Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sticky silk clung to Bálint like a second skin.
Every time he breathed, the threads pulsed with a strange life of their own.
Every time he burned one, it reattached—quicker than he could move.
His right arm was free now, but that minor victory had taken a ridiculous amount of time, and every movement sent new strands stretching toward him with eerie determination.
He blew a narrow stream of fire at the web trapping his left arm and immediately jerked upward, trying to pull free.
Too slow.
The silk recoiled, then snapped back around his elbow.
Goddess’s flaming feathers! he growled inside his dragon. Try again.
I am! his dragon snapped, shooting another quick burst to burn the strand again.
This is ridiculous.
His dragon snarled, every part of them twitching with frustration. I bite. I burn. I fight!
You need to let me out. Maybe I can break us free.
No! I get free!
You already had your turn, Bálint muttered, sensing the sweat beading at his dragon’s brow. Your big entrance landed us in this mess.
His dragon huffed. I like see you do better!
Keep trying, then.
He gritted his teeth and tried again—burn and yank. It took precision and speed, and he was tired. The strange energy of this place was draining, threading through the air like invisible resistance.
Then he felt it.
A shift.
A whisper in the air.
His dragon went silent. Still.
Bálint shivered, every instinct on alert. A cold prickle crept down his spine. We’re not alone, he warned, his voice low. His dragon scanned the trees.
We no alone since we fell.
The wind changed—no longer a gentle breeze, but a swirl of air that twisted unnaturally around him.
His dragon jerked when something brushed his leg.
It touch me! It going to eat me up!
If it eats you up, it eats me up too!
A deep snarl slipped from him when he felt the poke to his shoulder.
To the left! It’s on our left. Roast it!
His dragon blew out a burst of blue-dragon fire that was swept away on the wind.
It no work! Think! Think! We get out of here! Think!
I’m trying!
A startled squeak escaped him when he felt a prickle to his side.
His dragon jerked with a start—then snickered.
It tickles! his dragon wheezed through a laugh.
Bálint scowled. This is not funny.
The tickling across his scales paused… then swept low, brushing his stomach in a playful swoop that made him flinch.
He had no more patience for being anyone’s puppet.
Alright. Enough. He took a breath and shifted.
His limbs folded inward, his wings shrank, his scales melted into skin. In a flash, he hung tangled in glowing silk that clung to his human form like a net.
“If you want a fight, at least have the decency to show yourself,” he growled, glaring as he scanned the area.
The wind died down.
And from that silence—she appeared.
A girl.
About his age. Maybe a little younger.
He blinked several times, watching as she stepped out of the mist as if it parted just for her. Sunlight caught the silver-blue shimmer of her skin. Her hair drifted like it was still part of the wind, and her eyes—clear and bright as a summer sky—watched him with unsettling calm.
Bálint’s mouth went dry. Literally, bone dry as she walked towards him. She was the most beautiful, mesmerizing creature he had ever seen.
Besides Alice. Don’t forget Alice! his dragon retorted in irritation.
His head bobbed up and down in agreement, but his eyes were glued on the unusual girl.
She lifted her chin and circled to his left, her gaze curious but unbothered, like he was an animal in a trap she’d stumbled upon and hadn’t yet decided whether to help.
“Uh—hi,” he said, twisting slightly in the web to follow her movement. “I don’t suppose you could… help me down?”
She said nothing.
“Who are you?” he tried again. “What are you?”
Still nothing. But her expression shifted, just slightly. Her hand reached out and touched the web near its base.
The silk glowed briefly—then dissolved as if it had never been there.
“Whoa—!”
Bálint yelped as gravity took over, and he crashed unceremoniously to the ground. His breath exploded from his lungs, his feet sank into the soft soil before his back slammed against the mossy earth.
“Thanks,” he wheezed, staring up at her. “I think.”
He pushed up to his knees, brushing moss off his elbows, and opened his mouth to speak again—when the air shimmered behind the girl.
Two figures flickered into existence, entwined in each other’s arms.
He blinked.
No.
No way.
But there she was.
Alice. His Alice.
Locked in the arms of a stranger.
Bálint froze, his mouth slightly open, his mind unable to process what he was seeing. Her hair. Her beautiful face. Her lips on someone else’s.
Something cracked inside him. Something deep.
The stranger pulled back slightly, smiling down at her with a look that made Bálint’s vision tunnel.
Oh, Dragon’s balls, NO!
He rolled his shoulders, his muscles coiling with something hot, wild, and feral.
He marched forward and tapped the boy on the shoulder.
The boy turned—eyes wide with surprise.
And Bálint punched him.
Right in the mouth.
The stranger reeled backward with a startled yelp, and fell back onto the soft moss.
Alice released a cry of horror and spun toward Bálint.
“What are you doing?!”
Bálint’s chest heaved as he glared at the boy on the ground, his fists still clenched and trembling.
“I should be asking you that,” he growled, his voice low and angry. “What the heck are you doing, Alice?”
Her eyes locked with his—and in that instant, everything twisted.
Shock.
Guilt.
Confusion.
He didn’t know what stung more—seeing her in someone else’s arms…
or realizing she might have wanted to be there.
Twenty minutes later, Bálint sat alone on a broad, sun-warmed slab of stone nestled at the edge of the glade.
