Chapter Twenty
SCAR
The throne arrives, the space gradually resolving around it as we move forward, as though the entire structure has been building toward this point from the moment we stepped inside, and we’re only now catching up to that design.
Living thorns rise from the ground in slow, deliberate arcs, forming something that appears organic until you look closer and realize the precision behind it, the control in every curve, every angle placed exactly where it needs to be.
The queen sits at the center of it, not elevated for effect, but because the room is built around her and always has been.
I’ve heard about Queen Titania for five centuries. Stories, warnings, fragments of accounts from those who walked into her Court and walked out again, and from those who didn’t.
None of it translates cleanly to this.
Up close, she doesn’t dominate the space in any obvious way—she doesn’t reach for attention or demand it. Instead, everything else adjusts around her, aligning itself without instruction, as though her presence is the fixed point everything else has learned to orbit.
Her gaze finds us before we come to a stop, not searching or curious, simply waiting, as if we were always going to end up exactly here, and she has been allowing the time it takes for us to arrive.
We stop at the base of the throne, the distance between us measured in something more deliberate than steps, something that feels chosen rather than incidental.
Ruckus inclines his head first, the motion measured, offering acknowledgment without giving ground, and Roxy follows a fraction deeper, her voice steady when she finally breaks the silence.
“Your Majesty.” The words land cleanly, balanced between respect and intent, carrying exactly as far as they need to and no further.
Titania’s expression doesn’t shift much, but there’s something in it that wasn’t there before, something faintly amused, like she’s watching a story unfold that she already knows the ending to.
“Roxy,” she says, her voice smooth and precise, carrying through the space without needing to be raised. “You’ve brought interesting company.”
Her attention moves, settling on me with a focus that feels deliberate in a way I can’t ignore, and for the first time since we entered this place, something in me tightens that has nothing to do with strategy or positioning.
It’s appreciation.
The kind that comes from standing in front of something that could unmake you without effort and knowing, with absolute clarity, that it wouldn’t even have to try.
I don’t look away.
It wouldn’t matter if I did.
She has already decided what she sees.
And then she smiles, soft and precise, perfectly, deliberately gracious in a way that feels far more dangerous than anything else she could have done.
And when her attention settles on Raze, there’s no challenge in it, just calculation.
The kind that happens behind the eyes of somebody used to weighing threats, allies, and disasters with the same careful hand.
She studies him for a long moment, taking the measure of a force that’s already crossed into her Court and deciding exactly what that means for everyone standing here.
Her attention then shifts to Cali, and it isn’t casual. There’s something sharper beneath the courtesy, a quiet assessment that lingers for a moment before sliding past her to Roxy.
That interest, she makes no effort to hide. It shows in her eyes, a brightness that’s as close to genuine delight as I imagine Titania ever allows herself in mixed company. Whatever she thinks of Roxy’s power, she finds it considerably more interesting than she’s pretending.
I let the silence settle just long enough before I step forward and begin, “The Crimson Circle…”
Her gaze shifts back to me, not surprised, not even particularly interested, just… adjusting, like she’s turning a blade to catch the light from a different angle.
“And what is it you think I would say about them?” she asks, her voice smooth, precise.
“That you know something,” I reply.
A faint curve touches her mouth. Not quite a smile. “I know many things, vampire,” she says lightly.
I don’t rise to it.
Her eyes hold mine for a second longer, and then she tilts her head slightly, that same subtle, dangerous shift in attention settling in. “Information is the Court’s most careful currency, Scar.” The way she says my name isn’t familiarity.
It is placement.
“You understand the principle?”
“I do.”
“Good.” The word lands soft, but it carries.
She leans back just slightly, adjusting the space around her like she owns it down to the smallest detail.
“Then you understand that nothing of value is given freely,” she continues.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be.”
“No,” she agrees, her gaze flicking briefly toward Roxy before returning to me. “You weren’t.”
