Jade
The Pillars of Hercules shrink behind us until they’re nothing but gold-and-silver smudges against the morning sky.
Kieran’s manning the wheel. Callie’s slumped against the damaged forward mast. Evie stands at the bow with her back to me, and every time I look at her, I hear Logan’s words on repeat.
She killed you. In another timeline, she killed you.
The girl I called my best friend cooked the air in my lungs until my heart stopped. And even though Logan rewound time before she had to live with those consequences, I can feel the phantom burn in my chest every time she moves.
I don’t know if I’ll ever stop feeling it.
I don’t know if I want to stop feeling it.
Because how do you forget that someone who you considered a friend killed you?
It doesn’t matter that it happened in another timeline, because she did it, which means if Logan hadn’t stopped her, she would have followed through.
And I have no idea how to process all of that.
Yes, I kept the truth of Oliver’s death from her. I wouldn’t blame her if she never forgave me for it. But killing me is an entirely different level of “terrible friend” than having tried to save your brother’s life in multiple timelines, failing, and then not telling you the truth.
“We need to decide where we’re going next,” Kieran says, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts.
“The Blood Coven,” Logan says from where he’s standing three feet away from me. “They want to keep Jade alive because they view her as the only remaining star touched who can turn this war further in their favor. They can keep her safe.”
“Safe.” Kieran laughs, sharp and humorless. “She’s Tempest’s champion. The Blood Coven would see her as a weapon to acquire, not a person to protect.”
Logan doesn’t flinch. “They’ve wanted a star touched on their side since Ambrogio was resurrected. If I bring Jade to them—“
“No.” I step forward, my electricity crackling between my fingers, begging to be released.
“If you bring me to them, they’ll use me.
You just said it—they view me as someone who can turn the war in their favor.
And let’s not forget that you’re one of them.
You keep talking about them like you aren’t, but you are.
So tell me the truth, Logan. Is me being ‘useful’ the only reason why you were interested in me in the first place? ”
Is it why you loved me? Not for who I am, but for what I am?
Nobody jumps in with a heartfelt rebuttal, which tells me everything I need to know.
“Can we talk below deck?” Logan asks me, and while his expression doesn’t change, his hands curl into fists at his sides.
“Fine.” I push off the railing and head for the hatch, because if Kieran and Logan start circling each other again, one of them is going to end up pinned to the mast for the second time today, and I’d really like to go an hour without supernatural violence.
Just one hour. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently yes, since I’m climbing into a cabin to have a private conversation with a Revenant about whether I should let his undead cult adopt me.
I head into our cabin, lean against the far wall, and cross my arms. Logan closes the door and stays there.
“Did you only want me because of what I am?” I repeat, forcing the words out even though each one feels like glass in my throat. “Do you actually love me… or do you just love the fact that I’m star touched?”
His fingers drift to the chain at his neck, then drop.
“You already know when it started.” He leans into the door, his gaze so intense that it’s like he’s challenging me to fight him on this. “The Hydra trial. The woods. You grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me, and my blood moved for the first time since the venom stopped my heart.”
“You told me that in the black fire.” I dig my nails into my biceps where my arms are crossed, because I might break if I don’t hold on.
“I’m asking about the part where you stood on the deck thirty seconds ago and told everyone that the Blood Coven has always wanted a star touched.
Because you didn’t learn that yesterday, Logan.
You’ve known that since they turned you.
So, when you figured out what my magic was—when you saw my sword spark during the trial—did a part of your brain start doing the math on how valuable I’d be to them? ”
The cabin goes quiet enough to hear the water against the hull.
“Yes.” He holds my gaze, and I can barely move. “I knew it would make you valuable to the Blood Coven, and that if the Council found out, they’d want to control you.”
“But you left out the part where protecting me from the Council was also positioning me closer to your people. Which means you weren’t saving me from a cage. You were just moving me to a different one.”
“I was trying to buy you time to get strong enough that neither side could take you without your permission.”
