I spread my arms wide. “Skill, Squishy. As I said, try to keep up.”
He lunged again, and my laugh tumbled out as Callan’s boat ground against the shore. While Callan kept his attention on the task at hand, Alastor watched us with quiet curiosity.
Caught unaware, Brenton dunked me in the water. I growled when I broke the surface.
“Watch carefully, mage,” Brenton teased. “So you can learn how to fight properly in the ocean.”
I retaliated with a sharp splash that smacked Brenton’s broad chest. Water slicked over the cut of his muscles with the sunlight tracing the ridges of his bronzing shoulders and arms, courtesy of our days out in the sun. For a breath, I forgot myself, and was instead caught on the reminder that he was built for battle yet still laughed like a youngling teasing me after a fun day at the beach.
Alastor chose that moment to step from the bow. His boots sank into the wet sand. Mouth twitching, his amusement cut through his sharp features. “Or I might decide to offer you as a sacrifice to the sea. Think about how much quieter it would be without your commentary.”
Brenton only laughed, dragging a wet hand down his face before clapping Alastor’s shoulder.
“Dark as ever,” Brenton said, and I chuckled as Brenton pulled me to him the second I was close enough. “I’d be careful with the threats you toss around, though. My mate is fond of treating me like a damsel in distress and would not hesitate to protect me.”
Alastor’s eyes darkened, the hint of humor draining from his features. For a heartbeat, something older and heavier bled through his calm, a grief that drifted like a shadow behind his gaze. The corner of his mouth ticked up in what might have been amusement, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Mate, huh?” he asked, voice smooth. “I am pleased to hear it.”
Shadows stirred at his boots, curling around Brenton’s feet before spreading outward, seeming restless even as Alastor remained perfectly poised. He was a man carved of control while his shadows betrayed his emotions.
We started to camp, the three of us with Callan steady at my other side. His silence wasn’t the same simmering anger of Kassidy’s but heavy, understandable given the loss he carried. Brenton pressed a quick kiss to my cheek before quickening his stride to settle his hand on Alastor’s shoulder as he drew him aside.
Their voices dropped, and while I gave them their privacy, I caught the way Brenton’s tone gentled. Something snagged in my chest, like the brush of cold fingers against my skin. The air thickened, heavy with a wrongness I couldn’t name.
For several beats, Alastor remained rigid with his shadows twitching at his heel while he rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then his posture shifted, the hard lines softening while the storm behind his eyes ebbed. Whatever Brenton said pulled the faintest curve back to Alastor’s mouth.
The short walk inland brought us to the small incline, where Brenton and I had camped on the previous night. Callan dropped his pack to the ground, but his gaze stayed on Alastor.
“Why do you still have them?” he asked, chin pointing toward the shadows that lurked at Alastor’s boots. “Magic doesn’t exist outside of Vistos.”
I blinked, startled. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. My own magic felt as if it’d been locked tight or smothered. At first, I had welcomed the quiet, the safety of not fearing what it might do. But already, a hollow ache had begun to stir in its absence, as if I were missing an organ I hadn’t realized I relied on.
Yet Alastor’s shadows moved freely, curling and twisting in defiance of the rules.
Brenton crouched by the firepit, brushing ash from his fingertips before lighting it. His expression grew contemplative, but beneath was the ache for what he’d temporarily lost. His magic was bound to him as surely as his breath, and beingstripped of it left an absence so sharp I felt it in the heavy set of his shoulders. Yet when he glanced up at Alastor, there was no malice. Only thoughtfulness and a flicker of longing for something he’d never had to go without.
But he did so now, for me.
Alastor studied his shadows as if they might reveal their own secrets. For a long beat, he said nothing, permitting the silence to stretch between us.
“They’re not truly magic,” he murmured. “Not in the way you understand it.” His gaze grew distant, caught on something only he could see. “My shadows feel more like an extension of myself. Like a second heartbeat. They are not something that can be contained or siphoned, like fae or dragon magic.”
His words settled over the campsite. Callan frowned, clearly unsatisfied, while I stared at Alastor’s shadows that remained restless.A second heartbeat.I felt it then, deep and unsettling, a pulse that didn’t belong to me yet reverberated all the same. It wasn’t a magic I understood or recognized. It felt otherworldly and eternal.
“By the gods, Alastor,” Brenton said, running a hand through his damp hair. “You couldn’t just say you’re special and leave it at that?” His grin softened the tension with his warm tone carrying most of the weight. “No, you have to make it sound like you’re auditioning for some tragic ballad.”
With Brenton’s attention on Alastor, I knelt by Brenton’s pack and slid Pebblesworth inside for him to find later. The trinket was silly, but it was mine. Something I’d made for him and hiding it for him felt like tucking away a piece of myself. Before Brenton realized what I’d done, I pulled my shoulders a little looser.
Alastor’s mouth twitched, more a crack than a smile, but it reached his eyes this time. “One cousin meddling in my affairsis enough,” he told Brenton dryly. “Teddy’s already insisting you and I braid each other’s hair by the fire.”
“I don’t think you’ll have much luck with my locks,” Brenton shot back, grinning, “but I’d be happy to give you a fancy updo.” He winked. “If you bring marshmallows to the party.”
Alastor laughed. A genuine laugh that echoed in the jungle and startled me with how rich it sounded. Then he reached for his pack and pulled free a bag of marshmallows. “Did you truly think I’d leave Respandora without some?”
For a few beats, I could only stare, caught between amusement and something quieter, warmer. Brenton, the youngling who had once had no one, had carved out his own family. And somehow, he kept making space for me.
As if he sensed my thoughts, Brenton glanced back. His smile softened when he caught me watching, and he brushed his knuckles along my arm before letting his hand linger at my waist.
