SHIT JUST GOT REAL
Chocolate cake is pure sin. It’s the only way to explain how hard I’m lusting over this slice of heaven in front of me. Yep, sin and heaven in the same sentence. I did that.
I am sitting at the dining room table, surrounded by three dangerously capable men and one temperamental Familiar, and I am licking frosting from my fork without the slightest bit of dignity. The cake is rich and dark and unapologetically indulgent, layers of decadent chocolate sponge soaked with what tastes like a hint of bourbon, slathered in buttercream so smooth it could make a grown woman weep. It’s the kind of dessert that makes you temporarily forget you might have been magically sabotaged as a child, the kind that melts on your tongue and leaves you wondering if you’ve ever truly tasted chocolate before this moment. It’s so good, I’ve forgotten my name and manners.
The house has contributed this one offering to dinner. A quiet gesture that somehow feels profound in its simplicity. A single, perfect chocolate layer cake, dusted with powdered sugar waiting on the counter when I returned from the kitchen, still warm from the oven.
Oh, it pulled out the big guns with this one.
Coffee steams in delicate porcelain cups. Candlelight softens the edges of the room. It would almost be peaceful if my life were not currently unraveling in carefully structured layers, much like the cake I’m demolishing with embarrassing enthusiasm.
The silence stretches between us, thick with unspoken questions and the weight of Sir’s earlier revelations. Throughout dinner, I gave them the rundown of Sir’s assessment, the binding, the suppression, the magic locked away inside me. Then I quickly excused myself to the kitchen under the pretense of clearing away the dishes. Hence, the delicious cake currently melting in my mouth while I avoid having the conversation none of us want to start but all of us need to have.
Ezra clears his throat. The sound is small, but it’s enough to get everyone’s attention.
I refuse to look up and address the elephant in the room. The fact that my magic isn’t gone, just blocked and that someone did this to me. Instead, I take another bite of cake and let the chocolate work its magic on my taste buds, hoping it might somehow dissolve the knot of anxiety sitting heavy in my chest.
“So,” he says, voice measured and thoughtful in that careful way of his, like he’s selecting each word with precision. “Sir says your magic has been blocked.”
The statement hangs between us, and I set my fork down carefully, the delicate clink of metal against porcelain abnormally loud in the sudden stillness. The last bite of cake sits like lead in my stomach, all sweetness leached away by the gravity of what we’re finally discussing.
“Yes,” I reply, proud that my voice comes out steady despite the way my hands want to shake.
Maceo’s posture changes first. He leans forward slightly, forearms braced against the table, his own slice of cake forgotten and growing cold as his jaw tightens in a way that feels animalistic, predatory.
Lucien goes very still across from me, that preternatural stillness that reminds me he’s not entirely human, placing his coffee cup back down on the table with deliberate care. The violet of his eyes seems to deepen in the candlelight, and I’m sure he’s been waiting for someone to break the silence on this topic.
Ezra studies me over the rim of his glasses, the gears turning behind his eyes, processing information and drawing connections with the methodical precision of someone who sees magic like blueprints and schematics.
“I suspected something,” he admits, adjusting his glasses unconsciously. “Yesterday, when you first arrived, I couldn’t sense you. It was odd, like something was there, but not. A shadow where substance should be. Given your bloodline, I should have been able to feel your magic from blocks away.”
My throat tightens at the knowledge that even Ezra, a Wizard, couldn’t detect what should have been obvious. How many people looked at me over the years and saw nothing? How many times was I dismissed before I even had a chance to prove myself?
“Sir says I’m saturated with it,” I reply evenly, fighting to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Apparently, I’m drowning in magic. It’s just. . .locked away, contained somehow. Tied up neatly like someone gift-wrapped my power and forgot to give me the key.”
Sir’s voice glides through my mind with that particular brand of condescending patience he reserves for when he thinks I’m being unnecessarily dramatic.
“An oversimplification, but accurate enough for present company.”
I resist the urge to stick my tongue out at the cat who is now sitting regally in one of the empty chairs, his head peeking up over the table’s edge with the dignity of a judge presiding overcourt. His whiskers twitch with what I’m learning to recognize as barely concealed disdain for my lack of proper magical education.
Ezra nods once, a sharp, decisive movement. “If I couldn’t sense it, then the binding isn’t surface level. This isn’t some amateur hour suppression spell or a temporary block. It’s layered, complex. This was done intentionally, by someone who knew exactly what they were doing and wanted it to last.”
I should understand more of this. I know enough to recognize the shape of what he’s saying, but not enough to follow it all the way through. My parents taught me what they could. What they thought I needed. It just isn’t enough for this.
The clinical way he describes it, like I’m a puzzle to be solved rather than a person who’s been robbed of her birthright, should irritate me. Instead, it’s oddly comforting. It seems that Ezra deals in facts and mechanics, not emotions or accusations. Right now, I need facts more than sympathy.
The warmth in Maceo’s green eyes fades, replaced by something sharper, more dangerous. “Who would do that to you?”
The question hangs in the air like smoke, acrid and suffocating. I let out a slow breath, trying to organize my thoughts into something resembling coherence when everything inside me feels fractured and raw.
“That’s the fascinating part,” I say, surprised by how composed my voice sounds. “Why? I haven’t lived here since I was a newborn. If someone wanted to hurt me, they had a very short window to do so.”
Lucien goes still, eyes fixed on me. “Then we can deduce that it happened before you left Ruby Springs and was possibly the reason your parents took you away. They likely believed they had given birth to a non-magical child and wanted to raise you assuch, away from a world that would only remind you of what you couldn’t access.”
The idea that my parents decided the kindest thing to do was to remove me from everything I should have inherited hits me hard.
Silence falls between us with the things left unsaid. The candle flames flicker, casting shadows that make the room appear smaller, intimate and dangerous all at once.
