Rianne
Midnight barrels toward us, an unstoppable glacier of consequence.
We stand in our salt circle, and this time everything starts smoothly. Too smoothly. Our bodies remember the rhythm from practice—his hands find mine without hesitation, our breathing syncs on the first try. The magical connection snaps into place like it’s been waiting.
“Stage one,” Stenrik murmurs. I can see his relief that we’ve gotten this far without issue.
The Chronicle glows between us, pages turning on their own. Around us, Keith has arranged the shadow creatures in what he calls “an audience formation for optimal viewing angles.” Several are taking notes. One appears to be livestreaming to other shadows outside.
“Is Carl recording this?” I whisper.
“Focus,” Stenrik says, but I catch the corner of his mouth twitching.
We move into the second phase. Truth comes easier now—we know each other better, the words flow without forcing.
“I haven’t been this happy in years,” I admit, the magic pulling honesty from deep places. “Even with the transformation and expired food and Keith’s PowerPoints. These three days have been better than the last three years with Martin.”
“A new word has entered my thoughts: ‘we.’ It feels foreign, dangerous, and more right than anything has in centuries. When I imagine tomorrow, you’re there.”
The magic accepts our truths, glowing brighter. The salt circle sparks silver-blue. Everything is working. We’re actually doing it.
“Stage three,” he says. “Choice.”
This is where we failed last night. Where I froze. But now, looking at him in the circle’s light, seeing my translucent hand in his solid one, I’m ready. I want this. I want him. I want—
“Do you, Rianne Martinez, choose this bond, knowing its permanence?”
The formal words trigger something. And because I’m me, because I handle serious moments with the grace of a drunk giraffe on ice skates, I do the worst possible thing.
I laugh.
Not a small laugh. A sudden, nervous, completely inappropriate giggle that escapes before I can stop it.
“Sorry,” I gasp, trying to contain it. “Sorry, it’s just—you sound like a minister at a wedding and—”
Stenrik’s face goes cold. Actually cold. Ice spreads from his feet in sharp, angry fractals.
“This is serious, Rianne.”
“I know! I know it’s serious, I just—”
“Do you? Because you’re laughing at potentially the most important moment of our lives.”
“I’m not laughing AT it, I’m laughing because I’m nervous and—”
“This is what you do,” he says, and his voice is different. Harder. “You joke through everything. Nothing is ever serious enough for you to just... feel it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your deflection. Your constant need to make everything a joke.” His ice is spreading faster now, jagged and uncontrolled. “We’re trying to save everyone from transformation and you’re giggling.”
“Oh, I’M the problem?” The magic around us starts flickering, recognizing conflict.
“At least I HAVE emotions to deflect from!” I’m pacing now, can’t stop moving, my hands straightening books on shelves as I pass even though my vision is blurring with tears.
Ice spreads from every surface I touch, writing angry words in frost: UNFAIR, SCARED, ALONE.
“You’re so frozen you don’t even know how to feel anymore! ”
“I feel plenty—” Stenrik’s hands grip the desk, and ice explodes across its surface in jagged, violent patterns I’ve never seen from him. The wood cracks from the sudden cold.
“No, you process. You analyze.” I spin to face him, and a whole shelf of books tumbles to the floor from the magical feedback crackling between us.
Neither of us moves to pick them up. “You think about feeling. But actually feeling? When’s the last time you just felt something without examining it from seventeen angles first? ”
The temperature drops so fast my breath fogs thick between us. Through my increasingly translucent hand, I can see the bones clearly now—the transformation is accelerating with our conflict.
“You’ve turned yourself into an actual ice sculpture! Three hundred years of ‘I’m fine alone’ and ‘I don’t need anyone’ and you’re surprised the ceremony can’t read real emotion from you?”
The ceremony fails spectacularly. The salt circle explodes outward. The Chronicle slams shut so hard it cracks the binding. We’re thrown apart—I hit the Biography shelf again (same bruise, fantastic), and Stenrik crashes into Self-Help, which still feels pointed.
“PRESENTATION INTERRUPTED!” Keith wails. “KEITH DID NOT PREPARE SLIDES FOR THIS OUTCOME!”
I’m on the floor, ribs aching again, absolutely furious. “Three hundred years of perfect control, and now you want to lecture ME about emotional availability?”
Stenrik stands, and for the first time since I’ve met him, he looks genuinely furious. Ice spreads from his feet in patterns I’ve never seen—chaotic, violent, uncontrolled.
“At least I’m not so terrified of sincerity that I turn our soul-bonding into a stand-up routine!”
“At least I’m not so emotionally constipated that I make winter look warm and fuzzy!”
