27. Hollow #3
Arley stepped toward Ace before she could stop him. Rainwater dripped softly from his sleeves, as he grabbed the manuscript, gaze skimming the pages.
At first, he looked confused. Then pale. Then deeply unsettled. “Scarlett,” he said carefully.
Maddox took the pages from him next. Scarlett watched the exact second he found his own name written there. The bookstore became unbearably quiet. Ace stayed perfectly still near the staircase, already knowing. Maddox flipped through pages faster now.
Battles.Dialogues.Memories.Entire moments of their lives laid out in ink. His face darkened with every page. “What is this?” he asked finally.
Arley looked at her softly. “Little Rose—”
“I can explain. Well, kind of. Not really,” she said nervously.
“Please do,” Maddox said. Not angry but confused.
Scarlett wrapped her arms around herself tightly. “When I was younger, I started writing stories.” Her voice trembled. “I thought they were dreams. Ways to cope with things that happened here.”
Maddox’s eyes lifted slowly to hers. “What things?”
Scarlett looked away. That answer lived buried in too many scars to touch yet. “The stories became Underland,” she whispered instead. “Then eventually… all of you, as I got older.” Silence.
Arley looked heartbroken already. Maddox looked like someone had driven a blade directly through his ribs. Ace just watched her quietly from across the room.
“You’re saying we aren’t real,” Maddox said flatly.
“No!” Scarlett stepped toward him instantly. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Then, what do you mean?” he pushed, trying to understand.
Emotion climbed violently into her throat. “I don't know,” she admitted. “I thought none of it was real, until you showed up tonight. I finished the manuscript, and then suddenly you're standing in my bookstore. None of this makes any sense.”
Silence settled over the room. Maddox stared at her, and she could practically see the war unfolding behind his eyes. Every memory. Every touch. Every battle. Everything they'd lived through was suddenly hanging in the balance.
Maddox lowered the manuscript slowly, as though it weighed far more than paper ever should.
“You loved us before you knew we were real,” he said quietly.
Scarlett's throat tightened. “I didn't know,” she whispered. “Not really. Not beyond the pages.”
Maddox crossed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her without hesitation. “But you feel it now,” he said, holding her against his chest. “You feel me.” It wasn't a question.
Ace finally spoke from the stairs. “Is this why she disappeared?” he asked.
Arley glanced toward him before looking back at Scarlett. “No.” He pushed away from the wall and took a few slow steps forward. “She didn't vanish because of a breach.” His eyes locked onto hers. “You really don't remember, do you?”
“Remember what?”
“The ending isn't what matters.”
Ace folded his arms, already looking irritated by whatever riddle Arley was about to deliver.
Arley ignored him. “Before you finished the story, you bound us together.”
Scarlett went still. “What?”
“The blood bond,” Arley said. “The four of us stood together in the Crimson Palace and chose each other. Four souls. One fate.”
Beside her, Maddox's hold tightened slightly. “Forever, my love,” he said quietly. Scarlett shook her head, trying to keep tears from flowing.
“That was part of the story.”
Arley let out a short laugh. “Oh, Scarlett.” The way he said her name made her stomach drop. “You still think the story and reality are separate things.”
“No,” she said immediately. “That's not possible.”
“Isn't it?” His gaze flicked toward the manuscript. “The bond exists there.” Then he looked at her. “And now we're here.”
Scarlett opened her mouth to argue, but the words wouldn't come. Because it matched. The blood magic. The coronation. The peace she'd written. The ending she'd typed alone in this very bookstore, long after midnight, exhausted and desperate to give them something better than war.
All three men were watching her now. Waiting. Listening. Scarlett drew a shaky breath. “There's magic in Lunar Hallow.”
Arley blinked. “Yes.”
“Obviously,” Maddox added.
Ace remained silent, but his attention sharpened.
“You don't understand,” Scarlett said. “There is magic here, but it's always belonged to someone else. Families. Bloodlines. People who can trace where it came from. There are different types of people or species, if you will.” Her fingers twisted together. “I can't.”
The room fell quiet. “I was an orphan,” she said softly. “I grew up at St. Rose's. No family records. No history. No one to tell me where I came from.”
Something dark flickered across Maddox's expression, because he knew this heartache.
“I don't remember much before the orphanage,” Scarlett continued. “Just pieces. Fragments. Most of it is gone.” Her voice cracked. “I thought that was normal.”
No one interrupted.
“When I got older, I stayed here. I worked, studied, and eventually found my way into the library.” A faint laugh escaped her. “Books made sense. Stories made sense. Real life didn't.”
She looked around the room. “At some point, I started writing because it was the only thing that made me feel whole. If I couldn't understand my own past, I could build a world that did.”
Her hands trembled against Maddox's chest. “I never thought I had magic,” she admitted. “Not once.”
A tear slipped free. “I was just an orphan hiding in books, trying to make sense of things that hurt.”
Her gaze drifted toward the manuscript resting on the table. “How was I supposed to know,” she whispered, “that any of it could be real?”
No one answered. For the first time, none of them seemed certain where the story ended or where Scarlett began.
A quiet settled over the bookstore—not empty, but full of everything they had survived to reach this moment.
Their war was over. The crowns had fallen, and hers had risen.
The promises had been made. And somehow, against every impossible odds, they were here standing together.
Scarlett looked at each of them in turn—Maddox, Ace, and Arley.
The men she had loved in dreams, on pages, and now in a reality she was only beginning to understand.
For years, she had believed stories were a refuge, a place to escape the parts of herself she couldn't face.
Now, she wondered if they had been something else entirely.
A map. A memory. A path leading her back to something she had forgotten.
Outside, the steady heartbeat of Lunar Hallow rang softly in the distance.
Life continued beyond the bookstore walls.
Beyond the manuscript. Beyond endings. Scarlett drew a slow breath and felt the warmth of the men beside her, solid and real.
She still didn't have all the answers. Maybe she never would.
But for the first time, that uncertainty didn't frighten her.
The Crimson Court was finished. But the story that had been written into her life was only beginning. Secrets at this table don't stay hidden for long. One spill, and suddenly everyone is peering into the bottom of the cup.