Chapter 10
Cousins
MAX
The ballroom stretches wider than it should, its proportions wrong in the way dreams always are.
At its center lies a bed, stripped of everything but two pieces of white linen.
Hanging tarps of liquid silk separate me from it, but they don’t hide anything—not really.
They only soften the view, turning flesh and motion into suggestion.
A private ritual is made public here because of old, damaging traditions.
Nothing is concealed. Everything is watched.
The air is heavy with the scent of fire, wine, and old magic. Shadows pool along the walls, and everyone wears a mask. Everyone except us.
I am the bride. He’s my husband.
He was meant to be the light of my life, in some kinder version of destiny—but here, he’s a streak of sunshine caught in storm clouds.
Mabel stands before us, her mask wrought from raven feathers so dark they drink the light in. When she clears her throat, the sound carries too far, too cleanly.
“Words can be spoken in vain, so actions must always follow promises,” she says. “The union of your bodies will ensure the gods of your commitment to each other. May their blessing seal your marriage forever,” she says.
The silk curtains stir, breathing around the bed.
“For better or worse,” she adds ominously, as though better is a pipe dream, and the worse has already happened.
She brushes the long black feathers of her masquerade mask. Up close, her white hair gleams like frost, and my husband’s hand closes gently around her frail arm.
I can't see his face clearly but I know who he is—the man I drew the night I first met E. The man from the cliffs. His face is lost in golden light, his features erased as if seeing him might blind me.
Mabel wrings her hands together. “I will say this to you, just as I’ve said it to all the young people I’ve married.
Marriage is a long, permanent affair for us Fae.
Until death can’t be cheated by waning affections or grander passions, for your magics will be irrevocably linked. This is your last chance to turn back.”
My stomach knots. “Do people actually change their minds at the last minute?” I ask.
“More than you’d think.”
The answer lands like a warning.
My husband’s hand finds mine. Warm. Steady. Certain in a way that terrifies me.
I tighten my grip, as if confidence might come from the pressure alone. “We’re ready, I think.”
Mabel nods.
“Then with your kindreds as witnesses, you will now share blood and magic, just as the gods intended.”
The last veil between us and ruin parts. We move through its diaphanous seams, the world narrowing until there is only him and me. The marital bed waits at the center of the ballroom—white sheets, dark wood, a place where vows turn to flesh.
This is where I’m meant to lie down.
This is where I’m meant to bare myself.
This is where something irrevocable happens.
He tips my chin up, and when he bends to kiss me, it’s nothing like the careful, ceremonial peck we shared on the altar. This one burns. Claims. My breath catches, my body answering before my thoughts can catch up.
The crowd roars in response. His hands work with practiced ease, loosening knots, guiding me forward.
I realize—deep in the dream, with a clarity that hurts—that he never wanted this. That I am not the one he chose. That he’s not the one for me. That this sham of a wedding should not be happening.
Yet he leads me there anyway.
He towers over me as I sink onto the mattress, the golden light around his face intensifying until it hurts too much to keep my eyes open.
He leans closer, his voice meant only for me. “It should have been you, Max. You’re the one.”
The weight of him descends, driven not by desire, but inevitability.
He doesn’t ask for permission, and the air leaves my lungs.
The room tilts. I try to breathe, my throat closing as if destiny itself is pressing me into the mattress.
Into this sharp pain between my legs. This trickle of blood. This moment of infamy.
The weight never lifts.
The layers of silk thin, revealing the smiles and cheers of people who don’t know the real me. Even as my new husband erases them from my vision, I know that this is the wrong life, the wrong body, the wrong man. That I am making a choice that will echo far beyond this room, far beyond this night.
A choice I will never be able to undo.
The panic that should have driven me from the altar, away from those damn garlands of white orchids and out of the chapel, blooms too late. A terrible certainty settles over me. Some mistakes don’t end. They bind. They repeat. They follow you into every version of forever.
He moves inside me, my dream-husband. His cock is thick and deep, but his voice echoes deeper still. “Tell me to stop, Max. Because I will destroy everything that keeps me from you. I will break the world, little fox. Every fucking piece.”
I try to pull away, but I can’t.
“Trust me. Don’t fight it,” he breathes.
The bed softens beneath me—then gives. Sheets slip through my fingers, dissolving as if they were never there, and my husband…lets me go.
“The only way for us to be happy is for you to die, flame of my heart,” he says, sounding more sad than angry—more defeated than remorseful.
Black water swallows me, and the golden light above me fractures, dissolving into a vast abyss of black. An endless weight drags me under, pulling at my calves and clawing down my legs. Down, down, down.
My limbs grow heavy. The surface of a silvery sea ripples overhead, out of reach.
I thrash, unable to swim, unable to stop my descent.
Until the rush of water at my temples fades, and my heart gives one last, horrible boom.
