Chapter 4
ARK
The road stretched before him, a dark ribbon slick beneath his car’s headlights.
It hugged the eastern perimeter of Lake Ontarel, bordering Angelene and its surrounding towns.
He guided the vehicle with a practiced grip, but his usual calm felt punctured.
A glance at the clock confirmed he was late.
In his defence, he’d tried to be punctual—but his evening had been derailed by a witch with emerald eyes.
As he passed through Little Mineola, his gaze flicked to the bakery box in the passenger seat.
Her village. The Witching Flour was somewhere along these dark, quiet streets.
He imagined it without trying—a warm shopfront glowing against the cold, smelling exactly like this box.
Its warmth had faded, but its presence lingered, filling his car with the ghost of cinnamon and honey.
A silent reminder of an agreement that should feel absurd.
A fake engagement.
He replayed the moment—not the defiance at the club, but the shrewd vulnerability in her gaze as she sat across from him and demanded her terms. Miss Aura Cassia had weighed him, found him wanting in trust but sufficient in utility. She’d chosen to place a wager on him.
A dangerous gamble, for both of them.
He exhaled. The idea was brilliant in its simplicity—it solved the problem of his mother’s ball. But there was more. Alderrath’s frustration at The Ivory Club had made one thing clear: he wanted Starlight badly.
And anything Alderrath wanted that badly, Ark had an instinct to dismantle.
Fifteen kilometres past Little Mineola, he turned onto a side street.
Darkness closed in. Wilderness crept to the edges of the road, swallowing the world beyond his headlights.
Here, the air carried none of the city’s cloying politics and superficiality—only the cold bite of winter, laced with something older and far more honest. The road narrowed, flanked by towering oaks whose bare branches knitted together overhead like interlocking fingers.
At its end, a mansion waited—a jagged silhouette against the starlit sky.
The stone walls stood intact, but no light glowed in any window.
No smoke rose from the chimneys. The gravel drive was choked with weeds, and the box hedges had grown into shapeless masses.
Ivy draped the facade in heavy curtains, years of slow growth creeping toward the windows, patient and unhurried.
Soon, this abandoned place would belong to him.
Well, to Aegis a single brush of bare fingers against a tainted surface could let Grief or Rage thread its way into the bloodstream.
None of them were foolish enough to offer that invitation.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, something stirred. It was a signature he’d learned to read in a hundred forgotten places: the bitter tang of Memory Magic.
Most Meredithians only recognized the power they were born with—Inherited Magic, passed down through bloodlines, hoarded by great families and reclaimed from the deceased to keep their dynasties strong. It was the magic of demons and witches and elves, of ancient lineages and birthright.
But the world was built on two older, wilder magics.