Chapter 34 Ivy
IVY
Backstage at the festival, Ivy tuned her guitar with fingers that trembled only slightly. The crowd's murmur reached her through the canvas backdrop, hundreds of voices creating a warm hum of anticipation and support that helped steady her nerves.
"Ready?" Twyla appeared beside her with a steaming mug. "Last cup of choice tea before you make history."
"As ready as I'll ever be." Ivy accepted the tea gratefully, letting its familiar warmth settle her stomach. "How's the turnout?"
"Standing room only. Word spread faster than wildfire about what you're doing tonight." Twyla's eyes sparkled with satisfaction. "Half the supernatural community from three counties is out there."
"No pressure then."
"The good kind of pressure. The kind that comes from people believing in you."
Through a gap in the backdrop, Ivy could see the stage where she'd perform her liberation.
Lanterns cast warm pools of light across the wooden platform, and she could just make out the protective sigils Dorian had carved into the support beams. Hidden wards that would shield her from backlash without interfering with her magic.
"Council's in position," Diana reported, joining them with her usual efficient calm. "Medical team standing by. Security has eyes on every approach."
"Any sign of Sebastian?"
"None.”
Ivy tested her guitar's tuning one final time. "He won't let me break free without a fight."
"Then we'll be ready for him." Moira emerged from the crowd with her arms full of protective charms and ward stones. "Extra safeguards, just in case your natural shields need reinforcement."
Ivy accepted the offered protections, tucking them into her jacket pockets and guitar case. The weight of community support was almost overwhelming, so different from the isolation she'd felt for months while running from Sebastian's control.
"Five minutes," called the stage manager.
"This is it." Ivy stood, slinging her guitar strap over her shoulder. "Thank you. All of you. For everything."
"Thank us by singing yourself free," Twyla said firmly. "And then stick around so we can celebrate properly."
The walk to the stage felt both endless and too short. Ivy could hear Elder Varric addressing the crowd, explaining the nature of the ceremony they were about to witness, the legal and magical significance of what would happen.
"Ladies and gentlemen," his voice carried clearly across the square, "tonight we bear witness to an act of courage that goes to the heart of what it means to be free.
Miss Ivy Lane will attempt to sever magical contracts that have bound her voice and her choices for far too long.
This ceremony is sanctioned by the Council and protected by the full authority of Hollow Oak's sovereignty. "
The crowd applauded, and Ivy felt their support like a physical embrace. She stepped onto the stage, settling onto the stool they'd provided, and adjusted the microphone with hands that were steady now.
"Thank you all for being here," she said, her voice carrying clearly across the hushed square. "What you're about to witness isn't just a magical working. It's a choice. My choice to reclaim what was taken from me."
She could see familiar faces in the crowd. Diana near the medical station, Moira and Lucien by the bookstore, Twyla beaming from her spot near the café. And there, positioned where he could see every approach but stay out of her direct line of sight unless she looked for him, was Dorian.
Their eyes met for a moment, and he nodded once. Not protection, but witness. Not interference, but support.
"I'm going to sing what I wrote about freedom," Ivy continued, settling her guitar across her lap. "I'm singing it for myself. Tonight, I choose to be free."
The first chord rang clear in the crisp night air, and Ivy felt her magic rise to meet it. Not the careful, controlled power she'd been using since escaping Sebastian's immediate influence, but the full strength of her fae heritage unleashed at last.
"I name myself, I claim my voice," she sang, weaving intention into every note. "I speak my truth, I make my choice."
The crowd went perfectly still, caught up in the power flowing through her voice. Even the children stopped fidgeting, sensing the importance of what was happening.
"No binding holds what I release
No contract chains my inner peace."
Magic made the air shimmer around the stage, visible to anyone with supernatural sight. The protective wards Dorian had carved began to glow softly, responding to her power and amplifying it safely.
"The words I sang in darker days
Are ashes now, the magic frays."
That's when Sebastian struck.
He materialized at the edge of the square like smoke given form, his expensive suit immaculate despite appearing from nowhere. In his hands, he held a scroll of parchment that glowed with sickly yellow light.
"Stop!" His voice cut through Ivy's song like a blade, magically amplified to reach every corner of the gathering. "This ceremony is illegal! This woman is attempting to violate a binding contract signed in blood!"
Ivy's voice faltered for just a moment, but she forced herself to continue. "I am my own, I sing me—"
"I said stop!" Sebastian raised the parchment, and power radiated from it in waves that made the protective wards flare. "Ivy Lane, by the terms of the Crowe Binding dated three years, two months, and sixteen days ago, I call upon your blood oath to honor our agreement!"
The parchment began to glow brighter, and Ivy felt something cold and familiar wrap around her throat. Not Sebastian's usual silence sigil, but something deeper. Something that pulled at her very essence.
"I never signed any blood oath," she said, but her voice was already growing thin.
Sebastian's smile was triumphant as he unrolled the parchment for all to see. "Ladies and gentlemen, I present the original contract between Miss Lane and Crowe Entertainment. Signed not in ink, but in blood. Witnessed not by humans, but by binding spirits who cannot lie."
The crowd murmured with concern and confusion. Blood contracts were serious magic, nearly impossible to break and enforced by powers beyond normal supernatural law.
"That's impossible," Ivy said, but even as the words left her mouth, she felt the binding threads tightening around her magic. "I would remember signing something like that."
"Memory charms are so effective when properly applied. Especially when the subject wants desperately to believe they're making their own choices."
The parchment drank the air around it, creating a void that pulled at Ivy's voice with inexorable force. She tried to continue her free-song, but no sound emerged. The dissolution magic scattered like leaves in a storm, leaving her defenseless against Sebastian's resurgent control.
"No," she whispered, then tried again louder. "No, this isn't—"
But her voice was already fading, stolen once again by magic she couldn't fight. The crowd watched in horrified silence as Sebastian's counter-contract reasserted its dominance, proving his ownership of her voice in the most public and humiliating way possible.
"The binding stands," Sebastian announced to the gathering, his voice carrying satisfaction and vindication.
"Miss Lane remains under contract to Crowe Entertainment until I make the choice to release her.
Which, given tonight's attempted breach of our agreement, may be considerably longer than originally planned. "
Ivy clutched her guitar with hands that shook with rage and despair. Once again, Sebastian had found a way to steal her voice just when she thought she might be free. Once again, she was helpless while everyone she cared about watched her fail.
The paper in Sebastian's hands pulsed with hungry light, and Ivy felt her remaining strength being drawn into its magical maw. Whatever blood contract he claimed she'd signed, it was real enough to override all her careful preparation.
Real enough to trap her once again.