He doesn't dare assume this is something he gets to keep.
He smiles at Malik, hesitantly, trying to keep what he's feeling from bleeding too heavily into his face, which is a futile exercise because Newt's face has never successfully concealed anythingfrom anyone and certainly not from an incubus who knows him better than anyone.
"Hey," Newt says. His voice is morning-rough and small.
"Hey," Malik says, and his voice is low and warm and the arm around Newt's chest tightens, just fractionally, and the purring hasn't stopped.
Newt swallows. He looks at Malik's eyes, at the gold of them, bright and molten in the grey light, and the question has been sitting in his chest since the couch, since the snow, since the first time he saw them change.
"Your eyes," Newt says. "What does it mean when they're gold?"
Malik tenses.
It's subtle. A tightening of the arm around Newt's chest, a stiffness in the body pressed against his back, and the purring stops. Not abruptly, not obviously, but it stops, and the warmth that was flowing through the bond goes still, and Newt's heart sinks because he's said something wrong. He's done something wrong already, he hasn't been awake for ten minutes and he's already ruined it, and he starts to apologize.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... if that's private, I..."
Malik inhales sharply. He is quiet for a long moment, long enough that the constellations on the ceiling flicker with Newt's anxiety, and then he says, carefully:
"It happens when the parameters of the contract are not being met."
Newt's brow furrows. "What do you mean?"
"It means the contract is being broken. Externally. Someone is interfering with the terms."
"Someone..." Newt's stomach drops. "Mathilde."
"Yes."
Newt pulls back. Not away, not entirely, but enough to turn in Malik's arms and face him, and Malik lets him, looseninghis hold enough for Newt to shift onto his back and look up at him. The constellations are dimming overhead. The comet has stopped moving.
"But we fulfilled the contract," Newt says. "I... my magic is stable. I just made an entire solar system on the ceiling without trying. I summoned you through a portal yesterday without chalk or candles or an incantation. That's... Malik, that's mastery. That's beyond mastery. The contract should be complete."
"I thought so too." Malik's voice is flat. Careful. "But if my eyes are still gold..."
"Then she's breaking it early. Before we can close it."
"She told us she would. The half moon."
"The half moon is tonight."
The wordtonightdrops through the room and takes all the warmth with it. Newt stares up at Malik and the constellations on the ceiling go dark, one by one, winking out, and the golden sun shrinks and dims until the room is just a room again, grey and ordinary and cold.
"We still have time," Newt says.
"Do we?" Malik's gaze is steady. Unblinking. "Do you trust the word of a woman who has spent your whole life using you?"
Newt flinches. "What do you mean?"
Malik sits up. The blanket falls to his waist and his silver hair spills forward over his bare shoulders and he looks at Newt with an expression that is no longer soft, no longer unguarded, but deliberate. The expression of someone who has decided to stop withholding.
"The coven is using you, Newt. They have been using you since you were born. They bred for your power. Six generations of cultivated bloodline, each one stronger than the last, all of it leading to you. And they kept you untrained on purpose."
The words land on Newt's chest, one after another, and he can feel their weight settling.
"They want you volatile," Malik continues. "They want you desperate. They want you so overwhelmed by your own abilities that when they step in, you'll be grateful for whatever control they offer. Whatever cage they build for you." He pauses. "And if they can't have that. If they feel like you're out of their control, if they think you've become capable and independent and might start making choices of your own..."
"They'll let Dimitri possess me," Newt says.
