Chapter 3
Thane
I watch them disappear down the hallway toward her bedroom—Jace’s arm wrapped around her shoulders like she’s something precious he’s afraid of losing. His voice carries back to us, bright with relief and determination to celebrate whatever just happened.
The rest of us remain in the common room, none of us quite ready to disperse.
Because we all felt it. The wrongness that clings to the air like smoke.
I’ve lived long enough to recognize the scent of power unleashed without understanding. The electric charge that comes when ancient things wake up and start paying attention. Whatever happened in that chamber, it wasn’t the simple ritual Jace wants to believe it was.
“Anyone else notice her Ether looked different?” I ask, finally giving voice to what we’re all thinking.
The question hangs between us for a moment before Rhett nods grimly. “Black with silver running through it.”
“I saw it too,” Gray says quietly, his sharp eyes still fixed on the path they took. There’s something conflicted in his expression, like he’s fighting between relief and unease.
I study each of their faces in turn. Rhett’s jaw is tight with the kind of frustrated protectiveness that usually leads to him punching something. Wes looks pale, one hand pressed to his stomach—the hunger is clearly gnawing at him, but there’s something else there too. Fear, maybe. Or recognition.
And Gray… Gray’s watching the space where she stood like he’s trying to decide if he’s seeing a ghost.
Wes shifts beside me. “But she’s okay, right? She has to be okay.”
Rhett growls, “She didn’t look okay.”
The words carry more weight than he probably intended. Because he’s right. She looked confident, yes. Stronger. But there was something underneath that strength that felt borrowed rather than earned.
“What do you mean?” Wes asks, and the desperation in his voice makes something twist in my chest.
“Something’s off,” Rhett says bluntly. “The way she moved. Talked. All of it.”
Stellan’s gray eyes are unreadable in the pre-dawn light. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “But something happened in the chamber.”
“Do you think she took the Oath?” Rhett presses.
“I’m not sure.” Stellan’s voice carries that careful precision he uses when he’s weighing his words. “But the chamber felt alive this time. More alive than it did yesterday.”
That sends a chill through me. I’ve felt ancient magic before—the kind that pulses with its own hunger, its own agenda. The kind that makes bargains in languages older than memory and always collects what it’s owed.
If the chamber is waking up, if it’s responding to whatever Bree did…
“The chamber,” I say suddenly. “Did anyone notice how different it looked?”
“What do you mean?” Gray asks.
“All the mirrors were intact. Perfect. And the ash…” I pause, letting the implication hang. “The ash piles were gone.”
The silence that follows is heavy with implications none of us want to examine too closely. Because yesterday, that chamber was a graveyard. This morning, it looked like it had been waiting for her.
Stellan goes still—too still. “I saw it,” he says, and nothing else, though it looks like he wants to.
“She’s here,” Gray says, but his tone lacks conviction. “That’s what matters.”
“Is it?” The words slip out before I can stop them.
Gray’s attention snaps to me, sharp and dangerous. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I choose my words carefully. “I’m saying maybe we should be asking who came back from that chamber, not just celebrating that someone did.”
“That’s Bree,” Wes says fiercely. “You saw her. You heard her voice.”
“Did I?” I let the question hang in the air. “Or did I hear someone using her voice?”
Rhett takes a step toward me, heat radiating from his skin. “What the hell are you implying?”
“I’m implying that ancient magic doesn’t work without consequence. And if that’s what she did—if she attempted an Oath like that—something else might have answered instead of the chamber accepting her.”
The words are harsher than I intended, but they needed to be said. Someone has to be willing to voice the doubts we’re all carrying.
“You think someone else is wearing her face?” Gray asks quietly.
“I think we should be prepared for possibilities beyond ‘she’s finally healed,’” I reply. “Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about magic this old, it’s that it always has teeth.”
Wes wraps his arms around himself. “But the way she looked at Jace. That was real.”
“Emotions can be mimicked,” I point out. “And the way someone looks at you depends entirely on who’s doing the looking.”
Theo staggers suddenly, one hand flying to his temple. We all turn toward him instinctively, but he waves us off even as his eyes lose focus.
“What do you see?” Wes asks, voice tight with worry.
“Chains. Silver chains. She’s kneeling, surrendering to something… someone. Heavy. Tangible. Real.”
“Stop,” Rhett snaps, fire flickering under his skin. “Just stop talking.”
But the image has already taken root. Chains. Surrender. Not the triumphant transformation Jace wants to believe in, but something else entirely.
Something that sounds disturbingly like captivity.
“Darkness,” he breathes. “But not empty darkness. Hungry darkness. And she’s…” He stops, blinking hard as the vision releases him. “She’s choosing it.”
Something cold settles in my stomach. We stand in the growing dawn light, each of us wrestling with what that might mean.
I think of the Void. Of Bree’s face when we were trapped there together, the way her expression changed when she heard something I couldn’t. The look in her eyes—not fear, but recognition. Like she was listening to a voice that knew her name.
She never told me what she heard in that darkness. But I remember the way she went still, the way her breathing changed—deeper, like when we were together. The way she looked like she was considering something I couldn’t see. Chains. Surrender. Choosing darkness.
Maybe Theo’s visions aren’t as symbolic as we want to believe.
“Theo.” I keep my voice level, unthreatening. “What else do you see?”
He shakes his head, pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead. “It’s fading. But there was… water? No, not water. Something that moved like water but felt cold. Dead.”
I lock eyes with Stellan. “The Void,” I say quietly.
Stellan gives the barest nod, and I know he understands.
Everyone else turns to look at me, and I realize I’ve said too much. But it’s too late to take it back now.
“You think she’s connected to the Void somehow?” Gray asks.
“I think she’s been connected to it for longer than any of us realized.” I run a hand through my hair, weighing how much to reveal. “When we were there together, she heard something. Something I couldn’t. And whatever it was, it knew her.”
“What kind of something?” Rhett demands.
“The kind that makes offers you never quite understand,” I say simply. “The kind that promises everything you’ve ever wanted in exchange for something you don’t think you’ll miss.”
The group falls into uneasy silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. In the distance, I can still see the faint outline of Jace and Bree—or whoever she is now—disappearing into the sanctuary.
“If that’s not really her,” Wes says quietly, “then where is she?”
It’s the question none of us want to ask, because the answers that come to mind are all variations on the same theme: trapped, lost, or worse.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But if something did take her place, then the real Bree is somewhere we can’t reach her. Somewhere we can’t help.”
“Unless we figure out what happened,” Gray says.
“Unless we figure out what happened,” I agree.
Rhett’s hands clench into fists. “So what do we do?”
“We watch,” I say. “We listen. We pay attention to every detail that doesn’t quite fit. And we hope that whoever’s wearing her face makes a mistake before it’s too late to matter.”
“And if she doesn’t make mistakes?” Wes asks.
I look back at the chamber door, still feeling that pulse of wrongness seeping through the cracks. Still tasting the electric charge in the air that speaks of power unleashed and balances shifted.
“Then we learn to live with the consequences of getting exactly what we asked for.”
Because they wanted Bree stronger. More certain. More willing to claim what she deserves.
Maybe they got exactly what they asked for.
But sometimes, when you get what you want, you discover it was never yours to begin with.