Chapter 17
Alice
The ceiling fan spun in lazy circles above my bed, casting shifting shadows across the walls of my apartment. I counted the rotations. Twelve. Twenty. Forty-three.
Sleep wouldn't come.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Talin when she came back from the thread realm.
Pale as death, trembling, barely holding herself together.
I saw the terror in Elias's expression as he carried her out of the back room of Lizzy's shop.
I tried to imagine the binding points she described, the four anchors tethering Marcus's pocket dimension to our world.
I saw the book still hidden beneath the floorboards in my closet.
And I felt the darkness inside me, coiled tight and waiting.
He's still alive, Alice. And he's fighting.
My twin. My other half. The boy who used to sneak into my room during thunderstorms, even though I was the one who should've been scared. The man who carried the same curse I did. Djinn blood tainting the blood in our veins like poison. A reality I'd been feeling more and more recently.
I threw back the covers and padded barefoot to the window.
The weather was really starting to warm up, and the Garden District slept beneath a blanket of humidity and Spanish moss.
Streetlights glowed softly through the live oaks, painting everything in watercolor hues.
And a few blocks over, beyond the protective wards our coven maintained, the vampire territory began.
Dae-Jung was out there somewhere.
The thought came unbidden, and I pressed my palm against the cool glass. It'd been three days since I'd broken down in his arms at The Purple Fang, and he'd held me while I sobbed about the darkness I was hiding from everyone who was supposed to love me.
I rubbed my eyes. I needed air. Some space. Anything other than these four walls.
My dress slipped easily over my head. It was loose cotton in deep purple, flowing and comfortable. Then I slipped on some sandals. The nights were getting warmer, and the Garden District's cobblestones were familiar beneath the thin soles.
The streets were empty this late. Or early. I wasn't sure which anymore. Time felt slippery lately, both too short and never ending, like I was caught between moments.
Was this how Talin experienced the world now? Fractured and overwhelming?
I walked without direction, letting my feet carry me through the quiet neighborhood.
Past the Lafayette Cemetery, with its white tombs gleaming in the darkness.
Past the Commander's Palace, dark and shuttered.
Past houses with wrought-iron galleries and gardens bursting with jasmine and Confederate roses.
The air grew heavier as I approached the edge of our territory. The wards pulsed here, invisible but tangible. Witch magic woven into the very fabric of the Garden District. Protection. Safety.
Prison.
I stopped at the boundary line, feeling the magic press against my skin. Beyond it, the French Quarter beckoned. Vampire territory. Dangerous for a witch alone. Or maybe not so much anymore.
Besides, I wasn't alone.
Dae-Jung leaned against a live oak just outside the ward line, hands shoved in the front pockets of his black jeans. His straight dark hair gleamed in the streetlight, and when he turned his head, his eyes found mine immediately.
Like he'd been waiting for me.
"I couldn't sleep." His voice carried easily across the ward boundary.
I should've turned around. Gone home. Maintained the distance between covens, between species, between us.
But why should I? Was it even possible anymore?
I stepped through the wards.
They parted around me like water, recognizing me. On the other side, the air tasted different. Sharper. My skin prickled with the feeling.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
Dae pushed off the tree, closing the distance between us. "Could ask you the same thing, yeobo."
The Korean endearment slid over me like silk.
"I can't stop thinking about what Talin said. About the binding points." I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the humid air. "About Alex."
We started walking side by side as though we'd done this every night for years. "Your brother is strong," he told me. "And kinda scary. If anyone can hold out against Marcus, it's him."
"I hope so."
Dae studied me with those dark, perceptive eyes. "What's really bothering you?"
My breath caught. "What do you mean?"
He stopped walking, so I stopped too.
"You won't become like him." He took a step closer, but I didn't think he even noticed that he’d done it. "You won't let it change you into something you'll hate."
How did he see through me so easily? I'd spent my whole life perfecting the sweet, gentle Alice everyone expected. The good witch. The one who helped and healed and never caused trouble.
"I felt it the other night," I whispered the confession, like I was afraid my distant uncle would hear me.
"When Talin was in the thread realm. This.
