Jade
Evie’s bed is perfectly made.
She hasn’t been back since Nana took her away at breakfast. I assume Nana took her to the infirmary to calm down after almost exploding the chandeliers, which is totally relatable.
I’ve nearly done the same thing approximately seven thousand times since arriving at this school, except my version involves silver sparks and the smell of ozone instead of flames.
The memory of Oliver’s eyes going blank keeps playing on repeat in my mind.
My stomach swirls at the reminder of the dread I felt every time I stood at the base of the Scorched Circles and saw his body hit the volcanic rock.
My ears ring as the weight of his final words—you killed Miles—aimed at Logan echo through my thoughts.
Then there’s the part where I channeled a lightning bolt through my body and electrocuted our professor until he turned into a lump of ash. And let’s not forget the part when Logan dragged me backward through time, loop after loop, when I was seconds away from death.
Fun times. Really great first semester I’m having over here.
When the clock hits ten, I slip out of my room and navigate the familiar path to the janitor closet at the back of Phoenix Hall. The stone wall shimmers as I press my palm to it—my right one, with the Kindling sigil inked on it—and I step through into the darkness of the passages.
Logan’s leaning against the opposite wall, his arms crossed, like a statue carved out of shadows and bad decisions.
“Hi,” I say, the word echoing off the stone walls.
His gaze tracks over me, quick and thorough, like he’s running an inventory of every part of my body. “We’re not going to the Fury Loop tonight.”
I blink. “We’re not?”
“No.” He pushes off the wall and moves to me, slow and deliberate. “I’m bringing you somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else,” I repeat, because apparently I’ve lost the ability to form original sentences. “That’s very specific and not at all mysterious. Thanks for clarifying.”
The corner of his mouth twitches into what might almost be a smile.
“Do you trust me?”
“You know I do.” The words come out before I can stop them, honest in a way that makes my chest ache.
His jaw unclenches. The careful blankness he wears like armor cracks at the edges, and his eyes soften in the way they only do when we’re alone and he lets himself stop performing.
He holds out his hand, and I take it without hesitation, our fingers intertwining like they were made to fit together.
A spark jumps between our palms at the contact.
Logan takes a sharp breath inward and pulls me back the way I came. “We’re going to fire travel, so we need to be out of the passages,” he explains.
We step back through the shimmering wall into the janitor closet, and I’m about to ask where we’re going when his arm wraps around my waist and orange flames engulf us both.
One second, we’re in the closet. The next second, we’re… not.
I turn in a slow circle, taking in the room.
The ceilings soar overhead, and a window overlooks the choppy ocean.
Against the wall sits a bed bigger than mine, draped in dark, expensive-looking sheets.
A desk holds organized papers, and a bookshelf is lined with texts that look old and forbidden.
A faint draft touches my arms, even though the window is shut.
“Is this your room?”
The question comes out more accusatory than I intended, but honestly, a little warning would have been nice.
“Yes.” He releases me and steps back, giving me space to take it all in.
I keep turning, absorbing details. There’s an unsettling meticulousness to how organized everything is, like it’s a museum exhibit of what a room should look like rather than a place someone actually lives.
But there are fractures in the facade. A worn book sits on the window seat, its spine cracked from being read too many times. Small ink stains dot the desk, and parts of the rug are worn down in a circular shape that clearly came from hours of pacing.
However, I can’t get distracted by the intimacy of being in Logan’s space, because everything went to hell last night, and this is the first chance we’ve had to talk about it.
I spin to face him, and the words pour out.
“What if someone finds out what happened on the Crown? Constance said the Council is sending three of their witches, and they’re going to investigate, and what if they have some kind of magical forensics thing?
Like, I don’t know, murder detection spells?
Is that a thing? That sounds like a thing.
” A spark snaps off my index finger and pops against his desk.
“Even if it’s not a thing, what about the Unity Flame?
I killed it. I killed a thousand-year-old magical flame with my storm, and that’s not exactly subtle. ”
“Jade.” His hands find my shoulders, steadying me. “You’re spiraling.”
“I’m not spiraling. I’m just... exploring worst-case scenarios very rapidly, in a way that might sound like spiraling to the untrained ear, but is actually just—”
“Spiraling.” His grip tightens. “Jade. Look at me.”
I force myself to meet his eyes. They’re steady—almost too steady—with the kind of calm that comes from having already mapped every possible outcome and decided none of them will touch us.
“We covered our tracks,” he says. “The storm destroyed any evidence on the Crown. The rain washed away the blood. We burned what was left until there was nothing but ash.”
I flinch at the reminder.
