Chapter 7 Dean #2
“Jules fits perfectly in all of it,” she says suddenly, her voice as soft as the sun’s morning rays.
“The touring, the spotlight, the constant motion. It’s like he was born for it.
” She wraps her arms around her cello case, like it’s a shield she can hold against herself.
“Can I tell you something? Something that stays between us?”
Her eyes have gone soft and large, seeking. I shouldn’t encourage confidence. Shouldn’t let her trust me. And yet I find myself saying, “Of course.”
“I’m terrified of disappointing Alex.” The words leave her like something she’s coughing up, raspy and painful. “She gave up everything for my dream. But what if it was never really my dream at all?”
I take a step forward. Stop. I was about to reach out for her, touch her.
Before I can remember all the reasons I shouldn’t.
I curl my fingers into fists, then let them fall.
“Alex loves you.” The words feel inadequate, as obvious as the wards pulsing beneath our feet.
Everyone on the island knows the depth of Alex Sinclair’s devotion to her sister.
“What does love mean, though?”
She’s looking up at me, sunlight brushing along her eyelashes and kissing her cheeks in ways I can’t.
There’s a dusting of freckles across her nose like stars.
The wards dance beneath me. I should shift my attention to them, to the magic they’re drawing off me.
But I can’t look away from this woman standing before me.
Her question hangs in the morning quiet, dangerous as exposed magic. What does love mean? To sacrifice everything like Alex did for her? To walk away like I did for Nell? To stand here now, fighting the magnetic pull of honey-gold eyes while duty whispers its constant cautions?
“Love means…” My voice emerges rough, like I’ve forgotten how to shape words that matter.
“I think it means seeing someone as they truly are and loving them exactly for that. And maybe it means doing what’s best for them, even when it’s difficult for you.
And I think your sister has that for you, Missy. ”
Her name on my lips feels like casting a spell—something powerful and precise and impossible to take back.
Magic thrums around us, aching into my bones.
I should have a headache from it, but I only feel an intense sense of clarity.
The rising sun has turned her eyes to amber and her breath catches at my words, her gasp the only sound I can hear.
Dangerous, this honesty. More dangerous still, how much I want to keep offering it.
Her fingers ghost across Giuseppe’s case. “And what about you, Dean? Who sees you exactly as you are?”
The question strikes like lightning bypassing carefully constructed shields. In her gaze, I see past and present collide—the weight of Nell’s wedding invitation, the pressure of council expectations, the constant vigilance required of one of Magnolia Cove’s protectors.
And beneath it all, a treacherous whisper that maybe, just maybe, I’ve met someone who finally could see me for who I am, regardless.
She breaks the spell first, offering a smile that carries too many meanings to decipher. “Well, I suppose I should try the gazebo then. Don’t want to get a reprimand from the grumpy gnome council.” She smirks and shifts her cello case on her shoulder. “I’ll see you Tuesday, right?”
“Right,” I whisper, unable to form more words. She smiles anyway, and I feel caught under an enchantment, unable to move or breathe.
She turns, Giuseppe’s case swaying gently as she steps away. The sun has risen more during our conversation and it bathes her in gold. She pauses at the field’s edge and glances back over her shoulder. For a moment, she’s silhouetted against the dawn—half tangible, half dream.
Then she’s gone, leaving only the echo of her presence in the air.
In the quiet that follows, I notice something else.
The wards beneath my feet have settled, their usual chaotic hurricane of magical energy smoothed to gentle waves.
Like a storm suddenly calmed, like magic finding its natural rhythm.
I crouch down and press a palm against the ground. The power pulses steadily into my fingertips, matching the rhythm of my heartbeat. While I’d spoken with Missy, the magic had pulled at me—not fought, not strained, but reached. Reached for me but also her, like I’d forced myself not to do.
The wards ripple beneath my touch, strong as heartwood. These are the same volatile boundaries I’d come to reinforce, the same weakened protections that should have taken hours of careful work to stabilize. Now they hum with renewed vitality, as if…
No. That’s impossible.
I trace my fingers down the grass where magic courses, searching for any sign of manipulation or external influence. But there’s only the pure, steady thrum of magic finding its natural rhythm. Like a symphony settling into its perfect harmony and—
The thought stops me cold.
She’s a normal human. Magicless. Yet something about her presence seems to calm the very forces I’ve spent years learning to control. The same forces that are at their crankiest in the autumn during storm season.
I rise slowly. Above, the sky has cleared to a perfect cerulean. The morning mist has burned away completely, leaving only the ghostly impression of the lingering scent of vanilla and rosin in its wake.
I’d planned to spend the entire morning reinforcing the wards. Now they’re steady, not needing my intervention.
My fingers find the medallion in my pocket again. Some mysteries require too much thinking before breakfast.
But as I turn back toward town, I can’t help but wonder what other impossible things Missy Sinclair might be capable of awakening in Magnolia Cove. In its magic.
In me.