Chapter 31 Jace
Jace
“Why do we have to do this again?”
Bree’s voice is muffled by the pillow she’s got pressed over her face, but the frustration comes through loud and clear. It’s been two days of this — Bree pretending everything is fine when it definitely is not.
I lean against her doorframe, arms crossed, watching her burrow deeper into the covers like she can disappear if she tries hard enough.
Even like this — hair a mess, face hidden, radiating stubborn defiance — she’s beautiful.
Makes me want to crawl into that bed and kiss her until I’m all she can think about.
But that’s not what she needs right now.
“Because you’ve stayed in bed avoiding us long enough,” I say, keeping my voice light but firm. “It’s time to face this. Together.”
“I’m not avoiding anything.” The pillow muffles her words, but I catch the defensive edge.
“Right. And I’m not devastatingly handsome.” I push off the doorframe and walk over to sit on the edge of her bed. The mattress dips under my weight, and she rolls slightly toward me despite herself. “Look, I know we told you yesterday about Ethos hunting—”
“Stop.” Bree says clearly exasperated even through the pillow. “Just stop.”
“Bree—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snaps, sitting up abruptly. “I’m fine.”
She finally pulls the pillow away from her face, and I have to bite back a wince. Dark circles under her eyes, hair a tangled mess, that stubborn set to her jaw that means she’s about to dig in deeper.
“You suck,” she mutters.
“Look, I get it.” I reach over and tug gently at a strand of her hair until she looks at me. “The whole ruins thing is scary as hell, it’s probably like every horror movie rolled into one.”
Her eyes flick away. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
She’s quiet for so long I think she’s not going to answer. When she finally speaks, her voice is small. “What if I make it worse? What if whatever’s down there is better off staying buried?”
And there it is. The real fear. Not of what she might find, but of what she might unleash.
“Bree.” I wait until she meets my eyes again. “You know what’s worse than facing whatever’s down there?”
“What?”
“Letting Ethos keep whispering in your ear while you hide up here.” Her face goes pale, but I press on. “That thing — whatever he is — he’s counting on you being too scared to act. He wants you isolated, second-guessing yourself.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand that you screamed his name in your sleep last night,” I say quietly. “I understand that there’s something hunting you, and sitting here pretending it’s not happening isn’t going to make it go away.”
She flinches like I’ve slapped her, but I can see the fight starting to come back into her eyes. Good. Angry Bree is better than defeated Bree.
“Besides,” I add, grinning at her, “I promise I’ll make we-made-it-out-alive pancakes when we get back.”
Despite everything, her mouth twitches. “We-made-it-out-alive pancakes?”
“Only the finest. With enough butter to stop your heart and syrup that costs more than most people’s rent.” I lean closer, mock-serious. “But only if you get your ass out of this bed and come face whatever ancient horror is waiting for us.”
She stares at me for a long moment, and I can practically see the war happening behind her eyes. Fear versus determination. The urge to hide versus the need to act.
Finally, she sighs and throws the covers back. “You’re manipulative, you know that?”
“I prefer ‘strategically motivating,’” I say, standing up and offering her my hand. “Come on. The others are waiting.”
She takes my hand and lets me pull her to her feet. She’s wearing one of Gray’s hoodies — the oversized black one that makes her look even smaller than she is — and her hair is definitely going to need some work before we go anywhere.
“How long do I have to get ready?” she asks, already moving toward her bathroom.
“Twenty minutes. And Bree?” I wait until she turns back to look at me. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re going to make anything worse. I think you’re going to make it right.”
She doesn’t answer, but something in her expression softens just a little. It’s not much, but hopefully it’s enough.
I head for the door, pausing in the threshold. “Oh, and sweetheart? Brush your hair. You look like you’ve been fighting with a hedge.”
Something hits the door just as I duck out, and I can hear her muttering curses behind me. But she’s moving, and that’s what matters.
Now I just have to convince the others that dragging our girl into ancient ruins filled with mysterious mirrors is a good idea.
Piece of cake.
Twenty minutes later, we’re gathered in the sanctuary’s main room, and the tension is so thick you could cut it with one of my knives.
Bree’s cleaned up — hair brushed, face washed, wearing actual clothes instead of stolen hoodies — but she’s still got that deer-in-headlights look that makes me want to wrap her in bubble wrap.
The others aren’t much better. Rhett’s jaw is set like he’s preparing for battle.
Gray keeps checking and rechecking his gear with the kind of obsessive precision that means he’s nervous.
Wes hovers near Bree like a satellite, drawn to her orbit but still afraid to get too close even though we all know what happened between them.
Theo looks like he hasn’t slept since Bree’s nightmare, dark circles under his eyes making him look haunted.
