Chapter 19
CASSIA
She let Ark lead her down the corridor. The walls were a study in restraint—dark wood, clean lines, no clutter. They passed a series of closed doors, one of which emanated a low thrum she instinctively sidestepped. Whatever was sealed inside, it didn’t want to be disturbed.
Ark didn’t speak, and she didn’t fill the silence.
It felt reverent, almost. Like entering a temple built not of stone and prayer, but of purpose and secrets.
At the far end of the hall, they reached a heavy iron door etched with an intricate sigil—a pattern so precise it might’ve been calligraphed rather than carved.
“Is this the vault?” she asked.
Ark nodded. “Everything rare, dangerous, or unpredictable we’ve found ends up in here.”
“And the safe ones?”
He glanced at her. “We don’t usually deal in safe, but they’d be out in the office area.”
He placed his palm against the door. The sigils flared briefly—eldritch and radiant, shifting like water under moonlight. The panel parted with a soft hiss, revealing a chamber far larger than she’d expected.
Glass cases lined the walls, each item inside glowing with ward-light.
A compass held midair in a suspended stasis loop.
A silver dagger with rubies and pearls set on its hilt.
A carved wooden mask sat inside one cube, its painted smile cracked through the centre.
Another held a single black glove, elegant and unassuming—until Cassia noticed the faint, flickering runes etched along the knuckles.
“Are these . . . some sort of containment vaults?” she asked softly.
“Each cube is a spell-locked capsule. Many of the artifacts still carry too much magic to be displayed in the open, even when we’ve made them dormant.”
She stopped in front of a cube holding a cracked porcelain teacup, studying the delicate floral motifs that looked hand-painted. “This is pretty.”
“That one belonged to a poison seer,” Ark explained. “She infused her visions into the glaze. If someone drinks from it, they see the death of the last person who used it.”
Cassia blinked. “A bit much for anyone who just wants a nice cup of tea.” She looked at him. “So you’re not hoarders. You’re caretakers.”
“And sometimes jailers,” he replied. “Some things shouldn’t see the light of day.”
“Then why keep them at all? Why not destroy them?”
“Because, no matter what, these are still pieces of our history—a window into the past. There’s much we can learn from them.
” He held her gaze. “And because when everyone else saw junk, we saw leverage. We’ve spent our whole lives bending to other people’s rules.
Their expectations. Their judgments. This”—he gestured to the vault—“is our loophole. A way to build something they can’t control. ”
Cassia’s breath caught. Loophole. She’d spent her whole life looking for them—a way through, a way around, a way to survive where she wasn’t welcome.
The Mystic Misfits Society was one of them: a way to build something the purebloods couldn’t control or take from her.
She’d made her own table, built her own community, welcomed the people they’d rejected.
He collected forgotten magic. She collected forgotten people.
Different tools. But perhaps, the fight wasn’t so different, after all.
Her voice softened. “Does your father know you’ve built this?”
Ark’s mouth twitched, though it wasn’t a smile. “He knows enough to be disappointed.”
He rarely spoke of his family. No cherished memories, no warmth, just a carefully measured tone that told her everything—the distance, the resentment, the weight of expectation still clinging to his shoulders.
A man born to a seat of power who chose, instead, to build his own house. Not with influence or inheritance, but with burned palms and the loyalty of two friends with no pristine legacy to shield them.
“You could sit at the High Table as part of the Regency Council,” she said. “You were born with that kind of power. So why take the backdoor instead?”
He looked back at her. “That kind of power doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the system that forged it. But this”—he gestured to their surroundings—“this is ours.”
Cassia blinked. Then she shook her head softly. “I admire you.”
His gaze sharpened. “Why?”
She looked at the horns he no longer hid, the vault of dangerous wonders. “Because if someone offered me a seat at the table, I don’t think I’d have the strength to refuse it.”
He shook his head. “You would,” he said, low and sure. “Once you see how they treat those they deem beneath them. Like the children at Starlight.”
Her smile turned soft and crooked. “Ah. You do know how to win an argument.”
She looked around the vault again, at the shelves of forgotten things he’d turned into his wealth. Then back at him. “Thank you. For showing me this.”
And for letting me in. She didn’t say the words, but she felt them, heavy and warm in her chest.
He took a slow step closer. “I did promise to show you everything one day.”
“Yes.” She offered a small smile. “Though I rather pushed my way in today.”
