23. Jules
Jules
She’s doing it again.
Of course she is.
Mr. Bane is about to reassess the bond and check our resonance levels for what feels like the thousandth time, so Camille and I are waiting in the hallway outside one of the smaller rehearsal rooms.
I lean against the wall with my arms crossed, pretending I don’t still get dizzy when I stand too quickly.
Camille waits several feet away without looking at me, her tablet tucked beneath one arm and her phone in the other hand.
She is already halfway through an email even though we arrived less than a minute ago.
Then her fingers move to her watch.
Adjust.
Pause.
Adjust again.
Like she can’t get the angle right. Like everything else might fall into place if she can only straighten one tiny piece of it.
I watch her do it three times.
My fingers twitch.
There is a version of this where I step closer, take her wrist, and fix it for her. Maybe I say something soft or stupid or somewhere in between. Maybe she lets me. Maybe she looks at me the way she did before, like I’m something she hasn’t figured out but might want to.
There is a version where that still exists.
Instead, I push away from the wall and walk past her, close enough that our shoulders nearly brush.
Not touching.
Not quite.
Camille stills for half a second.
Good.
“Try not to break it,” I say lightly without looking at her. “That thing’s probably worth more than my contract.”
It is technically a joke.
It technically sounds like one.
She does not laugh or respond.
I keep walking because stopping would be a bad idea. Looking at her would be worse.
Not after on paper.
Behind me, I hear a quiet breath.
“I’m not going to break it,” she says.
I almost turn around.
Instead, I wave one hand vaguely over my shoulder. “Good. Would hate for you to lose control.”
The words come out too easily.
I don’t see her face, but I feel the reaction through the bond. A sharp drop, clean and immediate, like something cracking beneath pressure.
I keep moving.
Because if I look back, I might try to fix it.
I’m not sure I want to be the one who does that anymore.
The rehearsal-room door opens before either of us says anything else.
Mr. Bane stands on the other side in his usual black suit, looking as though he has been waiting inside a funeral parlor instead of an Eon practice room. Two metal cases sit open on the floor beside him.
“Come in.”
“Always a pleasure,” I say.
“It rarely appears to be.”
Camille enters without acknowledging either of us. I follow more slowly, mostly because my ribs object to sudden movement and not because I’m avoiding standing near her.
The room has been stripped of equipment except for a table, three chairs, and several ward stones placed in a circle on the floor. Thin lines of gold connect them, faintly pulsing against the dark wood.
Bane gestures towards the center. “Stand there.”
“Do I get a robe this time, or is this more of a casual medical-magic violation?”
“Jules,” Camille says.
The use of my name lands somewhere inconvenient.
I step into the circle.
Bane lifts a narrow silver instrument and passes it slowly along my body. The crystal in its handle remains pale until it reaches my sternum, where it clouds with threads of grey and gold.
He repeats the scan on Camille. The crystal brightens over the bond mark beneath her collarbone, then flickers.
Bane’s expression tightens by approximately nothing, which is still enough to be concerning.
“Well?” Camille asks.
“The bond remains intact.”
“Then why is it unstable?”
“Because intact and healthy are not synonymous.”
I fold my arms. “That sounds encouraging.”
Bane sets the instrument down and picks up two mirrored discs. “Face each other.”
Neither of us moves.
He looks between us. “That was not optional.”
Camille turns first.
Of course she does.
I face her but keep my eyes somewhere near her shoulder. Bane places one disc against my palm and the other against hers. Light moves beneath the mirrored surfaces, faint at first, then uneven.
Mine flashes warm gold.
Hers answers in pale white.
The colors reach towards each other and falter before they connect.
Bane watches the pattern. “The bond is functioning, but the resonance has weakened considerably.”
“How considerably?” Camille asks.
“Enough to reduce its protective effect.”
My stomach tightens.
I cover it with a smile. “Fantastic. Love a warranty that expires during use.”
“The bond responds to proximity, trust, and mutual acceptance,” he continues. “Physical distance can weaken it temporarily. Emotional rejection causes more substantial damage.”
The silence that follows could qualify as structural.
Bane looks between us. “Did something happen?”
My eyes flick to Camille before I can stop them.
One bed. Her mouth on mine. Her hands on my body. The way she held me afterwards like staying close was the most natural thing in the world.
Then the hospital.
We’re only married on paper.
I smile brightly. “Nope. Maybe we’re just not compatible.”
I feel Camille’s irritation through the bond.