Even Thane and Stellan seem on edge, though they’re better at hiding it.
“Everyone ready?” I ask, shouldering my pack. The knives at my belt feel reassuring, their familiar weight grounding me when everything else feels like it’s spinning out of control.
“Define ready,” Gray mutters, but he nods.
Bree takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders in a way that reminds me why I fell for her in the first place. She’s scared — terrified, really — but she’s not backing down.
“Let’s go find out what’s waiting for us,” she says.
And despite everything — the fear, the uncertainty, the very real possibility that we’re walking into something that could destroy us all — I find myself grinning.
“That’s my girl.”
The walk through the sanctuary grounds starts out deceptively normal.
Once we clear the small homes that Bree and her Ether created, we’re greeted by birds chirping in the trees.
Sunlight filtering through the canopy in those picture-perfect shafts that make everything look like a fairy tale.
The kind of peaceful morning that makes you forget there are ancient horrors lurking just beneath the surface of the world.
“Anyone else feel like we’re walking into the opening scene of a horror movie?” I ask, stepping over a fallen log. “You know, the part where the overly confident comic relief makes a joke right before everything goes to shit?”
“Jace,” Rhett warns, but there’s no real heat in it.
“What? I’m just saying, if I suddenly start monologuing about how nothing could possibly go wrong, someone should probably tackle me.”
Bree actually cracks a smile at that, and I count it as a victory. She’s been quiet since we left, walking between Gray and Wes like she needs the buffer. Her Ether curls around her ankles in restless silver threads, occasionally sparking with those dark veins that make my skin crawl.
“How much further?” she asks Theo, who’s been leading us with the single-minded determination of someone following a GPS that only exists in his head.
“Not far,” he says, but his voice is tight. “I can feel it. Like a… pull.”
“That’s comforting,” Stellan murmurs from behind us.
We’ve been walking for maybe twenty minutes when the forest starts to change.
Nothing dramatic at first — just a gradual shift in the quality of light, the way sound seems to muffle and echo at the same time.
The trees grow closer together, their branches intertwining overhead until the canopy blocks out most of the sky.
“Is it just me,” Wes says quietly, “or does it feel like the trees are watching us?”
I glance around and have to suppress a shiver. He’s not wrong. There’s something about the way the shadows fall, the way the leaves seem to rustle without any wind, that sets my teeth on edge.
“It’s the Ether,” Bree says, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s… responding to something. I can feel it.”
As if on cue, her Ether flares brighter, silver light dancing between the trees like foxfire. The black threads pulse through it, and I watch Thane’s expression tighten.
“Maybe we should—” Gray starts, but Theo suddenly stops dead in his tracks.
“There,” he breathes.
I follow his gaze and feel my smart-ass grin die on my lips.
At first glance, it looks like nothing much — just a clearing in the trees with some old stones scattered around. Nothing that would catch your attention unless you knew to look for it.
But as we get closer, I can see what made Theo’s breath catch.
Carved into every visible stone surface are symbols — spirals and curves that hurt to look at directly, like they’re moving just outside the edge of vision.
And scattered among the ancient stones, catching light that shouldn’t exist in the shadow of the trees, are pieces of broken mirror.
“Well,” I say, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. “That’s weird.”
Bree takes a step forward, and her Ether surges like a tide. The symbols begin to pulse with faint light, and the mirror shards start to gleam like they’re reflecting something that isn’t there.
“Bree,” Rhett says, a warning in his voice.
But she’s not listening. She’s staring at the ruins like she’s seeing a ghost, her face pale but determined.
“It’s real,” she whispers. “Theo, you were right. It’s all real.”
The air around us thickens, charged with the kind of electric potential that makes your hair stand on end. And then the ground beneath the scattered stones starts to shift.
Not violently — more like breathing. Like the earth itself is exhaling after holding its breath for centuries.
The center of the clearing sinks inward, revealing what was hidden beneath. Stone steps, worn smooth by age, spiraling down into darkness so complete it seems to swallow light.
Whatever’s down there, whatever’s been waiting in the dark — it knows we’re here.
And it knows she’s here.
I look at the faces around me — fear, determination, resignation. We all know we’re about to cross a line we can’t uncross. Walk into something that’s going to change everything.
“So,” I say, keeping my voice light because someone has to. “Anyone want to bet those pancakes I promised are going to be the ‘holy-shit-we-survived’ variety?”
Bree looks back at me, and for just a moment, I see a flicker of the young girl who used to laugh at my jokes. Before Ethos. Before the Crown. Before everything got so fucking complicated.
“Only one way to find out,” she says, placing her foot on the top step.
What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?