I stripped off my clothes. My jeans were stiff with the stagnant water from the mill; my shirt clung to my skin, damp with sweat and the stench of the lab.
I kicked the sodden mess into the corner and stepped under the spray.
It was scalding. Borderline unbearable.
I gasped, the heat shocking my system, turning my skin red in seconds. But I didn’t step back. I stood there, letting the water hammer against my skull, my spine, my chest.
I scrubbed at my skin until it stung, trying to wash off the sensation of the silver rain, the metallic taste of the air, the memory of Eamon’s cold hand in mine.
The tears came then—hot, silent, mixing with the water so I didn’t have to acknowledge them running down my face. I cried until my throat was raw, until the water started to run lukewarm.
Then I turned it off. I stepped out, shivering violently, and wrapped a towel around myself, but the chill had settled inside my bones now. It wouldn’t leave.
I walked back to the bedroom. I needed something to wear. Something warm.
My eyes landed on the floor near the bed.
His shirt.
The black shirt I had ripped off him last night lay in a heap where it fell. I didn’t know why he left it, it was just there. A ghost of him.
I picked it up, my hands moving without permission, and slipped my arms into the sleeves. It was huge on me, the fabric falling to my mid-thighs and swallowing me whole.
And it smelled like him. Dark amber. The clean scent of rain. For a second, my knees buckled. It felt like an embrace. It felt like he was here, wrapping his arms around me, protecting me from the world.
Then the memory hit—him walking away with Varessia.
I grabbed the hem, ready to rip it off, to burn it. But my hands froze. I couldn’t. I was freezing, and this was the only warmth left in the world.
I hated myself for it, but I kept it on.
I sat on the edge of the bed, hugging my knees to my chest, breathing in his scent and hating him with every breath.
My gaze drifted to the dresser. To the small pile of things I had salvaged from the wreck of my life. The books.
The Little Sun and the Little Moon.
It looked so small. Battered. The cover had been lost years ago, torn off by a careless child—me—leaving only the binding and the raw first page.
I picked it up. The paper was soft, worn velvety by decades of fingers. It smelled of old dust. Of lavender. Of Eamon’s hands. I could hear his voice in my head, deep and rumbling, reading the rhymes to me when the thunderstorms were too loud.
One bright as the morning… one soft as the moon.
It was just a story. A fairy tale he read to a frightened child. But right now, it was the only piece of him I had left.
I gripped the book harder, the spine digging into my palm. I couldn’t stay here.
The quiet of the flat pressed against my eardrums, and the scent rising from Riven’s shirt had turned from a comfort into a chokehold.I shoved the books into my satchel. It hit the bottom with a dead thud—a burden I didn’t know how to carry yet, but refused to leave behind.
I pulled a thick jumper over the shirt, burying the scent under wool, then threw a thick coat on top. I grabbed my keys and left.
I droveto the hospital on autopilot. The city was grey, washed out, as if Eamon’s death had drained the colour from the world. I needed an anchor. I needed the only person left who remembered who I was before the magic broke me.
I walked down the sterile corridor, counting the numbers. 302. 303. Just as I reached 304, the door opened.
A man stepped out. He was tall, taking up too much space in the narrow hallway, with dark golden skin and black hair clipped short, military style. But it was the air around him that made me stutter in my step. It was heavy. Dense. The sheer, overwhelming pressure of a wolf that commanded total authority.
He paused, his gaze locking onto mine. His eyes were dark, intelligent, and carried a weight that made the hair on my arms stand up. We didn’t speak. He assessed me in a single, sharp beat—a predator deciding if I was prey or peer—and then moved past me, his stride silent and commanding.
