Chapter 6
Theo
She left. Just walked out. Final in a way none of us want to name.
No one moves.
Rhett is frozen by the sink again, white-knuckling the edge of the counter like it's the only thing keeping him upright. Jace has both hands tangled in his hair, pacing without direction. Wes hasn't looked up from the spot where Bree used to be.
I set my mug down. The sound feels too loud in a room that just lost its center. I want to say something, but I don't. Words are supposed to be my thing—the calm voice in the middle of the storm. But right now, I’ve got nothing.
"That was bad," Jace says, voice rough. "Like. Bad-bad."
"She glowed." Wes's voice is flat.
"Yeah," Jace mutters. "So did you."
That gets Wes's attention. His head snaps up, eyes sharp. "It's not the same."
"Looks the same from here."
"It's not."
Rhett turns around slowly. His face is pale. Jaw clenched tight.
"She thinks she's dangerous."
"She thinks she did this to us," I say quietly.
Jace lets out a bitter breath. "I mean. Maybe she did."
"Don't." Rhett's voice cuts like a blade. "Don't even say that."
"I didn't mean—"
"Yes, you did."
The silence stretches. Not empty this time—jagged. Heavy. Honest.
Footsteps. A pause in the hallway.
Gray rounds the corner, hoodie half-zipped, hair still damp from a shower. He slows when he sees us, reads the air in half a second.
"What... what happened?" His eyes flick toward the front door.
Wes doesn't move. Jace glances away.
"Fuck," Rhett mutters, barely more than a breath.
Gray's voice hardens. "She looked like she was about to cry."
Rhett slams a hand against the counter. Not hard. But loud enough.
Gray steps into the room, jaw tight. "What the hell did you all do?"
"We fucked up," Rhett says, turning to face us. "We let her think she's the problem. Again."
Gray's expression shifts. "What problem? What's going on?"
Rhett runs a hand through his hair, the weight in his eyes heavy. "The crown. She touched it, and everything changed. Her. Me. Wes." He looks down at his hands. "I don't even know what's happening to me, but I can't stop it."
"And instead of talking to her about it," I say, "we just—what? Pretend she won't notice?"
"She already noticed," Jace mutters. "She just didn't know how to say it."
Wes finally moves. Slowly. Hands clenched. Shoulders tight.
"I don't know what's going on right now." His voice is rougher than I've ever heard it. "But I know I'm not okay."
Jace swears under his breath.
Wes doesn't stop. "I keep seeing her. Dreams. Memories that aren't mine."
Gray watches him closely. Quiet. Calculating.
No one speaks.
So I do. "You think you're connected to her."
Wes nods, slow. "I think I was always waiting for her. And now that she's here, it's like I can't stop wanting to feel what she feels."
Jace finally sits. Hard. Like his legs gave up.
"She's out there thinking she ruined us," he says. "And we're in here acting like she's the threat."
"She's not the threat," Rhett says. "She's the reason we're still standing."
I glance toward the hallway. At the soft curl of mist still lingering there.
"We have to tell her."
Jace looks up. "Tell her what? That we're all glowing and cracking and seeing things?"
"That we're changing," I say. "And it's not her fault."
Gray exhales through his nose, sharp. "Did anyone think to tell her that? He crosses his arms when no one answers. "Then we'd better figure out what this is. Fast."
The silence that follows feels different. Not the brittle quiet of secrets and denial, but something heavier. The weight of truth we're finally ready to carry.
I've always been good at reading people—seeing the patterns, the connections others miss.
It's why I notice when Jace stops deflecting with humor.
Why I catch the way Wes's hands shake when he's not looking.
Why I can tell that Gray's anger isn't really at us—it's at himself for not being here when Bree needed him.
But this feels bigger than individual patterns. Bigger than just the five of us trying to figure out our own changes.
The mist still lingers in the hallway, faint but persistent. Like it's waiting for something. Like it knows we're not done yet.
I think about Bree's face when her scars lit up—not just shame, but recognition. Like some part of her had been expecting this. Like she's been carrying the weight of what we're becoming long before any of us understood what was happening.
"She's been protecting us," I say quietly. "From the beginning. Even when she didn't know what she was protecting us from."
Rhett looks up. "What do you mean?"
"Think about it. She's been pulling away, trying to keep distance between us and whatever she thought she might do to us. But we've been doing the same thing to her." I meet each of their eyes in turn. "We've been so afraid of what we're becoming that we forgot the most important thing."
"Which is?" Gray asks.
"That she's been becoming something too. And she's been doing it alone."
The truth of it settles over us like the mist—quiet, inescapable, undeniable.
We can figure out the magic later. The glowing, the dreams, the hunger—all of it can wait.
But Bree can't.
Not anymore.