CELESTE
Some tides retreat to gather strength, only to return with the force to shape the shore.
—Traces in the Tide: Water in Elemental Practice
The willow stands like a mythic creature, its green-and-silver arms drooping in sorrow. Fairy lights blink gold against the dusk, casting soft halos of light beneath it. I sit on the stone bench, arms folded, but my eyes flick toward the path at the sound of footsteps.
Noa emerges from the shadows—hands in pockets, posture easy. Too easy. Like this is just a regular day.
I don’t smile. Not fully. Just a flicker that dies before it can grow.
He sees it anyway. Because he sees me—especially the parts I try to hide away.
“So.” His voice is careful, casual on purpose. “Gavrail. You. Europe this summer?”
I nod slowly.
“Old ruins, fancy food, mopey guys in long coats.” A hint of laughter ghosts at the edge of his words, trying to keep it light. “Right up your alley.”
“And you?” I push off the bench and take a step toward him. “Running headfirst into danger with a bunch of glorified Service soldiers? That’s your idea of a good time?”
“Please.” He flashes that cocky grin I love so much. “I’m the danger.”
I make it two steps before my voice catches. “Noa…”
He closes the distance first, cutting me off. “Hey.” His shoulders lift with a breath he tries to play off. “You’re not losing me. You’re just… putting me in storage for a bit.”
“And what if that bit becomes more than a while? Or close to forever?” I ask, biting my bottom lip. Saying the words I fear out loud.
His grin fades. He keeps his hands in his pockets like he’s afraid they’ll betray him if they move. His voice drops—low, steady, honest. “Then forever’s going to be real pissed when I come back to ruin its timeline.”
I let out a shaky laugh that breaks into something dangerously close to a sob.
He finally pulls his hands free and cups my face.
His thumbs brush beneath my eyes before the tears can fall.
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, looking at me like he’s memorizing every part of me.
“I don’t want to hold you back, Cel,” he says slowly, like the words weigh more than the world itself.
“These next few years—I’ll be gone more than I’m here.
Probably off-grid. You deserve something… steadier.”
His shoulders are drawn, jaw tense. Like it’s taking all his willpower to force himself to speak.
“I want you building your life so big I have to fight to fit back into it,” he says, voice roughening, “not counting your days by my absence.”
Then he drops his hands and steps back—the decision carved into the set of his mouth.
“I can’t be selfish,” he whispers. “Not about this. Not about you.”
His eyes go glassy. Mine do too.
“You are my beginning,” he says, and his voice cracks on the truth of it.
“And—you’ll be my end.” A swallow. A breath he has to earn.
“Because when all this is done, when I can be here in the way you deserve…” His gaze locks on mine, terrified and certain at once.
“If you still choose me, I will spend the rest of my life earning that choice.”
The way he’s looking at me cracks something open inside.
I step into him again, because I can’t not. I pull him to me, pressing my forehead to his. We breathe together for a moment, the world narrowing to just this—warmth, heartbeat, the fragile space between yes and goodbye.
Then he kisses me. Soft and slow.
When he pulls back, my voice is shaking. “Don’t you dare die out there,” I say, smacking his chest lightly.
One eyebrow lifts, the ghost of a smirk on his beautiful face. “Try not to start any wars without me, Farris.”
A laugh trembles out of me and dies quickly. The air stills, suddenly too quiet.
“You can ask me to wait,” I whisper.
“You can ask me to stay,” he replies, just as softly.
The words hang between us—easy to say, impossible to live with.
He closes his eyes for a beat. When he opens them, there’s wreckage and resolve.
“I won’t ask that of you,” he whispers, his voice breaking slightly. “Not like that.”
Because if either of us said yes, we’d have to watch the slow way it would drown us both.
He kisses me again. It’s heat and ache and goodbye, dressed up as “See you later.” When he finally pulls back, his eyes are wet. So are mine.
“You’re going to be brilliant,” he says, voice steadier than it has any right to be. “Burning through Whittaker next year with that terrifying brain and that impossible heart.”
I swallow hard.
“I know you and Gavrail will find more answers in Europe.” His mouth twitches—regret, maybe, or pain.
Possibly both. “He told me about the note from his mom. I think it’s the right call.
To go there. To find out what she knows.
” He pauses then, a slight smile on his lips as he tugs at my hair, teasing.
“Although Europe might not survive the two of you.”
“I’ll try not to break too many ancient monuments.”
“Leave a few standing. Just in case I visit.”
I lean into him again and he wraps his arms around me, pulling me close. The quiet seeps back into the air, heavy with things unsaid.
“This part sucks,” I murmur into his chest.
“I know.” He strokes my hair as I breathe him in. Cedar and clove and mint. Home. Even if it’s a home I’m going to have to rebuild.
A soft cough sounds behind us.
The moment snaps.
Gavrail.
“Barrows says your car arrives in two hours to take you to base camp.” His voice is low, edged with steel.
Noa’s arms tighten around me once before he releases me.
