The word still echoed in her ears.
Sithrelai.
She didn't know what it meant. But her mark did.
The third Crownwoken sigil had bloomed across her left shoulder like fire traced in silver. Unlike the others, this one didn't burn—it hummed. Low, steady, beneath her skin, like it was waiting for the next command.
Ivy sat on the floor of her room, shaking.
Eli sat beside her. Or rather—flickered beside her.
Every few seconds, he blinked out, like bad signal in a thunderstorm. She could see the wall through him. The edges of her bed frame. Her reflection in the mirror, still.
But he was still trying to speak.
"Ivy—" flicker "—the word—" glitch "—opened something."
"I didn't mean to say it," she whispered.
"Yes," he rasped. "But you remembered it."
He opened his palm again. The shard of the mirror crown sat inside it, darker now. The reflection in it had changed—no longer just her face, but a glyph drawn beneath her eye. A binding mark.
"You said the word that started the Rebellion," he said. "And the only way to keep me here… is to say it again."
Her hands clenched.
"I don't want to bind you," she whispered.
"It's the only way I'll stay."
"But if I do," she said, "I might not be able to undo it later."
"You won't."
He said it like a fact.
Not a comfort.
---
She didn't sleep. She couldn't.
By sunrise, she was walking the perimeter of the orchard, sweater zipped to her throat, fingers tracing the sigil now creeping up her collarbone like veins of glass.
Everything looked the same—but felt older.
Like Morley had been layered over something ancient. Like this school wasn't built on soil, but on forgotten names.
At the edge of the trees, a figure stood between the trunks.
Calla.
Hands in her coat pockets. Mouth sharp. Hair half-braided, like she'd slept upright again.
"You said it," she called across the orchard.
Ivy stopped walking.
"The third word," Calla said. "You spoke it."
"I didn't mean to."
"That's starting to sound like your catchphrase."
Ivy flinched.
Calla stepped out from between the trees.
"You shattered the original Crown," she said. "Don't pretend you don't remember. I saw it in your glyph."
"I did it to stop something," Ivy whispered.
"Yes. Him."
Calla's voice cracked slightly.
"You broke the Crown to stop him from bleeding the world through the ripple. You told me to hold the Veil closed—and then you chose to forget."
"I didn't choose to forget," Ivy said.
"You chose him," Calla spat.
For a moment, silence fell between them—thick and painful.
Then Ivy said, "He's fading."
"Good."
Ivy's hands curled into fists. "You don't mean that."
Calla stepped closer. "Yes, I do. Because if he fades, the ripple can close again. The world can stop glitching. You can stop unraveling."
Ivy's voice rose. "He didn't ask to come back."
"No, but you pulled him," Calla said. "You tied your magic to a version of someone who died for you. And now you want the world to bend to hold him."
"I want to understand what happened," Ivy said. "I want to remember who I was."
"You were the girl who broke everything to save someone who didn't belong."
Calla's eyes burned. Not glowing—but bright with something more dangerous.
Truth.
Ivy took a shaky breath.
"I'm binding him tonight," she said.
Calla's face didn't change.
She just turned and walked back into the trees.
And said, over her shoulder:
"Then you better pray the Veil takes you first."
---
That night, Arlo appeared at Ivy's door.
Not flickering. Not cryptic.
Just Arlo.
Real. Steady. Torn.
"I was sent to stop you," he said.
She looked up.
"Will you?"
He stared at her.
Then shook his head.
"No."
She didn't thank him. They didn't hug. He just sat on the floor beside her while she prepared the glyph.
---
The ritual was simple.
The words weren't.
She wrote the glyph across Eli's chest in mirror-ink, the same way she'd once traced protection runes in notebooks she didn't remember owning.
Eli held her gaze the entire time.
"You'll still forget me someday," he said.
"Then I'll pull you back again," she whispered.
The glyph pulsed.
Ivy spoke.
"Sithrelai."
The ripple bent.
The Veil sighed.
And Eli stopped flickering.
For now.
---
End of Chapter Eighteen