Chapter 12 What Jealousy Builds
The door slams with enough force to rattle the windows, and I want to scream.
My gaze snags on the two journals abandoned on the desk, Mother’s final offering and Dom’s illicit gift, both discarded, as everything she touches always is.
That’s what Aria does: consume, abandon, forget. Always taking. Never giving back.
My fingers tremble as I gather them, the leather smooth and cool against my palms. Mother’s journal still carries the faintest trace of jasmine, so delicate I can’t tell if it’s real or if my grief is trying to perfume the air.
Aria has the audacity to leave these here, scattered among her chaos as if they mean nothing.
As if Mother’s final words, her last gift, are another burden to abandon.
As if every secret I would have treasured is just something else for her to throw away.
Was it only birth order? Those three measly years that made Aria the chosen one. And me . . . what? The spare? The afterthought? The daughter nobody bothered to want?
Memories I’ve tried to bury claw their way back, each one a fresh wound.
My first day at the Academy. Girls cried into their mothers’ arms while I stood alone, straightening my uniform with shaking hands.
Mother and Father were at the lab with Aria.
Teaching her the secrets I’d spend years trying to reconstruct from shadows.
Always the lab. Always with Aria. As if proximity to their perfect child could erase the inconvenience of having another.
The garden. I was twelve. Blood slicked down my leg, soaking through the shredded stockings Mother loved.
I screamed until my throat cracked. Nobody came.
No one bothered to look. It was Helena, our housekeeper, who found me.
She cleaned the wound while the others stayed behind sealed doors, conducting “critical research.”
The scar is still there. Proof that even bleeding wasn’t enough to matter.
My sixteenth birthday. I bought myself a vanilla cake with buttercream, decorated by a bakery lady who looked at me with such pity it curdled in my gut.
I lit a single candle and watched it melt into the frosting, devouring the delicate sugar roses as if rot had bloomed beneath the surface.
Six hours I sat there, whispering excuses, one after another, clinging to any reason they hadn’t come.
The next morning, Aria found me and launched into a two-hour rant about Dom, never once noticing the tear tracks on my cheeks, or asking why my eyes were swollen. I threw the cake up between classes. It tasted of ash and failure.
Luka. Kissing me behind the library, his lips still warm when he whispered, “Is Aria seeing anyone?” I’d heard it before. Different names, same question. Boys who kissed me while chasing her ghost. That night, I scrubbed my mouth raw, trying to erase a kiss that was never mine.
My bracelet pulses with magic, heat flaring as papers whip across the room. I don’t stop it. The storm inside me is decades deep and rising, built from years of being the second draft of someone else’s life.
Father’s birthday. I’d made him a card by hand, practiced the words until they bled on my tongue. But he spent the evening with Aria, Mother, and the Darkmoor family. It never left my pocket. Just sat there, crushed and forgotten, until I lit the match and watched it curl to ash in the sink.
“Lower your voice, Luna.”
“Sit straighter, Luna.”
“Be more ladylike, Luna.”
Always correction. Never affection.
While Aria could slam doors, skip dinners, throw tantrums, and they called it spirit. Fire. Strength. I learned to shrink, to polish myself into the perfect daughter, sculpted from silence and sharp edges. But it was never enough. I was never enough.
The journal bites into my palm, knuckles bleached bone-white.
I knew everything about Dom—his favorite drinks, his cruel habits, every gnarled fracture—because Aria never shut up about him.
Her heartbreaks consumed all the air in the room.
But when Thomas broke me at seventeen, she didn’t notice.
Never saw the hollowness in my eyes, the skipped meals, the way I recoiled every time he passed me in the halls.
She was too busy dissecting her own wounds to see her sister bleeding out beside her.
The memory that haunts me most is the one that repeats itself the quietest—lying awake at night, whispering into the wall, pretending Aria could hear me.
Pretending she cared. I invented conversations we’d never have.
Imagined a version of her slipping into my room, crawling beneath the blankets like sisters do in the stories.
But nothing ever crossed that wall except her voice, soft with affection, murmuring to Dom over her AetherLink, living a life I was never part of.
And now she dares accuse me of betrayal? She, who inherited everything—our parents’ love, their legacy, even their last words. And still, it isn’t enough. She has to tear it all down, burn through every thread they abandoned, while I choke on dust and echo, desperate to be seen.
