Chapter 28 Theo
Theo
I’ve been lying here for three hours, staring at the ceiling of my bedroom while guilt gnaws at my chest like something alive.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Bree’s face from yesterday—the careful blankness in her green eyes when I finally cornered her in the hallway, the way she said “It’s fine, Theo.
Really” like she was reading from a script.
It’s not fine. Nothing about this is fine.
I broke something between us when the truth about Phil came out.
When she realized we’d all been keeping secrets, that we’d decided together she couldn’t handle the truth.
When she looked at each of us like we’d chosen to betray her instead of protect her.
The memory makes me want to punch something—preferably myself.
Two days of watching her avoid eye contact. Two days of feeling like I’ve lost her trust right when she needs me. Two days of knowing we all failed her when it mattered most.
And two days of visions that keep getting worse.
That’s the part that’s eating at me. Ever since Phil showed up and everything went to hell, my gift has been showing me fragments that feel darker, more fractured.
Like the future itself is responding to the cracks we put in her trust. We’ve always been a unit, us and Bree.
Even with the recent additions to our group, it was still Bree at our core and us circling around her—protecting, caring, keeping her safe.
Now all she sees when she looks at us, looks at me, is someone she can no longer trust.
And the visions reflect that. Each one worse than the last, showing possibilities that make my chest tight with dread.
The sanctuary hums; tonight it feels like a living thing tugging at my skull. I can feel it pulling at the edges of my consciousness, the way it always does when visions want to come.
I roll over, pressing my face into the pillow. “No,” I mutter into the fabric. “Not tonight.”
But the pull intensifies, that familiar electric tingle behind my eyes that means my gift won’t be ignored. The Ether in this place amplifies everything—Bree’s power, our bonds, and apparently my ability to see things I don’t want to see.
The vision takes me before I can fight it.
Flash—
Bree in chains, silver and delicate but binding. Her head bowed, Ether pooling at her feet like spilled mercury. She’s not fighting them. Just… accepting.
Flash—
Bree before a mirror, hand pressed to glass. Dark hair, familiar build, but when she turns—her eyes hold a certainty I’ve never seen before. Confident where she usually hesitates.
Flash—
Bree surrounded by faces I can’t quite focus on, confusion written across her features. She reaches for something—someone—but her hands pass through empty air.
Flash—
Bree standing before a kneeling crowd. They look at her like she’s everything they’ve been waiting for. She accepts their worship like it’s natural, earned, right.
Flash—
Black Ether curling around Bree’s ankles, drawing her in. Her face flickers between expressions—vulnerable one moment, commanding the next.
Flash—
A bed, soft murmurs in the darkness. Rhett’s face in gentle light, watching Bree with adoration I’ve never seen from him. She moves with fluid certainty that makes my chest tight.
Flash—
Bree in the darkness, dirty and broken with tears streaking down her cheeks as she embraces…
Flash—
Bree leaning close; a wordless warmth grazes my skin. I want to follow, and I don’t know why.
The fragments come faster, overlapping and contradicting each other. Different versions of Bree—wounded and whole, uncertain and commanding—both equally real, both equally impossible. They flicker like competing flames, each image warring with the next.
Then they shatter.
I jolt back into myself with a gasp that tears from my throat like a sob. My heart pounds against my ribs, head splitting from the effort of processing visions that make no sense. Sweat sticks my shirt to my chest despite the cool night air.
What the hell was that?
I sit up, gripping the edge of my bed until my knuckles go white. The fragments feel important—prophetic—but I can’t piece them together into anything coherent. Was I seeing Bree’s future? Someone else’s? Multiple possibilities bleeding together?
And why did some of those images feel so wrong? Like looking at Bree in moments that didn’t match who she is?
My door creaks open without a knock.
“You look like you saw a ghost.”
Jace leans against the doorframe, spinning a blade between his fingers with casualness that suits him. His golden hair is mussed like he just woke up, but his green eyes are sharp.
“Drop it,” I snap, though the words come out rougher than I intended.
He raises an eyebrow, unbothered by my tone. “Well, that’s convincing. Nothing says ‘I’m fine’ like snarling at concerned friends.” The blade vanishes up his sleeve with a practiced flick. “Wanna try that again?”
I drag both hands through my hair, trying to center myself. The vision fragments still pulse behind my eyes like afterimages, making it hard to focus on the present.
“Just a nightmare,” I lie.
“Right.” Jace pushes off the doorframe and steps into my room uninvited, golden eyes scanning my face in a way that makes me uncomfortable. “And I’m the Queen of England. Come on, Theo. I’ve seen you after regular nightmares. This is different.”
He’s not wrong. Jace might hide behind humor and irreverence, but he notices everything. It’s what makes him dangerous with those knives of his—and what makes him impossible to lie to when he’s actually paying attention.
“It’s nothing I can explain,” I say finally. “Just… fragments. Images that don’t make sense.”
“About Bree?”
The question hits something in my chest. “Maybe. I don’t know.” I look up at him, weighing how much to share. “Have you noticed anything… different about her lately?”
“You mean besides the fact that she’s been avoiding all of us like the plague?” Jace’s mouth quirks in what might be sympathy. “Or the way her Ether looks darker than it used to?”
That stops me cold. “You’ve seen it too?”
“The black threads?” He shrugs, but his casual tone doesn’t match the sharpness in his eyes. “Hard to miss. Rhett thinks it’s trauma from the Void thing. Wes thinks it’s her power evolving. Thane won’t talk about it, even though he was there.” His voice drops slightly. “What do you think it is?”
I stare at him, pieces clicking together in my head. The vision fragments, the black threads in Bree’s Ether, the way she’s been different since she came back. Not just distant—changed in subtle ways that make my instincts scream.
“I think,” I say slowly, “that something’s coming. Something that’s going to change everything.”
“Well.” Jace’s grin turns sharp, but there’s genuine concern underneath it. “That’s not ominous at all.”
He moves toward the door, then pauses on the threshold. “For what it’s worth? Whatever you saw, whatever’s coming—we’ll handle it. For Bree.”
Then he’s gone, leaving me alone with fragments that feel like prophecy and a growing certainty that I’ve seen something I wasn’t supposed to.
Two versions of Bree. One broken, one whole. One uncertain, one commanding.
Both equally real.
Both impossible.
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the wall.
If that’s what’s coming… how do I tell her without breaking her again?