Sharp. Immediate.
Underneath it, something else catches.
Hurt.
Or maybe that belongs to me. At this point, the connection is unstable enough that I can’t tell where one of us ends and the other begins.
No wonder I never did crushes before.
This sucks.
Bane’s gaze remains fixed on us. “Compatibility is not the issue. Your initial resonance was unusually strong.”
“Past tense,” I say.
Camille’s jaw tightens. “What is required to restore it?”
“Sustained proximity. Regular physical contact. Emotional cooperation.”
I laugh. “Can you prescribe something less horrifying? Maybe surgery?”
He ignores me. “You cannot treat the bond as a barrier that activates only during an attack. It is a living magical structure. It must be maintained.”
“Nurtured,” Camille says, like the word personally offends her.
“Yes.”
I look at her. “You heard him, wife. We have to nurture.”
Her eyes meet mine at last.
The bond gives another faint, painful flicker.
“This is not amusing,” she says.
“No,” I agree, still smiling. “It really isn’t.”
Bane steps between us and removes the mirrored discs from our hands. “Until the resonance improves, you remain within immediate range of each other. No separate rooms. No extended periods apart. Physical contact at the first indication of instability.”
Camille’s expression turns clinical again. “How long?”
“That depends on you.”
“Dangerous answer,” I say.
Neither of them reacts.
Bane returns the instruments to his case. “I will reassess you in forty-eight hours. If the bond continues to deteriorate, the Council will need to consider stronger intervention.”
“What kind of intervention?” Camille asks.
His pause is brief.
Too brief.
“We are not at that stage yet.”
Which is handler language for something awful I’m not telling you.
The meeting ends shortly after that. Bane gathers his equipment, Camille requests copies of every resonance reading, and I spend several minutes pretending I am not bothered by the possibility that the one thing protecting me from another possession attempt is collapsing because I caught feelings for the wrong woman.
When we step back into the hallway, Camille remains beside me.
Exactly within range.
Not touching.
That would apparently require emotional cooperation, and we are doing a truly excellent job with that.
***
Being injured is incredibly boring.
That is the real takeaway here. Not the pain, although everything hurts in increasingly creative ways, but the stillness. The forced downtime. The way everyone keeps hovering as though I might spontaneously combust if left unsupervised.
I’m on the couch again, in the same position I’ve occupied for somewhere between one hour and three. Time is fake.
My phone is in my hand. I’m scrolling without reading.
There are messages from fans, management, and random contacts I forgot existed. Mina sent me a meme fifteen minutes ago, then immediately followed it with are you alive? as if she wasn’t sitting ten feet away from me earlier.
I don’t respond.
The television is on but muted, and the suite is quiet.
Too quiet.
The bond hums faintly in the background, like a low signal I could tune into if I wanted.
So much for proximity.
The second our meeting with Mr. Bane ended, Camille disappeared three rooms down in a temporary operations suite to handle whatever crisis had become more urgent than the magical bond apparently keeping me alive.
Apparently ‘immediate range’ can be interpreted as as ‘close enough to monitor and far enough to avoid speaking to me’.
Very nurturing of her.
A knock sounds at the door.
“Come in,” I call, already bracing for more hovering. More how are you feeling? More people watching me breathe like it’s a group project.
The door opens.
I glance up and freeze.
“What?”
My older sister, Natalia, is standing in the doorway.
She looks like the practical version of me someone might design after receiving extensive feedback.
Same warmed skin and dark eyes, but her hair is its natural deep brown instead of dyed red, falling in loose waves around her shoulders.
She’s wearing jeans, sensible sneakers, and a linen shirt that somehow survived an international flight without wrinkling.
Pretty, but in an effortless way she would deny if I said it aloud.
She is also holding—
“Oh my GOD!”
The tiny, high-pitched bark reaches me a second before the blur of fur wiggles out of her arms and launches itself at my chest.
“Angel!”
I drop my phone and catch her midair. Pain shoots through my ribs, sharp enough to make my breath catch, but it’s worth it.
My startled laugh becomes something brighter and louder as she wriggles against me, licking my chin, cheek, and nose while her paws scrabble over my shoulder like she’s trying to climb inside my skin.
“Hi, baby. Hi. Oh my God, hi.” I bury my face in her fur and breathe her in like oxygen. “My little angel. What are you doing here? How did you get here? Hi, hi, hi, baby!”
She barks again, sharp and delighted.