“Well,” Sirah khala said slowly, “love spells and curses don’t create feelings out of thin air. They only amplify what’s already there. Are yousurethere wasn’t anything between you two before this?”
“I’m sure,” Riya said firmly. “We only spoke once—for five minutes.”
“Hmm.” A soft murmur came through the line. “Then how...?”
Riya opened her mouth to respond but came up empty. How could she explain the inexplicable? The idea that Kian might have felt something for her before all this was... impossible.
“Well, we’ll shelve that for now,” Sirah khala said briskly. “Right now, your focus needs to be on breaking the curse. You know I can’t break this one for you, right?”
“I know. Amara and Nyra said love curses are complicated. And the only other way to break it is if I... fell in love with him.”
“Wait,you told your sisters?”
“Not everything. Just... enough.”
“And your parents? Do they know?”
Riya’s spine stiffened. “No.”
“Well, they should. This isn’t something you can carry alone—”
“I can’t tell them.” The words shot out of her, too fast.Her throat tightened. “Not after last time.”
Sirah khala didn’t answer right away.
Riya closed her eyes, trying to slow her breathing. “They’ve been walking on eggshells ever since. Like if they say the wrong thing, I’ll snap. Or run. Or shatter.” She clutched her phone tight. “It’s easier when they don’t know.”
“It might be easier,” Sirah said gently, “but it’s not safer. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Riya pressed the phone tighter to her ear. “I’m talking to you, right? Isn’t that good enough?”
“Fine,” she said, sighing. “I’ll keep it between us, for now. Unless things get worse. And it might.”
“Thank you.”
“Anyway, if falling in love with the boy isn’t an option, there is another way,” Sirah khala told her. “But I don’t recommend it.”
“Tell me.”
“You’ll have to make a sacrifice. A big one.”
Riya’s stomach dropped. “What kind of sacrifice?”
“One equal to what you took,” Sirah khala said. “You took his free will—his ability to feel and choose for himself. The universe doesn’t let that go lightly.”
Riya frowned. “But what does that mean?”
“It means you’ll have to give up something you care about more than anything else. Something thatdefinesyou.”
Something that defined her? Her mind rushed throughpossibilities—her telescope, her position on Student Council, her routines, her notebooks—but none of them felt big enough.
Then it hit her. Like a dropped glass in a silent room.
“Caltech,” she whispered.
Because it wasn’t just a college. It was the finish line she’d been crawling toward for years. The reason she’d missed parties, skipped birthdays, spent whole weekends buried in labs and simulations and studying while other kids lived their lives.
It was safety. Structure. Control. But more than that, it was proof that she wasn’t a failure. That she didn’t need magic or shortcuts.
