Lumindellar feels different now.
Not because the city has changed——because I have.
The path to the Hall of Records winds through the oldest part of the Court, where the stones are worn smooth and the silence presses in. Ivy climbs the walls like veins, curling between glyphs so old the magic in them barely glows.
I walk with purpose, every step measured. I'm not here to request anything.
I'm here to find what they buried.
Nova walks beside me. She says nothing, but her presence feels intentional——-supportive without drawing attention. Others in the corridor watch us pass. Some avert their eyes. Others don't bother hiding their suspicion.
Let them stare.
We reach the entrance to the Hall, a tall archway carved in polished white stone veined with green-gold crystal. It hums faintly as I approach. Not from spellwork.
From recognition.
The pendant resting against my skin warms just slightly.
Nova places her hand against the door. "You'll need to ask for what you want. They won't volunteer it."
Figures.
"I want access to the sealed bloodline records," I say clearly. "Specifically anything linked to this."
I hold the pendant up.
The stone beneath our feet shifts. The door creaks open——not fast, not welcoming. Just enough.
Inside, the chamber curves outward into a tall, vaulted archive lined with scrolls, relics, and glass-walled memory fragments. The ceiling is domed with etched star maps and branches——like the night sky trapped in rootwork.
It's beautiful. And cold.
The magic here is ancient, untouched by the recent centuries of war and politics. This place remembers what the rest of the Court tried to forget.
Nova doesn't follow me inside.
She waits at the threshold, her voice low. "This room predates the Crown itself. The things kept here were meant for open judgement."
I nod, and step in.
The doors seal behind me with a sound that feels like the end of something.
I move slowly through the outer rings, past names I don't recognize——some burned out, some blurred by enchantment. My pendant flares warmer the deeper I go.
Toward the center, a wall rises into a curve——its surface blank except for a series of mirrored symbols.
The glyph at the center is the same one etched into the back of my pendant.
I reach out and lay my palm against it.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then a flicker——-
a ripple of gold across the stone——-
and a name appears.
Velarde.
The wall shudders. Scrolls rise from the floor. A sigil flashes beneath the surface——-splintered, split between two shapes: one Seelie, one UnSeelie. And woven through both——
mine.
The Velarde line wasn't just part of the Court.
It was the thread that held it together.
Until someone decided to cut it.
*********
Justin's POV
The bond pulls tight——sharper than before.
Not painful. Not violent.
But it stops me cold.
I steady myself against the railing, heart hammering in silence.
Something just shifted in her.
Not anger. Not fear.
Recognition.
The kind of silence that follows a truth you can't unsee.
Whatever she just found, she's not guessing anymore.
I press my palm flat to the stone, eyes fixed on the horizon, but all I can feel is her——clear, steady, and changing.
And in that stillness, I hear my mother's voice again, like it never left.
*********
Scarlet was already waiting when I stepped back into the sitting room. She always knows when I'm coming. She doesn't ask why——I think it's easier for her to pretend she already knows.
Charles stands near the window. Always standing. Always silent.
Neither of them moved when I entered.
"I'm going," I said.
Scarlet looks up from her seat, brows raised slightly. "So dramatic. You made it sound like we ever tried to stop you."
"You did," I say. "You just didn't call it that."
She smiles, slow and tight. "And yet you're still here. Still ours."
That word made something in me twist.
I don't flinch.
"She's not who you think she is anymore."
"She's becoming exactly what we expected her to," Scarlet said. "That's why you were sent."
Charles finally turns, voice flat. "You've lost perspective."
"No," I say. "You have."
They don't like that.
Scarlet rises, the room shifting around her as if even the air understands what she was. Her voice stays light, but her eyes sharpen.
"We made an agreement," she says. "Long before your opinion had weight."
"I'm not asking for permission," I replied. "And I'm not protecting you if she finds out."
Scarlet studies me for a long time.
"You'd betray your own blood for hers?"
I don't answer.
That was enough.
She steps closer, so close I could smell her perfume——rose and ash, sharp and sweet.
"I hope you remember that when she looks at you like you're just another lie."