.. pull. Like something inside me recognized the world she'd entered, and I wanted to reach out and help.
" I looked down at my hands, half-expecting them to look different.
"I could have helped her. I know I could have. But I was too scared to try."
"Scared you'd hurt her?"
"Scared I'd like it." The confession tore out of me. "Scared I'd tap into that power and never want to stop. Scared I'd prove everyone right—that Alex and I are dangerous. Contaminated."
Dae's hands were suddenly cupping my face, tilting my head up. I didn't even see him move. It was startling, but I guess he didn't feel the need to try to disguise what he was around me.
"Listen to me," he said. "Power doesn't make you dangerous. What you choose to do with it does."
"That's easy for you to say. You didn't inherit magic from a monster."
"No. I just became one by choice." His smile was bitter. "You think I don't know about darkness, Alice? About hiding who you really are?"
I searched his expression, looking for something beneath his usual carefree mask. "Are you hiding something, Dae?"
He dropped his hands, stepping back. For a long moment, he just looked at me. Then he started walking again, and I fell into step beside him.
We wandered deeper into the French Quarter, away from the Garden District's safety. The streets here were narrower, older. Music drifted from closed bars as the employees cleaned up, and the sour scent of spilled beer mixed with the sweet warmth of beignets lingered in the air.
"Everyone thinks I'm this happy-go-lucky guy," Dae finally said. "The vampire who never takes anything seriously. Always joking, always performing, always on."
"You are those things."
"I'm good at pretending to be those things." He kicked at a loose stone. "Truth is, I just feel…empty these days. Going through the motions. Feeding, working at the club, existing. Not really living. Just... I don't know. Here."
The admission surprised me.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "But I think I can understand. Living the same life for so many years…" I glanced at him and trailed off when I saw the expression on his handsome face. "How long have you felt this way?"
"I don't know. Twenty years? Fifty?" He gave a little laugh and shrugged. "After enough decades, everything starts to blur together. Same faces, different names. Same conversations, different century." He looked over at me. "At least until recently."
We turned down a side street, quieter than the main thoroughfares. Shadows pooled thick between the buildings, and I would've been scared if I wasn't with him.
"So what changed?" I asked.
He stopped walking, and I turned to face him. When he looked at me, something burned in his dark eyes. Something that made my breath catch.
"??? ? ??? ????," he said softly. The Korean rolled off his tongue like music. "???? ???? ???."
I didn't speak Korean, but the way he said it—with so much longing and fear and wonder wrapped up in those syllables—needed no translation.
"What does that mean?" I asked anyway, because I did want to know.
"You," he said. "You make me feel something." He took a step closer. Then another. "For the first time in so long."
The space between us shrank until I could feel the warmth of his body, so different than what I expected. Could smell cedar and something that was just him. Could see the way his gaze dropped to my lips.
My heart was racing and my head felt light and a little dizzy. "Dae—"
"I know." His hand came up, fingers hovering near my cheek without quite touching. "You're a witch. I'm a vampire. Your aunt would stake me. My coven leader would probably help her."
"That's not true. And that's not what I was going to say."
"No?" His fingers finally made contact, brushing my jaw. "Then what?"
"I was going to say… you make me feel something, too."
The confession hung between us. His thumb stroked my cheekbone, gentle and reverent.
"Is that true?" he asked.
"Yes," I admitted.
"And what are you feeling, yeobo?"
Too much. Everything.
"Like I've been sleepwalking," I admitted. "And I only wake up when I'm around you."
His breath—unnecessary for a vampire, but taken anyway—stuttered out. "Alice."
The way he said my name. Like I was something precious.
Like he'd been carrying it around for centuries, waiting for the perfect moment to release it into the night air between us.
His smooth voice wrapped around each syllable with such reverence that I felt it resonate through my entire body, lighting up places inside me I didn't even know existed.
He leaned down, and I tilted my face up, drawn to him by some force I couldn't explain or resist. Our lips were a heartbeat apart, his breath mingling with mine.
I could almost taste the sweetness of what was to come when reality crashed down on me, jarring and unwelcome, like cold water on a perfect dream.