Chapter 21
It’s all fun and games until the story gets personal.
The bookstore was warm and crowded, with rows of folding chairs squeezed between the bookshelves. Every seat was taken.
Emma approached from the back of the room, coming in behind the audience. A few heads turned as she entered, then more followed when whispers of “she’s here” started rippling through the crowd.
She made her way toward the small wooden podium at the front, near the sunny bookstore window where dust danced lazily through the air. Darren’s T-shirt brushed against her skin with every move she made, bringing the faintest trace of his scent.
The bookstore manager, a woman in her fifties with graying hair and bright red glasses, gave Emma a relieved look as she approached.
“And now, my dear friends,” she announced, exasperation lining her voice, “finally the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Emma Whitehart!”
“So sorry,” Emma whispered as she switched places with the woman.
She settled behind the worn podium, letting her hands come to rest on the smooth edges.
A familiar reverence washed over her—that first moment of looking out at the room before a reading. No matter how many she’d done, it still hit her every time. She hoped it always would.
Chairs shuffling. Clothes rustling. A hush thick with anticipation. All of it pressed in on her at once. It was pure presence, the kind she otherwise only found at her desk, when the world narrowed to just her and the story.
Sharing it was different. More sacred. Everyone here had stepped into a world she’d built from nothing—just a spark in her mind, now living in theirs. Strangers carrying pieces of her story inside them, making it their own.
It was humbling and overwhelming and goddamn if it wasn’t the closest thing to magic she had ever believed in.
“Hi, guys,” she said to the audience. “Thanks for your patience. Trust me, there is a really good story behind why I’m late, but I’ll save it for another day.
Let’s read some Bonds of Light together, shall we?
I was thinking we could dive straight into Chapter Twelve, when Catlyn first starts to fight Lucen’s hold over her. ”
A murmur of approval rose from the crowd. It was one of her go-to chapters for readings—holding just the right amount of tension to keep the crowd on their toes, but not enough to make her blush.
There was a copy of her book waiting on the podium.
Emma trailed her fingers over the familiar cover.
Lucen’s palace, dark against a midnight sky, silhouetted by golden beams of light.
How strange and amazing her life had become since this story found its way into the world.
She opened it, rustling through the pages.
When she found the right one, she took a breath, centering herself. The room fell silent in that familiar way she loved, a hundred small sounds folding into stillness.
She began to read.
Catlyn stood in the circle of sigils like a queen in exile. Feet bare. Hands at her sides. And light—coiled beneath her skin like a blade pressed flat.
Her voice flowed, the rhythm familiar, like singing an old song. But when she looked up, her breath caught in her throat.
Above the crowd, on a narrow, shadowed mezzanine, a figure caught her eye. Half hidden, but unmistakable.
Darren. Leaning against the rail, arms folded, gaze fixed on her.
A jolt of panic shot through her at the thought that a fan might wander up there and spot him. But the balcony was barely lit, with no bookshelves in sight—only a few cardboard boxes visible through the railing. A storage space.
Relief came, but it was brief. Because her next realization was worse: she had to keep reading her own words about Lucen—with him watching. The thought made her skin tingle in a way she wasn’t quite sure she liked.
Her voice still carried through the room. Apparently, her mouth had kept going on autopilot while her mind wandered. Thank god.
Lucen watched her from the shadows of the sanctum, eyes narrowing. She hadn’t yielded in four days. There was defiance in the way she held herself, even now. Even here.
The words hit differently with him there. As if she were reading directly to him, not the crowd. As if every line wasn’t just a story, but a secret she laid bare. Every inch of her went tense with awareness. What was he still doing here?
She caught a faint shift in his posture when Lucen whispered, “You belong to me.”
In her mind, she replayed the dark flash in his eyes as he saw her turn around in his T-shirt. Heat crawled up her neck, and she kept her eyes firmly on the page, even though she knew it by heart.
She drew a quiet breath and kept going.
The audience didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.
They were reverently leaning in, as if she were quoting scripture.
One girl in the front row mouthed along with her, eyes shining.
Emma let it ground her. Let herself sink back into the connection with her readers until she reached the final lines.
“Maybe I belong to you,” Catlyn said, breath rough. “But you just proved that you belong to me, too.”
Emma let the pause hang in the air before closing the book with a soft thud. Applause burst like a wave, warm and sincere. She finally dared another glance upward.
The balcony was empty.
A hollow tug pulled at her chest, the disappointment taking her by surprise.
She clasped her hands over her stomach, telling herself it was just a convenient place to rest them. That it had nothing to do with pulling his T-shirt closer against her skin.
“Okay,” she said, leaning into the mic. “Let’s do a Q&A, shall we?”
A hand shot up in the second row. A girl in a faded Supernatural hoodie, practically bouncing in her chair.
“Yes?” Emma asked with an encouraging smile.
“Okay, so . . . do you think Lucen is actually in love with Catlyn, or is it just obsession?”
Emma ran a hand through her hair, which still felt a little wild. “Honestly, I think being truly, deeply in love with someone is very hard to separate from obsession. So I guess a bit of both? That totally goes for fictional crushes, too, by the way. What do you guys think?”
The room started humming with delighted chatter.
Another hand rose, this time from a boy with dyed blue hair, waving eagerly near the back. She nodded at him, and he bounced to his feet.
“Okay, first of all, the T-shirt—love it! Huge Back to the Future fan, it’s like, my all-time favorite movie.”
“I know, right?” Emma said automatically, instantly regretting it. She’d only seen the damn movie once, on a bad date. Never liked it since. What if the kid asked her about it? She braced herself for his question.
“So,” he continued, “if you could be any character in your book for a day, who would you be?”
Emma exhaled quietly. Dodged that one. Then she folded her arms over the podium. “Tempting as it is to say, Catlyn, I’d probably pick someone less likely to end up tied to an altar. Maybe Goryn, the innkeeper. He has a really good wine cellar, and no one ever tries to kill him.”
Easy laughter rolled through the crowd, and Emma felt herself relax further.
The next fan called out from somewhere on the left side, without being given the word. “Who’s your dream cast for Lucen?”
The audience instantly erupted in cheers and whistles.
Emma raised her hands, mock defensive. “Oh, come on, I knew that one was coming.”
Shouts of Darren’s name thundered through the room, making her suddenly very glad he’d disappeared. Someone actually yelled, “Colehart forever!”
She flushed, but masked it with a crooked smile. “Alright, you’re all very persuasive, I’ll give you that. Let’s just say whoever plays him has some very, very high expectations to meet, don’t you think?”
That earned a new round of applause, giving her a moment to regain her composure.
Finally, a small voice from the third row. A girl no older than fifteen, with yellow nail polish bright against the fingers clutching her Bonds of Light copy.
“Do you ever . . . feel that he’s wrong for her? Because of the power imbalance between them?”
Emma tilted her head, watching the girl. She had expected something lighter. The room went very still.
“Well, yes,” she said softly. “All the time. And I think that’s what makes him so dangerously appealing. They’re dancing around it, both of them knowing it’s wrong. That’s why she has to find her own power before they can be anything real. Why when they finally come together, they do it as equals.”
The hush that followed was different—deeper.
“Alright,” she said, keeping her voice muted. “Thank you so much for coming. I’ll be around if anyone wants their book signed.”
Her eyes lifted on their own. The mezzanine loomed above her, dark and abandoned.
Still, he’d been there. Stayed for her words. To stand inside her world, if only briefly.
It didn’t make them equals. But it did mean something.
She just wasn’t sure what.