“The Council’s investigators will find exactly what we want them to find,” he continues, like he’s reading from a checklist. “A professor and a student who disappeared during a magical storm. The case will be tragic, mysterious, and unsolvable. I’ll make sure of it.”
He doesn’t need to clarify how he’ll make sure of it. We both know he means he’ll compel anyone who asks too many questions. He’ll make them forget, or believe a convenient lie, or whatever will get us out of this mess with our hands undeservingly clean.
My chest tightens, but I breathe through it before it can take root.
He’s keeping us safe. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters.
“I told you I’d protect you, and I meant it.” His thumbs trace small circles on my shoulders. “Whatever happens, I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of you.”
The conviction in his tone makes my throat close up. Because he means every word, down to the marrow. He’d burn down this entire island, torch his own future, and never look back, all to keep me safe.
The worst part is that I’d let him.
“What about you?” I ask softly. “Who takes care of you?”
For a moment, he just looks at me, and the exhaustion in his face isn’t the kind that comes from missed sleep. It’s bone-deep, like it’s been living inside him for years and he’s long since stopped trying to fight it off.
“You,” he finally says, leaving it at that.
I don’t know how to process the weight of that. So, I do what any emotionally mature adult would do and change the subject.
“Speaking of taking care of me, I have a question.” I pull back just enough to study his face.
His expression goes carefully neutral. “What?”
“How many times have you used your time travel on me?”
His hands drop from my shoulders. He takes a step back, and I can practically see him running through options, deciding how much to tell me.
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I deserve to know.” I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly aware of how vulnerable I feel in this room that isn’t mine. “Last night, you brought me back in time with you for multiple loops. You said you’d never brought someone with you before.”
He doesn’t deny it.
“That means I don’t remember all the other times you’ve used it on me.” My brain is working through the pieces now, connecting dots I didn’t know existed. “I just appeared in a new timeline without knowing I’d...”
I trail off, the word catching in my throat.
Died.
“It started at the Hydra trial, right? You saved me during the trial, and afterward you were so…” I stop to rethink. “You kept touching my face and my arms, checking to see if I was solid.”
“Four times.”
The words hit me like a sledgehammer.
“What?”
Logan moves to sit on the edge of his bed, his elbows braced on his knees. “You died four times in the Hydra trial before I found a timeline where you survived.”
Four times.
I died four times during the Hydra trial, and I don’t remember any of it. I don’t remember the pain, the fear, or the moment everything went dark. I just remember waking up with Logan braced above me, looking at me like I was a corpse come back to life.
Because I sort of was. To him, at least.
“How many other times have you reset things? Changed outcomes? Saved me from a disaster I didn’t know happened?”
Logan laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes. I really do.”
His knuckles turn white where his fingers are laced, and when he finally speaks, his voice is detached, like he’s reading a casualty report about someone else’s war.
“The Forge Night party at the Drowned Tower,” he starts.
“I went back four times before I found a version where you didn’t expose your electricity to the entire school when Alessandra confronted you outside the bathroom.
I watched you drown two times during the Lampades attack. And when I threw the dagger at you—”
“You mean when you almost killed me and I somehow caught the dagger even though I’ve never caught anything in my life?”
“You didn’t catch it the first time. Or the second.” His jaw tightens. “I went back until you did.”
The memory replays in my mind—the dagger flying toward me, the terror, the impossible way my hand snatched it from the air like I’d been training for years. I thought it was adrenaline, or instinct, or a latent Jedi ability I didn’t know I had.
Turns out it was Logan rewinding reality until I didn’t die.
“But it doesn’t matter, because it wasn’t real,” he continues. “I made sure none of it was real.”
“It does matter.” I cross the room to stand in front of him. “You’ve been watching me die over and over again and then just... pretending it never happened?”
“What was I supposed to do?” The last word splinters, his voice fraying at the edges. “Say, ‘Hey, Jade, you died thirty seconds ago, but I rewound time, so now you’re fine?’ How would that have helped you?”
“I don’t know. But at least I wouldn’t be walking around with gaps in my reality.”
“There are no gaps.” He’s on his feet now, moving to the window. “Every timeline I create flows seamlessly. You never feel the difference because there isn’t one for you.”
“But there’s a difference for you.”
His shoulders are rigid, silhouetted against the moonlit glass, and he looks less like a person and more like a statue carved of shadows.
“How many times total?” I move closer, but don’t touch him. “How many times have you watched me die?”
When he turns to face me, the look in his eyes makes my lungs tighten. Because it’s the hollow, scraped-out exhaustion of someone who’s been living the same nightmare on repeat and has stopped expecting to wake up.
“I stopped counting after the first dozen.”