Chapter 12
Wes
She’s gone.
Fuck.
The space where Bree was standing is just—empty. Like she was never there at all. Like the Ether swallowed her whole and left the rest of us staring at nothing.
My chest caves in. Actually caves in, like someone reached through my ribs and scooped out everything that mattered. The absence hits me before my brain can even process what happened.
One second she was there, fury radiating off her in silver waves, demanding answers from Thane about Phil—Phil, who I should have told her about, who I should have warned her was coming—and the next, the world exploded in Ether light so bright it burned my retinas.
When it cleared, she was gone.
Just gone.
And the silence left behind feels like death.
“Bree?” Jace calls out, voice cracking on her name. He spins in a circle, hands outstretched like he could catch her if he just reaches far enough. “Bree, where—”
“She’s not here.” Theo’s voice is hollow, distant. “I can’t—I can’t feel her.”
Can’t feel her.
My knees almost give out.
Because I can’t either. The constant hum of awareness I’ve carried since the crown awakened everything—the way my magic always knew exactly where she was, like a compass needle pointing north—it’s just… quiet.
Static.
Nothing.
“No.” The word rips out of me, raw and desperate. “No, she’s here. She has to be here.”
I stumble forward, hands grasping at empty air where she was standing. Where the silver strand connected her to Thane just moments ago. But there’s nothing. Not even a whisper of mist to prove she existed at all.
The crowd of Feeders who were kneeling around us is in chaos—some backing away from the spot where their Source just vanished, others pressing closer like proximity might bring her back. Their voices blend into a hum of confusion and panic that makes my skin crawl.
“Everyone inside.” Stellan’s voice cuts through the noise, sharp and commanding in a way that leaves no room for argument. “Now.”
He doesn’t wait to see if they listen. Just strides toward us, his usually perfect composure cracked enough that I can see the calculation running behind his eyes. Damage control. Crisis management.
But all I can focus on is the empty space where she should be.
“Wes.” Gray’s hand lands on my shoulder, solid and warm. “Come on.”
I shake him off. “I’m not leaving her.”
“She’s not here,” he says, gentler now. “Whatever happened, whatever the Ether did—she’s not here anymore.”
The words sink in, heavy and final. Because I know he’s right. I can feel the wrongness of this space now, the way it tastes like absence instead of her.
But I can’t make my feet move. Can’t accept that she’s just… gone.
“When did that happen?” I whisper, the question clawing its way up my throat. “When did she become—”
I stop. Because I can’t say it. Can’t put words to the realization that’s been building in my chest for weeks now, getting stronger every time she looked at me like I’m more than what I’ve become.
When did she become everything?
When did losing her start feeling like losing myself?
“Inside.” Stellan’s hand closes around my arm, not rough but implacable. “Unless you want three hundred panicked Feeders to witness you fall apart.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But moving away from this spot feels like abandoning her all over again.
Stellan’s grip tightens. “She’s not here, Wes. But she’s not gone forever.” He pauses, something flickering across his expression—reluctance, maybe vulnerability. “I can still… sense her. Faint, but there. Whatever the Ether did, it didn’t sever the connection.”
The possibility that she’s still out there, still connected, is the only thing that gets my feet moving.
The sanctuary feels too quiet as we file inside, like the building itself is holding its breath. Stellan guides us to a smaller chamber off the main hall—something that feels private, sacred, away from the chaos outside.
The door closes behind us with a soft click, and suddenly the weight of what just happened crashes down.
She’s gone. Bree is gone, and it’s because Thane kept secrets. Because we all kept secrets. Because I was so focused on hiding what I was becoming that I never told her about Phil, never prepared her for what might be coming.
My hands start shaking.
“I can’t—” The words choke off in my throat. “I can’t do this without her.”
The admission hangs in the air like a confession.
Because it’s true. She’s always been the center of everything—since we were kids, since before I understood what that meant.
But these past few weeks, I finally stopped pretending otherwise.
The thing that makes the hunger bearable, that makes the changes in me feel like growth instead of corruption.
Without her, I’m just—
Empty.
“Hey.” Theo appears in front of me, calm and steady in that way of his that usually grounds me. “She’s not dead, Wes. She’s somewhere else.”
“How do you know?”
“Because—” He gets that faraway look he gets when he’s seeing something the rest of us can’t. “I can still feel the echo of her. Faint, but real. She’s not gone—she’s just… somewhere else.”
I stare at the thread, so faint I can barely make it out. But he’s right. It’s there.
“She’s alive,” Theo says quietly. “Wherever the Ether took her, she’s alive.”
The relief that floods through me is so intense it actually hurts. My knees do give out this time, and I sink into one of the chairs like all my strings have been cut.
Gray moves to the window, shoulders tense as he stares out at the crowd still milling around in confusion. “We need to figure out what happened. What triggered the Ether surge.”
“Betrayal,” Thane says quietly. It’s the first word he’s spoken since we came inside, and his voice sounds like broken glass. “She felt betrayed.”
Jace whirls on him. “No shit. You think maybe that’s because you betrayed her?”
“I was trying to protect—”
“Protect?” Jace’s voice cracks with fury. “You knew Phil was coming for her and you said nothing. You let her walk into that crowd blind while her stalker circled like a fucking vulture.”
“Enough.” Stellan’s voice cuts through the argument like a blade. “Fighting won’t bring her back.”
He moves closer, pacing near the window with focused intensity that makes my skin crawl. Like her disappearance is just another puzzle to solve.
“My guess?” he says, voice careful and measured. “The Ether responded to extreme emotional trauma. It didn’t just hide her—I think it pulled her somewhere else entirely.”
“Where?” Gray’s question comes out rough, desperate.
“I don’t know.” Stellan’s honesty somehow makes it worse. “But wherever it is, she’s not unconscious. The bond is too active for that. She’s… processing.”
Processing. Like her disappearance into whatever space the Ether carved out is some kind of therapeutic retreat instead of a cosmic-level emotional breakdown.
“We have to bring her back,” I say. The words come out steadier than I feel, but they’re true. The panic is still clawing at my chest, but something else is building underneath. Something sharper.
“How?” Rhett asks from his spot by the door, where he’s been standing guard like he expects Phil to burst through any second.
I look around the room—at Gray, whose eyes have that wild edge that makes my instincts go quiet, at Jace pacing like a caged animal, at Theo sitting too still, that careful blankness he gets when he’s forcing himself not to feel. At Rhett by the door, hands flexed like he’s ready for a fight.
They all feel it too. The wrongness of her absence. The way everything in this room feels half-formed without her presence to anchor it.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But we figure it out. Together.”
The words taste like a promise, and something in my chest settles into place. Like a decision made. Like a vow sworn.
Stellan nods slowly, something that might be approval flickering in his expression. “Good. Because wherever she went, she’s going to need all of us to find her way back.”
He pauses, glancing at each of us in turn.
“And something tells me we’re going to need her more than she knows.”
I can feel it then, faint but unmistakable—like an echo of her presence somewhere far away. For the first time since she disappeared, I let myself believe it might be possible.
She’s out there. Somewhere in whatever space the Ether carved out for her to process the weight of our failures.
And we’re going to bring her home.
She’s ours. We’re getting her back.