Chapter 31 Jace
Jace
I’m half-asleep on the couch when Stellan appears in the doorway like a ghost with a death wish.
“Where’s Bree?” he asks, voice low and sharp.
“Went to bed early,” Rhett says from the kitchen doorway, drying his hands on a towel. “Said something about needing her beauty sleep.”
Stellan’s jaw tightens. “Good. Keep it that way.” His eyes sweep over the room. “All of you need to come with me. Now. And don’t let her hear you.”
I blink, pushing myself up from the couch. “What’s going on?”
“Just move, Jace.”
That’s when I notice the others filtering in from various corners of the sanctuary—Gray from the library, Wes from upstairs. Theo’s already in the hallway, looking like he hasn’t slept in days.
Nobody’s joking. Nobody’s asking questions.
That alone makes my stomach drop.
“Since when do we whisper in our own house?” I mutter, falling into step behind Stellan.
“Since the dead came back,” he says without looking back.
My stomach drops into my shoes. My heart stays where it was—halfway to breaking.
We follow him out of the sanctuary and into the tree line, tension thick enough to choke on. Rhett burns quiet beside me, steam rising from his skin in the cold air. Wes goes pale behind us. The rest of us follow the sound of Stellan’s shoes.
“What do you think this is about?” I murmur to Rhett.
“No idea,” he mutters back. “But if something’s wrong with Bree—”
“Not now,” Stellan snaps without turning around. His voice is sharp enough to cut. “Save it for the chamber.”
Rhett’s jaw tightens, heat flickering beneath his skin. “If you dragged us out of here for nothing—”
“I said save it.” Stellan stops at the top of the stairs leading down to the chamber, turning to face us. His gray eyes are cold, harder than I’ve ever seen them. “What’s down there changes everything. So I need you all to shut up and listen before you react.”
“You can’t just—” Wes starts.
“I can,” Stellan cuts him off. “And I am. Because if you go down there already defensive about her, you won’t hear what needs to be said.”
The way he says *her* makes my stomach drop.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Rhett demands.
Stellan doesn’t back down. “It means you’re about to have your world shattered, and I need you functional when it happens. Not burning the sanctuary down because you can’t handle the truth.”
Silence. Heavy and suffocating.
Then Stellan turns and heads down the stairs.
Every step echoes like we’re walking into our own grave.
Theo keeps pressing his fingers to his temple. I want to crack a joke. Something about midnight incubus summons or secret cult meetings. But the words die in my throat because Stellan’s walking like he’s heading into a war zone, and Thane’s already waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
And so is someone else.
The figure stands in the center of the chamber, gaunt, hollow-eyed, clothes torn by hell itself.
Dark hair. Pale skin. A snake coiled around his wrist—glowing the way her magic used to.
When I see his eyes, my breath stops.
“You’re dead,” Rhett says, voice flat.
Seth lifts his head slowly, like even that small movement costs him. “That wasn’t me.”
The room fractures—Rhett stepping forward, Gray catching his arm, Wes making a sound halfway between gasp and sob. My own heart pounds so hard it hurts.
“What the hell does that mean?” I manage.
Thane steps forward, voice measured and cold. “The Seth who died at the sanctuary was his mirror self.” His silver eyes never leave Seth’s face. “This is the real Seth. He’s been trapped in the Void.”
Stellan adds quietly, “I saw him come through the mirror myself.”
Seth’s gaze drifts over us, tired and haunted. His eyes linger on Thane, then Stellan—recognition there. When he looks at the rest of us, there’s only confusion.
“I don’t know any of you.”
The words land like stones.
“That’s not possible,” Rhett says, voice cracking. “You lived at the sanctuary. You—”
“That wasn’t me,” Seth says quietly. “I’ve been trapped since I was eighteen.” He swallows hard. “I don’t even know how long that’s been. Time doesn’t work there.”
Silence. Heavy and suffocating.
Then Seth’s expression shifts—something urgent breaking through the exhaustion.
“But I found someone there. In the Void, just before I fell through the mirror.” His voice drops. “A woman. Dark hair, pale green eyes.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, his words are deliberate. “And scars. So many scars.”
The air leaves my lungs.
That’s when Thane cuts through the silence with words that shatter everything.
“And that’s why we need to talk about who’s sleeping in Bree’s bed.”
Rage hits me like a fist to the chest.
“Fuck you,” I snap.
“Watch your mouth,” Rhett growls.
“You saw her too.” My hands curl into fists. “That morning. In the chamber, we found her standing right there. Alive. Safe. Finally not afraid of her own shadow.”
Thane doesn’t flinch. His silver eyes stay steady, cold, infuriatingly calm. “We found someone in that chamber. The question is who.”
“What the hell are you implying?” Rhett’s fire sparks along his forearms.
Stellan steps forward, voice sharp. “Her Ether inverted. Her scars vanished. She speaks like someone who never went through what Bree did.”
