Chapter 31
CASSIA
The morning light was soft through the window, barely a whisper on the floorboards.
Cassia stirred beneath the sheets, caught between sleep and waking, aware of only the warmth and the steady heartbeat behind her.
His arm was draped over her waist, fingers splayed against her stomach like he never wanted to let go.
Ark.
She smiled, eyes still closed, letting herself sink into the stillness of his home, the warmth of his body against hers. For one blissful heartbeat, she let herself believe this was all real. That this was her place. That she belonged here—in his home, his bed, his arms.
Then the memory of last night flooded in.
Her body went cold.
Ark shifted behind her, nose brushing the curve of her shoulder. His mouth was warm against her skin, lazy and affectionate and so perfectly suitable for a weekend morning, as if nothing could be wrong in the world.
“Good morning,” he murmured between kisses on her nape, voice still rough from sleep.
Her throat was too tight to answer.
“I was thinking,” he murmured, his lips brushing against her skin, “we could go out for breakfast. There’s a restaurant around the corner—tiny, but they serve the best egg dishes in Angelene. I want to see your face when you try them.”
She closed her eyes. The ache bloomed slow and awful in her chest. He would take her there. He would kiss her fingers over shared platters, lean in close like this was just the beginning. Like they could build something real.
But she knew: If she didn’t leave now, she never could.
She pulled out of his arms. The movement was abrupt, desperate—she couldn’t bear being held by him any longer. His warmth left her, and the cold that followed was immediate, hollow.
“I can’t stay for breakfast,” she said quietly, not even looking at him, didn’t trust herself to. “I’m going home.”
The silence that followed was thin and brittle. When Ark spoke, his voice was low, cautious. “I’ll drive you.”
“No.”
The lace of her underwear was ice against her skin, a shocking contrast to the memory of his warm hands peeling them away. Each piece of clothing she put on felt like a layer of armour, sealing away the woman who’d been warm and naked and loved just minutes before.
She didn’t look at him at all, focusing on the heap of silk on the floor instead.
The thought of putting on her gown made her stomach turn.
It wasn’t just the corseting or the boning or the impossible row of buttons—it was what it meant: wrapping herself back in illusion.
Shutting out warmth and possibilities behind a mask she didn’t want to wear.
Behind her, the bed creaked. She heard him shift, heard the rustles of clothing, felt the change in the room. Tension thickened, and it was all she could do to not crumble.
“Cassia.” His voice was low. “Look at me.”
She froze. Fingers curled over her knees. She couldn’t turn, couldn’t breathe. This is the moment. Say it.
“It’s over, Ark.”
Silence stretched between them, taut as wire.
He asked, “What’s . . . changed?”
Cassia swallowed. Her throat was dry as paper. She forced a shrug. “Nothing. It was never real to begin with.”
A beat. Then another.
“That’s not the truth,” he said, voice brittle.
“It is what it is.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. “What if I don’t want this to be over?”
She squared her shoulders. “That isn’t my problem,” she said. The words tasted like ash. The silence that followed felt sharp enough to cut.
“I don’t understand,” he said finally. “Last night . . . Cassia, we—” He broke off. Rapid footsteps placed him in front of her. “We didn’t just have sex. We bonded. That meant something.”
She looked up and braved his eyes. “All bonds will vanish when they’re not nurtured and renewed. So will this one.”
He flinched, hurt flickering in his eyes. His pain ricocheted inside her own chest.
“I don’t want it to vanish,” he said.
“Oh, stop it,” she cut in before her resolve could shatter. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
He stared at her. “Harder for who? You? Because it sure as hell is already agony for me.”
She tugged her dress around her waist, hands shaking. “Don’t make this about you.”
“I’m in this too, Cassia. And I thought—I’d hoped—we were on the same page.”
“You were wrong.” She stood, voice rising. “I wanted to save Starlight. That’s all this ever was.”
“No.” His voice cut through the space between them—sharp, frayed, edged in pain. “No. It started with Starlight, but it’s grown into something much bigger. Don’t lie to me. You don’t get to rewrite what this was.”
“I’m not rewriting anything,” she snapped. “You know Starlight’s deed has been transferred. The orphanage is dead and buried. It’s all gone, Ark. It’s over. And so is whatever this was.”
With that, Cassia grabbed her coat from where it had been dropped to the floor last night.
She reached into the pocket and pulled out the small drawstring bag—the one she’d carried everywhere, tucked against her heart like a talisman, nestled into her pocket like a secret.