She pauses briefly before continuing, “What I will offer comes at a cost.”
“Name it.”
Her attention sharpens, just a fraction.
“There is a curse on my Court,” she says, the words delivered with the same calm precision as everything else, but something colder sits underneath them.
“Placed decades ago by a witch with more patience than restraint. It is why I cannot leave this realm. Not even to help defend my son when bikers with incredible powers are attacking it.” She pauses, for effect, to let us know she means when we attacked her son.
Not that it wasn’t warranted, mind you.
“The curse does not strike directly,” she continues. “It does not announce itself. It takes… increments small enough to avoid immediate retaliation and large enough that ignoring it is no longer an option.”
The room feels tighter around that statement.
“Untangle it,” she says, her gaze holding mine again, steady and expectant. “Remove it completely so that I am free to leave if I am needed.”
“And in return?”
Her mouth curves again, sharper this time. “You will have everything I know about the Crimson Circle.”
I hesitate, glancing at Raze, but he subtly nods.
“And if we don’t?”
Something in the room settles harder into place.
“Then…” Titania says softly, “… you will leave my Court exactly as uninformed as you arrived.” She pauses again for dramatic effect. “And I will consider whether your presence here has been worth… allowing.”
The terms are clear.
The cost is not small.
And neither is the alternative.
Roxy’s hands go still in her lap.
“She is not your instrument.” Raze’s growl stays low, but it’s got weight behind it, the kind that says it won’t stay quiet for long.
Titania looks at him for a long moment. “No,” she agrees. “She is not. She would be a guest performing a service, freely offered, for which payment would be rendered.” Her eyes return to Roxy. “I do not force bargains. The Court has its pride.”
Roxy looks at Raze, and they have a whole conversation in the space of three seconds.
He doesn’t like it. It’s written in every line of his stillness, ice shards beginning to spiderweb up his arms. But he knows her, knows what she’ll decide before she says it.
We all do, and what he does in the silence that follows is the thing that strikes me, quietly and without announcement…
He lets her.
“I’ll try,” Roxy says. She goes still, not frozen but focused, like everything in her has narrowed down to a single point I can’t see.
For a moment, nothing happens, and then the air begins to tighten around her, subtle at first, a quiet pressure building along the edges of the room that most wouldn’t notice.
Still, I feel it immediately, the shift in space, the sense of something gathering itself.
When she lifts her hand, the movement is deliberate, and the first thread of light that slips from her fingers is so fine it almost disappears as soon as it forms. It stretches outward anyway, searching, sliding through the structure of the Court as though the stone and root mean nothing, until it catches on something buried deep beneath it all.
More threads follow.
They don’t spill or flare, they unspool with careful precision, one after another, until they begin to fill the space around her, threading through the living architecture in patterns too complex to track, weaving themselves into the Court’s magic like they were always meant to be there.
And then they pull.
All at once.
Roxy’s body reacts to it, her shoulders tightening sharply, a breath catching hard enough that it cuts through the room, and I see the strain hit her in the way her balance shifts, the way her control has to hold rather than simply exist.
She doesn’t let go. Her fingers curl as though she’s gripping something solid, something resisting her, and the threads respond instantly, tightening in answer, dragging whatever she’s found closer to the surface.
The Court reacts to that pressure, branches straining, stone shifting subtly underfoot, the air thickening as if the entire structure is pushing back against what she’s doing.
Raze moves before anyone else can.
He’s at her side in a blink, his hand catching her arm, trying to pull her out of it, but she shakes him off with a force that has nothing to do with strength and everything to do with refusal. Her focus snaps to him for a fraction of a second, eyes sharp despite the strain already pulling at her.
“I’m close,” she forces out, the words tight, dragged through the effort of holding whatever she has hold of. “Don’t…”
The rest is lost as the threads surge again, brighter now, harsher, no longer subtle as they flare through the Court in cutting lines of light, dragging something upward that doesn’t want to be found.