We draw apart reluctantly.
“See you at the carriage house?” Noa asks. He kisses me once more—a brush of lips against my forehead. But I feel it like a knife slicing through my heart.
I nod, and walk away before he can see the tears start to fall.
* * *
NOA
The sky bleeds into slate, the last traces of sunlight lost to the horizon.
I stand beneath the willow’s sweeping branches, eyes locked on the path where Celeste just vanished. My fists are clenched, shoulders rigid with restraint. The ache hasn’t hit yet—not fully—but I feel it coiling in my chest, waiting.
Behind me: footfalls. A pause. Gavrail hasn’t left.
My voice rings out, too loud and sharp, even to my own ears. “Take care of her for me.”
The words cost me. As I knew they would. Asking him of all people to take care of what’s most precious to me. And yet begrudgingly, there is no one I’d trust her with more.
I turn. Gavrail stands in the half-light, a shadow drawn from the edge of the world.
“She’s the best of both of us. Better than both of us.” There’s no challenge in my tone—just truth, shaped by pain.
Gavrail doesn’t look away. Shadows drape across his features, concealing what stirs beneath, but something passes between us. An acknowledgment. Maybe even respect.
“I know,” he says, steady.
I step closer. My voice sharpens further—not with anger, but the desperate clarity of someone who’d burn the world to keep a promise. “If you hurt her… I’ll come for you,” I say. “Across realms, through shadow and storm. I’ll drag you back by your throat if I have to.”
Gavrail holds my gaze, unflinching. “I’d expect nothing less.” But there is a flicker that crosses his face—approval. Calculation. Match met.
The air shifts. The space where she stood still feels full, still feels like her.
Gavrail’s voice quiets, just slightly. Not soft, but something close. “From someone who already made the mistake once… don’t walk away from her.”
I stiffen, then drag a hand through my hair, exhaling like I’m trying to keep the words down. They rise anyway. “That is not what I’m doing,” I snap. “And I already told you once—I won’t be the one to walk away.”
Gavrail’s posture shifts. Not surrender exactly, but more like…. understanding.
Because if anyone can understand what protection looks like when it costs you everything, it’s him.
He nods once. Sharp. Clean. A soldier’s nod. He turns to walk back toward the path—but after a few steps, pauses and looks back over one shoulder.
“Take care of yourself, Noa. Remember—the Service isn’t your family. It’s a leash. Don’t trade your soul for their orders.”
I don’t respond. But my breath is heavy in the air.
Gavrail’s cutting gaze lingers a moment longer. Then: “Don’t lose the part of you that still belongs to her.”
With that, he walks into the dark without looking back.
I stay, alone beneath the whispering willow. The ache is heavier now. Real. I tilt my head to the dark sky, breathing in the evening air.
The wind moves through the leaves above.
This isn’t goodbye.
She is gravity—relentless, inescapable.
Even if war swallows me whole, I will gladly spend the rest of my life finding my way back—to her.
* * *
CELESTE
Later that evening, beneath the glow of a rising moon, an unmarked black car pulls up along the outer lane of campus. Its windows are tinted. Its engine hums—low, smooth, and final.
Finn stands by the trunk, loading the last of the bags. Noa lingers near the open door, duffle slung over one shoulder, body tight with restraint.
I stand a few feet away, arms crossed over my chest, trying to hold myself together by force alone. My eyes water, but no tears fall.
Noa hesitates, hand on the doorframe. Then, slowly, he turns to me.
Neither of us speaks.
I take a step. Then another. And suddenly, I’m in his arms.
Noa drops the bag. One hand tangles in my hair while the other grabs my waist, like he’s desperate to memorize the shape of me one last time.
He kisses me—hard and aching and alive. Tasting of salt and breath and every unspoken word we’ve run out of time to say.
His teeth graze my lower lip; my gasp is the opening he needs to take the kiss deeper—until the world falls away and all that’s left is lips, and tongues, and breath, and the taste of him searing through me.
Not a goodbye. A promise.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, pulling me closer until I can feel his heartbeat pounding against mine. My fingers clutch his collar like I can anchor him there. Like I can stop time.
But time is merciless.
He pulls back, just enough to rest his forehead against mine. Breathless. Shaking. “I love you,” he whispers.
My hand lifts as he steps away, brushing the air between us—as if it could somehow tether me to him. “I love you,” I manage, but my voice breaks, thin as glass.
Noa nods once. Sharp. Controlled. Like it’s all he can give without falling apart.
He steps into the car. The door shuts with a dull finality.
The vehicle pulls away, headlights slicing through shadow as it disappears into the night.
I don’t move for a long time. I just stand there, watching the darkness that swallowed him and took him away.
Summer is here. But it hasn’t come with warmth. It came with fire, licking at the seams of fate. With shadow curling at its heels. With water rising—silent and certain—through the cracks in the world.
Because lines have shifted.
And somewhere deep beneath it all…
War has begun to whisper my name.