The words sound right. They sound like the Logan who trained me in the Fury Loop and counted me through soul fire, and that’s exactly what makes them so hard to swallow, because every true thing he’s ever said has had a lie sitting right behind it.
“On Circe’s beach, I sat there and told you that Tempest chose me to destroy Revenants,” I say, and my arms drop to my sides, because I feel so helpless and I hate it.
“You held my hand and told me you’d be there for me, always.
But you were already thinking about how to make me choose your side instead. ”
“I was thinking about how the girl I’m in love with just told me she’s supposed to kill an entire supernatural species, and how she didn’t stop to question it at all.
She didn’t wonder if maybe not every Revenant is bad, just like how not every witch on the Council is good.
” His hands curl into fists, his fire catching in jagged black-orange flickers he can’t steady.
“I was thinking that the only future where we both survive is one where you don’t do what Tempest designed you to do.
And I was thinking that if I could get you to see that the Blood Coven isn’t what Circe described, and that there’s a version of this where you and I end up on the same side, then maybe you wouldn’t have to choose between loving me and destroying me. ”
Love Logan and turn my back on a goddess who chose me to help save the world. Destroy Logan and shatter my heart entirely, leaving me the kind of empty that no amount of cosmic purpose can fill.
Why does the world have to be so cruel that it makes me pick one of the two? Because I think I know which one I’d choose, and I already hate myself for it.
“And what if I refuse to go to the Blood Coven?” I ask.
“Then we don’t go.” He doesn’t move, and the hardness behind his eyes shows me that he means it. “Wherever you go, I go. Blood Coven, Council, off a cliff… it doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving you, Jade. I never will.”
The ache in my chest swells until I don’t know how I’m managing to breathe. Because I believe him.
There’s no point in lying and saying otherwise. All that would do is wreck us more than we already are, and I don’t know how much more of this heartbreak I can handle.
“There are three other champions.” I twist my bracelet twice, forcing myself to think instead of feel.
“If anyone can tell me what Tempest actually wants from me, and whether this power is a gift or a curse or a cosmic prank that got out of hand, it’s them.
And if they can help me figure out whether loving a Revenant makes me—“
I stop.
Loving.
Not caring about. Not being with. Not having complicated feelings for.
I said loving, and it’s sitting in this cabin like a live current with nowhere to ground.
Logan’s hand presses against the token, and his lips part, and my stupid electricity sends a single arc across the gap between us that connects with his other hand and makes his breath hitch.
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand before whatever’s building behind his eyes can turn into words.
“If you say it back right now, I’m going to fall apart, and I need to not fall apart for another ten minutes, minimum.
I’m on a tight schedule of emotional breakdowns, and this slot is booked for decision-making. ”
His mouth closes, and he nods once, his whole body tightening.
I take a deep breath and force myself to focus. “Do you know where the other star touched are?”
“Ruby operates out of Pine Valley, in upstate New York, with her mate and their wolf shifter pack,” he says, as if he’s giving a military brief. “Amber’s in Manhattan. Her husband’s the king of the vampire clan there. Sapphire’s in the fae realm, moving between courts to solidify new alliances.”
“How do you know all that?”
“The Blood Coven’s been tracking them.”
“Of course they have.” I huff and twist my bracelet. “That’s not creepy at all.”
“It’s useful.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.” The old rhythm of our banter aches worse than everything that came before, because it feels like a ghost of the trust that used to exist between us.
“And one of those options is the clear winner, because I want to go home. To Manhattan. Which means we’ll find Amber first.”
The ache behind my ribs sharpens, because I don’t just want to find Amber.
I want to walk into my kitchen and steal bites of whatever the chef left in the fridge, and annoy my sister in the library while she’s studying for her finals over Thanksgiving break, and not think about boys whose blood doesn’t move without my magic pushing it forward.
“You can’t actually go back to your real home,” he says softly, and every vein in my body goes cold.
“No one from your old life can know the truth about you. The Council will be watching them, which means you’ll be risking their lives if they do.
And going to the fae realm will be difficult, to say the least. Which makes Ruby the most sensible choice. ”