Her knee hits the ground. Hard enough that the impact cracks through the stone beneath her, but she doesn’t break the connection, her hand still locked in place, her entire body braced against something that is actively trying to tear free.
“Fuck!” Raze swears under his breath, reaching for her again, more force behind it this time. “That’s enough—”
“Don’t touch me!” she snaps, sharper now, her voice shaking, not with fear but with strain, with the sheer effort of holding onto something that is fighting her every second. “I’ve got it… just—”
The threads flare brighter again, blazing now, no longer delicate, no longer controlled in the way they were before, as they cut through the Court’s magic and lock onto something that resists with equal force.
I can feel the pushback in the air, a pressure building fast, sharp, and unstable, as whatever she’s found fights to stay where it is.
And then Titania rises.
The movement isn’t dramatic, but the entire room responds to it, the space tightening, attention snapping toward her as her composure fractures just enough to reveal something underneath it.
“Yes,” she says, the word carrying through the Court with a sharpness that wasn’t there before, something almost electric threading through it. “I can feel it.” Her gaze locks onto Roxy, intent, unyielding. “Don’t stop, little witch.”
Roxy doesn’t hesitate. Whatever control she has left, she pushes it forward, driving into the resistance, and the backlash hits her immediately.
Her body jerks hard enough that it would have dropped anyone else, her second knee hitting the ground as she leans into it instead of away, refusing to give it ground.
Raze doesn’t have that control.
“Roxy, stop!” The words tear out of Raze, and his power follows, surging in both directions at once, frost racing outward from his feet in sharp, crystalline fractures that split the stone, while heat flares across his skin in uneven bursts of fire.
The two forces collide around him, pushing outward in a way that draws immediate attention.
The Seelie guards move as one.
They step in front of their queen without hesitation, staffs drawn, bodies forming a barrier between her and Raze, their focus locked entirely on him now, ready to respond if he crosses a line he can’t step back from.
I don’t give them the chance.
I step into Raze’s space, closing the distance fast, my hand catching his shoulder with enough force to ground him, to interrupt the spiral before it tips my hand burning against the flames.
“Raze.”
He doesn’t hear it.
His focus is locked on Roxy, panic and fury bleeding through every line of him as the frost spreads further and the fire burns hotter.
“Raze!” I tighten my grip, force the contact to mean something even through the ice and fire burning my skin. “Look at me!”
It takes a second, longer than I’d like, but his gaze snaps to mine, just enough, just barely, and I hold it there.
“She’s still in control,” I tell him, low and steady, cutting through everything else. “Don’t break it.”
His jaw tightens, the tension in him coiling instead of snapping, the frost slowing, the fire stuttering, not gone but contained enough to keep the room from igniting into something worse.
Behind us, Cali is already moving.
She drops to her knees beside Roxy, close enough to anchor her without pulling her away, her hand closing around Roxy’s arm, grounding her in something physical, something real.
“Hey,” Cali says, her voice steady despite everything happening around us. “You’ve got this.”
Roxy’s head dips slightly, the smallest flicker of awareness cutting through the strain before her focus locks back in, tighter than before.
The threads surge one last time.
Everything pulls tight around that single point…
And then it gives.
The resistance breaks cleanly, whatever was buried inside the Court unraveling under her grip, the threads snapping inward as the pressure releases all at once.
The light collapses back into her.
The air clears.
And Roxy finally loses the fight with her own body, the strength leaving her all at once as she folds forward, the connection gone, the work done.
Raze catches her before she’s fully fallen. The motion is instantaneous and total, his arms wrapping around her with a certainty that has no performance in it whatsoever, just the single-minded commitment, focused on one person, worth burning the world down for, and quietly proving it every time.
Everyone holds their breath.
Titania watches in complete awe. “You would burn this Court to ash for her,” she says. Not a question. The queen of the Seelie doesn’t deal in questions unless she already has the answers.
Raze looks at her over Roxy’s head. “I already did.”