I don't say goodbye.
**********
Now, the wind cuts colder across the balcony. I grip the railing tighter.
She's walking straight into the archives, into names no one speaks aloud anymore.
And I know what happens when people start asking the right questions in the wrong rooms.
She's not the same girl.
And I'm not the same boy who was sent to watch her.
But when she finds out what I didn't say——
I don't know if she'll ever look at me the same again.
And the worst part?
She'd be right not to.
********
Natalia's POV
The cold hits first.
Not outside. Inside.
A strange, quiet chills winds its way through my bloodstream like something ancient just stirred. Like something I've been holding back too long has decided it's done waiting.
I sit upright in bed, heart pounding for no reason I can name. My skin prickles. My ears ring. And somewhere deep beneath the surface of my thoughts…..a voice moves.
It doesn't speak in words. It hums. A rhythm too soft to place but too steady to ignore.
I press my fingers to my temple.
Whatever this is——it's not normal.
This is something else.
Something mine.
I rise slowly,, the floor cool beneath my feet as I cross the room. My mother's house is silent, but it feels like it's watching me——like something is shifting between the walls and no one else can hear it.
I reach for the drawer in my father's old desk——one I've never opened until now. But I know what's inside before I see it.
A letter. Yellowed with time. Addressed in ink I almost recognize.
To Ryan Strigoi.
I unfold it with shaking fingers.
There's no signature. Just a mark pressed in blood——a Court seal I've only ever seen in whispers. The words are sharp, clipped, almost panicked.
"We can't protect her forever. Not with what she is. The Courts are fracturing and she will be the proof of it. Hybrids were never meant to survive this long. If the others find out, there will be no more warning."
I reread it twice.
They weren't talking about Sarah.
They were talking about me.
A flare of heat burns through my spine. My reflection in the hallway mirror flickers——not just a trick of light, but something real. Something not quite mine.
My father's voice floods my memory, not as sound——but as presence. The feel of him. His grief. His warning. The way he died for trying to hide me. To do what was asked of him.
My fingers curl at my sides.
They knew.
The Courts knew what I was.
And they were afraid.
I close the letter slowly, heart hammering.
Something inside me is waking up. Not fae. Not just magic.
Something…..unruly.
Unnatural.
And if Sarah really is back in Lumindellar.
She's not the only one the Courts should be worried about.
Because they tried to erase what I am.
And now?
Now they're going to regret it.
*********
Freyr's POV
She's getting too close.
The archive wasn't supposed to open to her——not fully. Not yet.
And yet…..it did.
I feel it in the air around the Court——subtle, fractured. The old magic stirs when the wrong hands touch the past. And her hands aren't just wrong.
They're marked.
I pace the length of my chambers, the candlelight warping across the curved stone walls. My thoughts are too loud. My breath too short. My pulse sharp and irregular, even for me.
She's seen something.
I don't know what, not exactly. But I know the records. I know what I couldn't destroy. What the old spells refused to let me burn.
There's blood in those pages. Names that should never have survived.
"Velarde."
I whisper it like a curse, and the walls don't echo it back.
I press my palm flat against the mirrored obsidian at the center of the floor. They surface ripples like water——slow, reluctant.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then the shadows shift.
Not visibly. Not physically.
Just the weight of the room leaning. Tilting. Like something ancient has just turned its attention back to me.
"You said she wouldn't get that far," I say aloud. "You said the bond would keep her chasing the boy instead of the truth."
Silence.
No voice responds. There never is one.
But I feel the answer anyway.
Sharp. Cold. Ancient.
You tried to control the story, Freyr. But the fates write the endings.
I close my eyes, pressing both palms to the floor now, grounding myself in the dark.
I've spent years keeping the Courts from devouring each other, from digging up the rot buried beneath their own banners. If she unearths what was done to the Velardes...if she starts asking why no one stopped it.....
She won't just fracture the balance. She'll ignite it.
And if I can't stop her with whispers and misdirection——
Then I'll stop her the way I've stopped others.
Before she can use what she finds.
Before she remembers who she really is.