I wake with a violent gasp, my heart hammering. The echo of his dark promise pulses through my veins. I will break the world, little fox. Every fucking piece.
Lachlan’s arm is slung across my waist, holding me close. Sunlight peeks through the curtains as I carefully extricate myself from his embrace and tiptoe out of the room, my skin still humming with that eerie, endless pressure.
A sinking feeling follows me into the kitchen. The house is quiet and cold, much colder than it was yesterday.
“E?” I call to the empty room.
No answer.
I click on the stove and fill the kettle.
The last few days, my ghost was the only thing keeping the silence from swallowing me whole.
I shouldn’t feel this way about him—whoever he is—but the thought of him vanishing during the night turns my stomach.
He warned me this might happen. Told me he needed me close, that distance might cast him back to the void. And I still abandoned him.
Maybe I deserve to spend the next few weeks trapped in this house alone. The prickly aura of a budding panic attack ices my blood as I drink my morning tea. Without the Angelica, the taste is strange and unfamiliar, almost too sweet.
E is gone…
I reach for his lantern on the kitchen island, but just as I’m about to touch it, a deep whisper caresses my ear.
“You let him stay,” he growls. “I can’t believe you let him stay.”
A gust of heat blares into the room, like sunlight breaking through clouds, and I let out a breath of relief, shivering at the sudden change in temperature.
“Good morning, boo.”
I’m both terrified and thrilled—and terrified of that thrill. He was only sulking, and a smile threatens to show on my face.
“I might have vanished forever,” he adds darkly. “Is that what you wanted?”
Now that I know he hasn’t vanished, my annoyance with his behavior from last night comes back full force, and my eyes fly to the ceiling.
“It’s your own damn fault. Your prank cost me precious time, and I couldn’t send Lachlan home after sundown,” I say.
“Did you want to send him home?” he asks quietly, as though the possibility hadn’t crossed his mind.
“Yes! Do you think I wanted to deal with this invisible cousin situation?”
“I’m not your cousin,” he deadpans.
My jaw clenches. “I know.”
“Is he truly the man you want to link your fate to forever?”
He asks the question like he already knows the answer, and it throws me for a loop—how certain he sounds, as if the truth is a flat, unequivocal no.
I twist my engagement ring around my finger, the gold band digging into my skin. “Mortal marriages are not necessarily forever.”
There’s a meaningful pause before he breathes, “Then what is the point?”
What’s the point of commitment when it can be broken? A world where marriage is stronger than brittle vows—where magic is exchanged and shared—is dangerously tempting. Fae spouses share something unbreakable. Something certain.
But that’s not my world, not anymore.
My fiancé is sleeping alone upstairs while I’m arguing with a ghost and debating whether I should be engaged to him in the first place. I keep dreaming about a man who doesn’t exist—a pure fabrication of my brain. E is dead. His spirit might linger, but he’s got no body, no pulse, no future.
So why do I feel so guilty for holding a living, breathing man? Why doesn’t my blood race for Lachlan the way it used to? Why do I feel so far withdrawn, weighed down by doubts I never had before?
Lachlan loves a girl who doesn’t exist, my inner voice whispers.
Maybe I could be her again—if I left. If I walked away from this house, this life, and never looked back.
But then I’d be hunted by faceless men and their master, with no way to protect myself.
I’ve been hiding for so long that I hardly remember what it’s like to be seen.
Hiding from the Reds who killed my mother.
From mortals who can’t know I’m a witch.
From the darkest parts of myself. I’ve worn so many faces that I’ve forgotten which one is mine.
“What about the women in the picture frame upstairs? Who are they?” E asks.
“The freckled one is my mother, and the one with her arm around her might be the one who killed her.”
He lets out a low whistle. “Flaming hells. That’s huge.”
“I’ll cook breakfast and send Lachlan on his way. Then we’ll snoop through Mabel’s photo albums and try to figure out who this Lillivere is.” I raise my index finger. “Behave.”
Excitement and fear mingle in my blood. I should never have allowed Mabel to leave. I should have tied her to a chair until she told me the truth.
And yet, in the chaos of the past few days, I found something I didn’t know I was missing.
I’m trapped in this house, but I’ve never felt more free. Free to speak my mind. Free to stop pretending. Free to be angry, frightened, foolish. For once, I don’t have to water myself down just to disappear into the crowd. For once, I’m not invisible.
My ghost might be the first real friend I’ve ever made. How sad. But this fast friendship doesn’t feel harmless anymore. There’s a current beneath it that’s too alive, too consuming.
The way he lingers in my bubble, close enough to brush against me, and yet untouchable in all the ways that matter… My pulse spikes, dread flooding the cracks in my soul. I could lose myself here, in this house, in him, and I wouldn’t find my way back.
I’m losing my mind.