My magic lashes out again, and this time I let it. Glass fractures. Paper scatters. Years of silence split at the seams. I am done being invisible. I won’t play the good daughter, the quiet sister, the flawless silhouette behind someone else’s flame. It’s my turn now.
I pull out the AetherLink, my thumb hovering above Alexander’s name. For a moment, I hesitate. A part of me—small, foolish—had still hoped . . . but no. That fantasy died the second Aria walked away.
I had crafted the perfect answer. I would continue the work she never wanted. I would carry the legacy, and preserve our parents’ brilliance while she pursued whatever freedom she craved. We could have helped each other, fixed our broken relationship, become the sisters we should have been.
But Aria chose conspiracy theories instead, risking everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve built—from the trust Alexander placed in me, to the way he looks at me, not as an obligation but as potential. I will not let her destroy that, not when someone finally sees me.
The call connects on the first ring.
“Luna.” Alexander’s voice flows warm and thick, steeped in concern. The way he says my name—like I matter, as if I’m worth his time—steadies my resolve. “Is everything alright?”
“No,” I say quietly, curling my fingers tighter around the journals. “Nothing is fine. And I think . . . I think I need to tell you something.”
The pause that follows is delicate, but thrumming with tension.
I picture him in his office. Shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, city light catching on the angular lines of his face, those impossibly steady hands undoing the knot of his tie.
The way he watches me during lab demonstrations, gaze unreadable but present, always present.
I tell myself not to think about him this way.
Not to linger on how his voice wraps around my name, or how that brief touch on my shoulder last week still burns beneath my skin.
Vivienne’s words from tea still echo in my head.
Her perfectly crafted warning wrapped in social pleasantries.
She never directly accused me of anything, but her meaning was crystal clear—my “little infatuation” with her husband needed to end.
But how do I forget the only man who’s ever looked at me and seen something worth keeping? When his praise makes me feel more alive than I have in years? When every accidental brush of his fingers against mine sends electricity racing through my veins?
“Come to my office.” The words slide through the line, and I bite my lip.
“At this hour?” I keep my tone neutral, composed, though my heart stumbles in my chest. Across the room, the clock glows a sickly amber, its digits trembling before they lurch into 21:00. I draw myself straighter. “I wouldn’t want to disturb you—”
“Luna.” There’s an edge to it this time. “I’m more concerned about you right now. The security orbs registered some damage to the windows in the east side office. Are you hurt?”
Heat floods my cheeks. Of course he knows. Alexander Darkmoor is aware of everything that happens in his domain. “Oh god, I-I’m so sorry. I lost control for a moment. My magic just . . . I promise I’ll cover the repair costs. It won’t happen again—”
“Sweetheart.” The endearment stops my rambling, sends my pulse skittering beneath my skin. “Forget the glass. I care that you were upset enough to shatter it. Come. Let me make sure you’re alright.”
The tenderness nearly unravels me. When was the last time someone had worried about me instead of Aria? When had anyone ever put my wellbeing before property damage? “Yes. Okay.”
“Good girl.” My breath catches at the praise, at how those two simple words can steady my pulse and set it racing in the same breath. “Though perhaps we should be discreet. People do love their gossip.”
“I wouldn’t want to damage your reputation,” I murmur. The words come quieter than intended, tainted by everything I’ve tried not to crave.
He lets out a low chuckle. “Sweet Luna, always thinking of everyone else. Take the side entrance and use the private lift. Less chance of running into the cleaning crew. Although . . .” A deliberate pause hums through the line.
“You shouldn’t worry about such things. I would never let anyone smear your good name. ”
“It’s yours I’m worried about,” I whisper, then want to bite my tongue. What am I doing? This is dangerous. Stupid. He’s married. My superior. Powerful enough to destroy careers with a word. Yet something about him makes me reckless.
“You’re too precious,” he murmurs, and the warmth of it burns straight through me. Too paternal. Too possessive. I don’t know which part twists deeper. “See you soon?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
The call ends, and I stare at my unrecognizable reflection in the black glass—eyes bright as venom, heart galloping. Not ashamed. Not afraid.
Alive.