“You minimize everything important with humor!”
“You freeze everything important with control!”
“Like you feel? By making jokes about transformation? About the ceremony? About us?”
The accusation lands, and the air goes thin. I flinch. “I joke because I care too much, not too little!”
“That makes no sense—”
“It makes perfect sense! I joke because if I don’t, I’ll cry! I joke because—” My voice cracks. “Because I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want this to work and humor is my armor!”
The library goes silent. Even the shadow creatures stop rustling. Keith freezes mid-PowerPoint gesture.
“And you?” I continue. “You’ve got three centuries of armor made of ice and distance! When something matters, you analyze it to death! You turn feelings into flow charts!”
“I don’t—”
“You do! You’ve probably got a mental spreadsheet about our relationship! Column A: reasons this is logical. Column B: reasons this is illogical. Column C: optimal outcomes based on careful analysis!”
“That’s not—” He stops. His ear twitches. “That’s partially accurate.”
“See?”
“But I’m trying to change!”
“And I’m trying to be serious! But we both suck at it!”
We stand there, both breathing hard, the library in chaos around us. Ice everywhere from his lost control. Books scattered from the magical explosion. My frost patterns spell out words I didn’t mean to write: SCARED SCARED SCARED.
I look at my hands—I can see through them completely now. Like looking through frosted glass. “Stenrik, why am I translucent?!”
He looks at his own hands, and I realize—he’s slightly see-through too. “Why are YOUR edges blurry?!”
Keith slides over, completely solid now, almost human-looking except for his darkness. “Keith achieved full integration! Very satisfying transition!”
“We’re becoming shadow creatures,” Stenrik says quietly.
“Corporate shadow creatures,” I correct, horrified.
“Perhaps,” Keith says tentatively, “Keith could present a slideshow about acceptance?”
“NOT NOW, KEITH!” we both scream.
Keith retreats to the conference room, shadow creatures scattering. “Keith will prepare materials for later discussion!”
I sink onto the floor, exhausted. Stenrik stays standing, rigid with control again, ice still spreading in fractals around his feet.
“When we kissed during practice,” I say quietly, “that felt real. We weren’t trying so hard.”
“That was different.”
“Why? Because the stakes were lower?”
“Because we weren’t performing a magical ceremony that requires absolute emotional honesty.”
He stops. Considers. “Though you’re right. That was more honest than this.”
“The ceremony requires—”
“The ceremony requires us to be different people,” I finish. “People who can be sincere without armor. People who can feel without analyzing. People we don’t know how to be.”
Silence stretches between us. Outside, I can hear the storm getting worse. Through my translucent hand, I can see the frost patterns still writing my fears.
“I don’t know how to be different,” Stenrik says finally.
“Neither do I.”
“So we’re going to fail. Again.”
“Probably.”
“Everyone’s going to become shadow creatures.”
“Probably.”
“Because I can’t feel properly and you can’t stop joking.”
“That about sums it up.”
From the basement, the stone’s voice rumbles: “THE STONE IS DISAPPOINTED BUT NOT SURPRISED!”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence!” I shout back.
“THE STONE HAS BEEN WATCHING YOU BOTH! YOU’RE LIKE A ROMANTIC COMEDY WHERE THE LEADS NEED THERAPY!”
“We don’t have time for therapy!”
“THE STONE IS AWARE! THE STONE SUGGESTS RADICAL ACCEPTANCE INSTEAD!”
“What?”
“ACCEPT YOUR FLAWS! USE THEM! THE CEREMONY DOESN’T REQUIRE PERFECTION, IT REQUIRES TRUTH!”
I look at Stenrik. He looks at me. We’re both disasters, both broken in opposite ways. Both becoming translucent shadow creatures because we can’t get out of our own way.
Maybe that’s the point.
“One more try?” I ask. “The solstice. Our last chance.”
“One more,” he agrees.
“But this time, we don’t try to be different. We try to be ourselves.”
“Armor and all,” he agrees.
We have one day to figure out what that means.
I wake up on the floor of Poetry, sprawled between overturned shelves. My neck feels like someone tried to unscrew my head. I can see my bones through my skin—not faint anymore, but clear as an X-ray beneath cloudy glass. Worse than yesterday.
Stenrik’s awake somewhere nearby. I know because the frost patterns on the windows keep shifting from controlled fractals to chaotic spirals—his version of tossing and turning.
There’s a bowl of soup next to me, still warm, with a note: “I’m sorry. -S”
The handwriting is perfect, formal. Three centuries of practice in every letter. I touch the paper and feel an echo of his regret.