The moss beneath his feet was springy and damp, and the light filtering through the leafy canopy above bathed everything in shifting hues of gold and green.
Birdsong echoed faintly through the trees.
Somewhere in the distance, a creek sang its endless lullaby, but he barely heard it.
He was too focused on the bruises blooming across his knuckles.
He flexed his left hand, watching the angry red skin stretch over the swollen joints. His dragon grumbled low in his chest, the rumble vibrating through his bones.
Should’ve toasted the boy.
Bálint exhaled and shook his head. “Yeah? And that would’ve gone over real well with Alice.”
His dragon huffed. She not like punch either. But she kiss boy who not her mate. She confuse.
“She’s scared,” Bálint murmured, rubbing his hand. “And I didn’t help.”
He winced—not from the pain, but the truth of it.
The air stirred. Shadows shifted. And then… a familiar presence blocked the patch of sunlight warming his shoulders.
He didn’t need to look up to know it was her.
He did anyway.
Alice stood in front of him, arms crossed over her chest, hip cocked slightly. Her expression was unreadable—but her eyes, goddess help him, they were full of things he couldn’t name. Anger. Sadness. Disappointment. Something like longing. Something like regret.
His shoulders stiffened as guilt washed through him. He dropped his gaze and looked away.
She released a soft sigh and her arms fell to her sides. She flicked her fingers, motioning for him to scoot over so she could sit down.
He slid across the uneven stone with a mumbled apology.
She sank down beside him, close enough for him to feel the warmth radiating from her skin, close enough for the familiar scent of her—wild rain and charged particles that buzzed against his flesh—to wrap around him like a whisper of home.
They sat in silence, the kind that wasn’t awkward… but wasn’t quite easy either.
Then she sighed again, quieter this time. “You want to know what happened.”
He didn’t answer. Just waited.
Alice rubbed her hands together, her voice dropping to a hush.
“After I fell through the hole in the portal—” She released a shuddering breath and shook her head, staring at Geoff.
“I landed on the Isle of Magic. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Enchanted. Alive. But I couldn’t feel the energy.
Not like I used to. It was… like someone had shut off a part of me.
Like breathing without air. There was no one else there. I was… alone.”
He turned toward her, frowning. Her hands trembled slightly, her fingers still rubbing together as if trying to conjure something that wouldn’t come.
“I was scared, Bálint. I didn’t know who I was without my ability to harness the surrounding energy. It’s always been a part of me. Suddenly… it was… gone. All gone,” she admitted, her voice cracking. “Then I met Elder. He’s… a tree. A really old, talking tree. He helped me. So did Geoff.”
He liked hearing his name on her lips. It had always felt… right. He didn’t like the way she said Geoff’s name. It rubbed both him and his dragon the wrong way.
Bálint’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t interrupt.
Alice kept speaking. “We stayed in the tree that night. There was a storm. Night Howlers came through, and—” Her voice broke, just a little. “Geoff protected me. He made me laugh when I thought I’d never laugh again.”
He protected you when it should have been me, Bálint thought bitterly. But he said nothing.
“His brother—the Captain of the Guard—wanted to put magical cuffs on me.” She turned to look at him, her voice sharp with remembered fear. “Because they thought I was dangerous. Geoff tried to stop him. He stood between us. He almost got hurt.”
Bálint’s hand moved on instinct, reaching for hers.
He didn’t speak at first, just let their fingers meet. Her palm was cool, her fingers trembling, but when he squeezed, she squeezed back.
“I’m glad he was there,” he said finally, his voice low and slightly rough. “To protect you.”
Alice looked at him, her gaze steady despite the shimmer in her eyes. She lifted her free hand. A soft glow sparked in her palm, growing into a bloom—a brilliant blue flower with petals that pulsed faintly like they held the heartbeat of the island itself.
“He showed me how to get my power back. That is wasn’t truly gone, just that the energy was different than I was used to. I wish you had been there,” she whispered, setting the blossom in his open palm. “I missed you.”
The flower lay there between them like a promise. Fragile. Beautiful. Trembling on the edge of something neither of them could name.
Bálint looked up.
Across the clearing, Leanna and Geoff stood talking in hushed voices. Geoff’s eyes—hard and wary—locked with his. A warning. A challenge. A question.
Bálint returned the stare.
Then—slowly—he bowed his head.
It was barely a movement—just the subtle dip of his chin. But it carried everything: regret, reluctant respect, and the ache of what he couldn’t undo.
But it was enough.
A silent truce.
A nod of respect between two boys who both cared about the same girl—and knew the battle wasn’t one that could be won with fists or fire.
Geoff blinked, startled. Then gave the barest nod in return before turning away.
Bálint closed his fingers around the flower, felt its pulse against his skin, and exhaled.
“I really did miss you. The kiss… it was nothing,” Alice murmured, her voice wobbling on the last line.
The kiss hadn’t been nothing to him and his dragon. The image of Geoff holding Alice was burned into his mind. He knew he was jealous. Hell, he hadn’t even kissed Alice yet! He had been waiting for the right time. It just never seemed to come.
Maybe I took her for granted, he thought, misery digging claws into his conscience.
He squeezed her fingers again, realizing she was silently waiting for his response.
“I missed you, too.”
They sat together in the quiet glow of the Elemental sun, the broken pieces hovering with uncertainty around them.
Still should have roasted the boy, his dragon grumbled.