A flicker of something unreadable passed across his face. “Caius and Rhodes might’ve told you . . .” He paused. “I called your name before I passed out.”
She lowered her gaze, heart thudding. “Caius did. But . . .”
But. There was always a ‘but’—a wall of hesitation she couldn’t seem to climb over.
“But what?” he asked, softly.
“Your identity—your true form, your work—is something you’ve hidden for years. You’ve protected it for a reason. I didn’t want to assume I had any right to it.”
She didn’t say: I didn’t want to assume I mattered that much.
His voice dropped, low and teasing, but gentler than usual. “Even when you’re my Chosen?”
She met his gaze, a rueful smile tugging at her mouth. “You know what this arrangement is.”
He didn’t speak immediately, but the teasing faded from his face. “No matter how this ends, Cassia . . . I’d like to think we come out of it as friends. And friends are honest with each other, aren’t they?”
She didn’t speak. She’d always liked that word—friends. It had once seemed like a lifeline for a lonely girl. Warm and simple and safe.
But now, it dug in like a shard of glass underfoot. It felt like a door was being gently closed on a room she’d just begun to imagine entering. He’d just handed her the key to his hidden life, and now he was drawing a square around it, neat and careful, the way he organized everything else.
She understood. Letting someone see wasn’t the same as letting them stay.
“Yes,” she whispered. “They are.”
Her phone buzzed in her bag—an ordinary vibration, but it echoed sharply against the silence inside the vault. She jumped, fumbling to answer.
“Cassia!” came Lilibeth’s voice, breathless. “The bus is almost here. You have”—a pause, then some scuffling—“twenty minutes before we leave without you. And I swear, if Imogen tries to smuggle another bunny into her backpack—”
Cassia sucked in a sharp breath, her stomach plummeting. The skating trip!
“I’m coming!” she blurted. “I’m on my way.”
She hung up, guilt blooming. “I was supposed to chaperone the children’s skating trip. I lost track of time.”
“You’ll make it.” He fell into step beside her. “I’ll walk with you. Fresh air will do me good.”
She blinked. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. They stepped out into the corridor, the vault door sealing behind them in a series of clicks. Back in the main office, he reached for his coat, glamour flickering back over his features—horns vanishing, skin and eyes shifting just enough to pass unnoticed on the street.
“Besides,” he added, grinning, “someone needs to make sure you don’t get waylaid by errant bunnies.”
A laugh burst out of her. “I wouldn’t put it past Imogen.”
A moment later, they emerged into the stillness of the street, awash in early evening glow, the city alive just beyond Aegis & Ash’s derelict facade.
The walk across Eldryn Gardens was brief, and though Ark didn’t speak much, she relished the comfortable weight of his presence beside her.
When they reached Starlight’s familiar wrought iron gate, she stopped.
“Thank you,” she told him. Not just for walking with her, though she didn’t say the rest aloud.
Ark gave her a nod, his now-dull golden eyes reflecting the dying light. “Go on. They are waiting.”
He said that, but even after she walked into the courtyard, he remained there, watching her with that trademark unreadable expression of his.
The front door opened, sound spilling out to meet her—rushed footsteps, excited chatter, the creak of boots against the floorboards.
“Miss Aura!” a chorus of small voices shrieked.
Imogen launched herself at Cassia’s waist, clinging tightly, followed by three other children who quickly piled in for a group hug.
“We thought you forgot!” Imogen said dramatically, her scarf dragging on the floor behind her. “Miss Wren said we were leaving without you.”
Cassia laughed and hugged them all back. “I would never. I was only delayed by . . . a certain someone who needed a little help getting back on his feet.”
Lilibeth appeared at the entrance, looking exasperated but still smiling. Opalina trailed calmly behind her. Cassia had managed to secure her friends’ agreement to help chaperone tonight, along with Starlight’s teachers.
“Five minutes until the bus gets here,” she told the children. “Put your hats and coats on, everyone, and make sure your skates are in your backpack.”
The children scattered, laughing and tumbling over one another to fetch their gear. She knelt to help a young boy tighten his laces. As she tied the final knot, she glanced up and caught Opalina watching her, jade eyes gleaming with amusement as she tipped her head subtly toward the gate.
There, just past the threshold, stood Ark—stoic, horns concealed, posture slightly stiff as Imogen tugged at his sleeve and insisted he help her fix her scarf.
And he was obliging—awkwardly, yes, but carefully wrapping the length of wool around the girl’s neck as if it were a dangerous relic requiring delicate handling.