9. The Second Thread Snaps #3
Every match comes back at once. Talia and Ren. Josephine and Mark. Nessa and Cole. Liora and Ben. Every smile on my office wall. Every thank-you card. Every red thread I touched.
Blessing or beacon?
I press a fist to my mouth. No sound. No words. Words matter.
Mina reaches across the backseat and touches my knee. “Breathe with me.”
“I told them to trust it,” I whisper.
Mina goes quiet.
That is the problem with best friends. They know which sentences are not random.
“I told Lilissa that tenderness was not a trap. I told Rafe love would not make him weak. I told all of them some version of that. Trust the thread. Trust the pull. Trust the person your heart recognizes.”
Dorian lowers his phone.
I can feel him listening from the front seat, every controlled inch of him turned toward me without moving.
Mina’s fingers tighten gently on my knee. “You gave them courage.”
The car falls silent except for rain, wipers, tires, Dorian’s breathing, Kelly’s steady hands on the wheel.
I cannot explain enough for Mina to comfort me. Not without saying the shape of the curse. Not without feeding whatever may already be coiled around my matches, listening for names, for fear, for the confession that I have loved my work enough to make it dangerous.
So I make myself a promise instead: No more names.
No more public joy. No more speaking of my matches as if love itself is a shield.
From now on, every couple I have matched becomes a locked door.
Protected quietly. Watched carefully. No announcements.
No ceremonies if I can help it. No blessings spoken where walls might hear.
The thread jerks again, and I gasp.
Dorian turns fully now. “Change?”
“Darker,” I say. My voice sounds thin. “Still there.”
“Good.”
I look up.
He adjusts the rearview mirror. His eyes catch mine.
Not soft. Not soothing. Focused.
“They’re not dead yet,” he says.
The words are not comfort. They are steel. They are a mission.
Something inside me grabs onto them hard enough to hurt.
Not dead yet.
Kelly takes the next corner too fast, and Mina mutters something about dying before we reach the poisoning victims being narratively inefficient.
I almost laugh.
Almost.
The thread pulls again.
I close both hands around the invisible line in my chest and hold on.
Not dead yet.
Not dead yet.
Not dead yet.
Lilissa and Rafe’s house is too quiet.
That is the first wrong thing.
Not the rain. Not the darkness gathered beneath the eaves. Not the little brass bell from the back door hanging still when it should be chiming with Lilissa’s tide-wards.
The quiet.
Their house always has sound. Music from Lilissa’s old record player. Rafe’s deep laugh rumbling through the walls. The kettle screaming because both of them forget it until it becomes personally offended.
Tonight, nothing.
Kelly brakes hard outside the blue cottage with the moon gate. Gravel spits beneath the tires. Dorian is out before the car fully stops, one hand already near his weapon, the other lifted in a silent command for us to wait.
Naturally, I do not listen.
I rush the back door.
Mina grabs my coat. “Fate.”
“I can feel them.”
“That was not permission to sprint into possible poison murder.”
“It was implied.”
Dorian’s head snaps toward us. “Stay behind me.”
He says it to all of us.
He looks at me.
Very rude, being known that specifically.
Kelly moves to his flank, radio in hand, voice low and clipped as she updates dispatch. Mina slings her charm bag over one shoulder and mutters, “If I die in someone else’s yard while carrying emergency biscuits, I am haunting everyone.”
The thread in my chest pulls so hard my knees nearly buckle.
Darker.
I gasp.
Dorian sees it and stops arguing with the universe. “Where?”
“Kitchen. Back of the house.”
His gaze locks on the windows. No movement inside. No shadows crossing light. No sign of struggle from here, but the porch light glows warm and normal, which somehow makes everything worse.
Normal is becoming suspicious.
Dorian tests the front door.
Locked.
He steps back, lifts one hand toward the frame, and murmurs something too low for human ears. The lock clicks open with a soft metallic sigh.
Kelly stares at him.
“Warlock privilege,” Mina whispers to her.
He enters first, weapon drawn, shoulders broad enough to block half the hallway. Kelly follows, then Mina, then me because, apparently, no one has yet accepted that the invisible thread yanking my ribs out of alignment is the true authority here.
The house smells like garlic, wine, rosemary, and fear.
No blood. No smoke. No rot.
Good signs.
Maybe.
Or just signs that the killer has diversified.
“Clear left,” Kelly says.
“Clear hall,” Dorian answers.
I barely hear them. The thread drags me forward through the narrow entry, past framed photos of Lilissa and Rafe laughing on a beach, past a coat rack holding his enormous jacket and her tiny stiletto rain boots.
The domestic details hurt more than broken glass would.
The kitchen opens at the back of the house.
Blue tile. Oak table. Candles burned low. Two plates. Bread torn in half. Mussels gone cold in a pot on the stove.
And on the floor—
I make a sound that does not belong to me.
Lilissa lies curled beside the table, one hand still stretched toward Rafe. Rafe is half-slumped against the chair, enormous body folded awkwardly, fingers locked around hers as if even unconscious he refused to let go.
Wine spreads dark across the tabletop and drips onto the floor.
Not blood.
Wine.
Still, my knees hit the tile.
Dorian is beside them instantly. “Pulse.”
Kelly drops near Lilissa. “I’ve got one. Weak.”
Dorian presses two fingers to Rafe’s throat. His face does not change, but something in his shoulders releases by a fraction. “Alive.”
Alive.
The word goes through me so hard I almost fall forward.
Mina is already tearing open charm packets with shaking hands. “No one touch mouths. No shared contact. No more romantic poisoning nonsense on my watch.”
Kelly glances at her. “What are you? A magical EMT?”
“I am now.”
Dorian looks at the table. “Wineglasses. Plates. Food. Everything stays.”
His voice is calm, but his eyes are lethal.
I reach toward the thread between Lilissa and Rafe.
Not with my hand. With the part of me that started this. My magic.
The bond is still there, darkened and knotted, but pulsing faintly. Not snapped. Not gone.
I choke on a sob.
Lilissa’s lashes flutter. “Rafe,” she whispers, barely sound at all.
“I’m here,” he rasps, though his eyes stay closed.
And that breaks me.
Relief hits first, bright enough to hurt.
Then horror follows close behind. Because the killer can reach love onstage beneath bright lights.
And the killer can reach love here, in a blue-tiled kitchen, over dinner, with candles burning and bread still warm from hands that expected tomorrow.
Dorian looks at me over their bodies.
No words. None needed.
The thread between Lilissa and Rafe trembles beneath my magic.
Alive. Targeted. Unwarned.
I press both hands to the cold kitchen tile and try to breathe around the terrible truth settling into me.
There is no safe place for love in Everwilde anymore.
Not public.
Not private.
Not even home.