Page 56 of Moth to a Flame

Then the moon came out from behind the clouds, and soft silver light filled the greenhouse. From every crack in the flagstone, silver dust—no, not dust—pollen rose in a cloud between us. Hawk’s wings froze, and wind from an invisible hand shaped the cloud first into a flower with dozens of petals that unfurled slowly, revealing a wide, youthful face with high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes.

Then she disappeared, and the pollen swirled around us booth, the breeze warm like the touch of a gentle hand. In my ear, I heard the song spoken by a native tongue for the first time.

And I finally understood it.

The whole, not the parts.

And then, one last prayer.

Be brave, Lucia.

The dark vines around my throat flailed, trying and failing to disperse the pollen around me. I inhaled deeply and spoke the truth of my heart for the first time.

“Hawk, I—I don’t want you to go. At least, not forever. I want you to be able to run your business and go where you want and be free, like you need to be. But…I want you to come back. I want you to eat all my honey, and I want you to help me in the garden, and I want you to sleep in my bed so in the morning I can wake up and see you sleeping peacefully, see you happy and not weighed down.”

Tears rose in my eyes and bubbled out, and I didn’t try to stop them. Not this time. Because they were honest too. Then something cracked—not in me, but in the air, like lightning. My truth left my lips, the eyebright at the circle’s edge flared white, and the black vine at my throat split, withering to ash. It shrieked, tightening elsewhere, but nothing could stop me now.

“And…I’m scared, Hawk. I’m so fucking scared that I’ll break this spell and you’ll leave and I’ll never see you again. I’m so scared that I can’t break this spell, that I’ll fail again, and then you’ll be stuck with me and you’ll hate me, and the thought of that is worse than any curse. I—I need to break my curse so you aren’t stuck in this half-life. So stop fighting me!”

Understanding dawned across his face, and then that perfect, shy smile broke through.

“Lucia, you can see straight into my heart, and you still think I’m going to leave?”

I wasn’t just crying. It was full-on sobbing, and the silver vines wrapped tighter around us both until I heard snapping.

“Nobody stays. I was always too much. Too loud, too bossy, too arrogant. I was never very good with people…always saying the wrong thing, even before the curse. You shouldn’t want to.”

He chuckled softly.

“You’re not arrogant, you’re brilliant. You’ve pulled off in a few days what most people would take years to decipher. And you are good. You’ve already done so much good. Some people are good at talking, but if we want to be better, someone needs to be able to do the thing, not just talk about it.”

The silver vines snapped again, and suddenly we were chest to chest. “And I think you’ve noticed, I like when you’re bossy. Like, really like it.”

I laughed, half choking around my tears. He was so good. So good, he’d lit a spark inside me and fanned it into a flame, and it made me want to be brave. It made me want to hope there could be a future outside of this house and these walls. A future—with him.

I looked deep into his crimson eyes, and the words still stuck in my throat like they’d been caught in a spider’s web. But he knew just what to do.

“Don’t you see? It was never about those damn candles. It was always you. You’ve got a light inside you so bright I haven’t been able to look away. I’ve haven’t been able to resist you since the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

“Hawk…”

“Like a moth to a flame, Lucia.”

There it was. The dam in my chest broke, and I laughed and laughed like a maniac.

“That is so fucking cheesy,” I said as hope burned away all the darkness that had been holding me down for years.

“But you love it.” He gave me that beautiful, soft smile.

I leaned in and gently placed my forehead against his. “Yes, I love you, Hawk Mothgomery Acheron. I love you, and I need to break this bond so that maybe one day you can love me too.”

“Already do. For such a smart witch, you sure are oblivious.”

Before I could retort, an explosion like a sonic boom shattered every window in my greenhouse. The Moon Queen’s silver vines grew longer and longer, wrapping around the gnarled vines of my curse. It fought, thrashing and screaming, but as the silver beat with our shared heartbeats, nothing could stop it. It crushed the curse, snapping it into twigs that rotted and dried into ash on the floor.

They attacked the final, thickest, oldest vine around my chest, and as they struggled, Hawk freed his arms and pulled me into a kiss. I kissed him back like he was my everything, because he was. He had been my hope in the dark, soft but unbreakable. Because strength wasn’t found in dominance but in mutual surrender and care.

The final vine snapped, and I leaned back to take my first free breath in five years. He was beaming.