She upended it. His hair—dark, still faintly glowing with his magic—scattered across the floor between them.
The moment it left her hand, she felt their contract unraveling.
Not all at once, but in a slow, sickening pull—like a scab being peeled away from a healing wound.
The magic that had bound them since the teahouse twisted in her chest, thinning, fraying, each strand snapping with a small, precise pain that radiated outward from behind her ribs.
She tasted copper on her tongue. Her vision blurred, and she had to lock her knees to keep from staggering.
Ark sucked in a sharp breath. He’d felt it too.
She looked up at him. His face was exactly what she’d been afraid to see. His gaze lingered on the scattered hair on the floor, the token he’d cut with his own hand now lying like dust at their feet. His mouth parted, but no sound came.
Her hands were still trembling from the severance. She pressed them flat against her thighs and held his gaze, praying he couldn’t see how close she was to breaking.
“If you don’t want anything to do with me,” he said, voice cracking at the edges, “then why did you still come to the ball?”
She straightened her shoulders and forced a flippant shrug. “Because I wanted to attend the biggest, most talked-about event of the season. And you were my ticket.”
For a moment, he didn’t say anything. Only stared. Then he let out a low, hollow laugh, the sound a serrated knife to her heart.
“If you’re going to lie, you’ve got to do better than that,” he said. “Any other woman, maybe. But not you.”
She glared at him, eyes burning. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you like I know my own shadows—by heart, and in the dark.”
The words lodged like a stake in her chest. She wanted to pull it out. She couldn’t. He watched her, silent, his expression shifting—rawness pulling back, chill sliding into place.
“Someone got to you. Who was it? Alderrath? Did he threaten you? Use Starlight as leverage?”
She retreated until she was against the wall. “No! It’s not like that—”
“My mother?” He took another step forward. “What did she say? What did she do?”
“Stop it!” she cried, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Just let me go!”
“Not until you tell me what you’re so afraid of!” he shot back, his own control fraying. She’d never heard him shout before, and she couldn’t bear the sound. “I am not your enemy, Cassia! Why are you treating me like one?”
She was gasping, crying in earnest now, her carefully constructed resolve in tatters at her feet. He stood before her—angry and desperate, trying to understand a war she’d declared without explanation.
He saw her breaking. He saw it, and his expression softened into something agonized. “Please,” he whispered, the word a raw plea. “Whatever it is, I can take it. Just . . . don’t lie to me.”
It was the ‘please’ that broke her. The vulnerability from a demon who showed it to no one but her.
She was hurting him, and he was asking for the truth as a mercy.
She looked at him, at the man who had seen every part of her and chosen to stay.
The man she was doing this for. She thought of Delphyne.
Of the oath. Of the way Ark had looked at her last night—like she was something he wanted to keep.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her tears sliding down to her chin. When she felt strong enough to speak, her voice was a broken thing, barely audible.
“You need to see your father.”
The silence that followed was absolute. The air itself seemed to still.
She’d chosen her words as carefully as she could, but she didn’t know how unforgiving the Daemaris’s magic would be.
She braced for the oath’s teeth, for the sear of power punishing her betrayal.
For a jagged blade to puncture her heart, or lightning to strike her dead on the spot.
But she kept breathing. Her heart kept beating. No pain. No blood. Only the terrible silence, and Ark, staring at her. All the frustration, the confusion, the desperate questions on his face melted away, leaving behind a terrifying blankness.
Understanding dawned in his eyes. Slow, and then all at once, horrifying and complete. The colour drained from his face. He staggered back.
“My father,” he breathed. It wasn’t a question. It was the final, terrible piece clicking into place. She could see his mind racing, recontextualizing everything. He was putting it all together, and she could only stand there, exposed and raw, waiting for the blowback.
“Cassia,” he whispered. “What did you see?”
She shook her head, her vision blurring. “I can’t tell you why,” she said, her voice breaking. “But I need you to trust me. Please. Just go.”
He stared at her, searching her face. She could see him wanting to press, wanting to demand more—but something in her expression must have stopped him.
With a shuddering breath, she stepped close and placed her palm against his cheek. He flinched but didn’t pull away. She wished she could tell him the truth—that she was trying to do right by him the only way she knew how. But the truth would also bind her closer to him.
And that was something neither of them could afford.
So she looked at Ark, her hand still against his cheek, her thumb brushing just beneath his eye.
“You need to be with him,” she said softly. “Before it’s too late.”