate middle finger to my family’s legacy.
The line coils down three neon-soaked blocks, trust fund brats with too much money and not enough spine pressed up against Lower Rings desperados chasing the same high and escape. A girl stumbles in stilettos, tear tattoos glinting with silver thread as she clutches a vial of deep violet shimmer.
The Den looms ahead, its façade alive with cutting-edge wards only Blackwood establishments can afford. Magitech security hums beneath the structure’s skin, each tier more complex than the last. These aren’t just barriers, but declarations. A flex of power, designed to keep the wrong people out while making the right ones feel chosen for being let in.