“She’s stronger,” I counter. “She’s finally—”
“Different,” Theo murmurs, and the word lands like a stone in still water.
I whirl on him. “You too?”
Theo doesn’t look at me. “The way she moves now. It’s not the same.”
Wes’s voice is barely a whisper. “She’s… still her. I think.”
Gray’s response is quiet, deliberate. “You *think*. Not you *know*.”
“She’s finally herself,” Rhett says, and the desperation gives him away.
“Free?” Thane’s laugh is bitter. “Or replaced?”
The room erupts—voices overlapping, everyone talking about her like she’s gone while I’m still bleeding from believing she’s here.
“She doesn’t hesitate anymore,” Wes says suddenly, and everyone stops.
His voice is so quiet we all have to strain to hear him. “When I touch her. When any of us touch her. She used to pause, just for a second, like she was reminding herself it was safe.” He swallows. “She doesn’t do that anymore. It’s like she never had to learn that touch can hurt.”
“That’s good,” I say, and even as I say it, I hear how wrong it sounds.
“Does it?” Gray asks. “Or does it mean whoever is wearing her face never had to learn that it could hurt.”
“Stop,” Rhett says, fire crawling along his knuckles. “You’re talking about her like she’s—”
“Different,” Theo answers. “Because she is. The way she walks now—shoulders back, chin lifted. Bree used to make herself smaller.”
“She’s planning the Council visit like a coronation,” Stellan says. “Does that sound like Bree to you?”
“She tried to force me to feed,” Thane says. The admission stills the room. “She pulled me close and offered her neck without hesitation. When I refused, she called me a coward.”
Theo closes his eyes. “Bree would never push like that. She would be terrified of forcing anyone.”
“I’ve been watching,” Gray says, keeping it calm. “She doesn’t check exits anymore. She doesn’t sit with a view of the door. She doesn’t scan for threats.” He looks at me. “Her scars are gone, Jace. All of them.”
“Whatever happened in that chamber healed her,” I say.
“Healed?” Thane’s voice is sharp. “Those scars were part of her. She wouldn’t have wanted them gone.”
“How do you know what she wanted?” Rhett’s voice breaks.
“Because she told me,” Wes says. “After Phil. She said the scars mattered because they meant she survived. She said removing them would be pretending it never happened. She said she’d earned them.”
“Maybe she changed her mind,” I try, and I hear that I don’t believe it either.
“In one night?” Stellan asks. “She went into that chamber afraid and came out complete? Without a doubt in her body?”
“She’s been sleeping with us,” Rhett says, and his eyes move to me and then to Wes.
Wes shakes his head.
“With me and Jace, then,” Rhett says. “She was confident. She moved like she’d never been afraid of intimacy.”
“She was afraid,” Wes says. “Always. And she chose us anyway. That was the point.”
Theo looks at us, one by one. “What did she say to you after? When it was just the two of you?”
Rhett works his jaw. “She said it was perfect.”
Gray repeats it quietly, as if testing the word for truth. “Perfect.”
“She called being with me perfect,” I say. My throat tightens. “She looked at me like I was everything she’d ever wanted and like she finally had permission to take it.”
“Permission,” Stellan says. “Not choice.”
The distinction lands.
“Has anyone else noticed the way she talks?” Theo asks. “No hesitation. No mid-sentence self-correction. No apology.” His eyes unfocus slightly. “Bree second-guessed every word.”
“When I told her she was beautiful, she didn’t look away,” Wes says. “She asked for more. Bree used to blush.”
“This one receives praise like she expected it,” Gray says.
“Stop,” Rhett says, almost pleading.
No one does.
“Her Ether is inverted,” Thane says at last, and every head turns. “Black threaded with silver, not silver threaded with black. That isn’t evolution. It’s reversal.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means the Ether we’re seeing doesn’t belong to Bree,” Thane says. “It belongs to her mirror.”
Rhett’s hands fall. The heat leaves the room.
I think of last night—the way she held my gaze, the calm that followed, the word she used for it.
“She called it perfect,” I say, and the word tastes wrong.
No one speaks.
“Fuck.”
The word cuts through the silence like a knife.
Everyone turns to look at Thane. His silver eyes are wide—not with discovery, but with recognition finally landing.
“I’m an idiot.” His hands curl into fists. “I know exactly who’s in Bree’s bed.”
Silence. Waiting.
“Riley.”
The name lands like a bomb.
“Who the fuck is Riley?” Rhett demands.
Thane’s voice is flat. Cold. “Bree told us. That night in her bedroom after she crossed through the mirror. She woke up on the floor and said the name. Riley.” He looks at each of them. “You all heard it.”
“I don’t…” Wes trails off, confusion and horror mixing on his face.
“None of you remember,” Stellan says quietly, realization dawning. “The black Ether. She’s been suppressing it from the start.”
Thane looks at Stellan. “Even you.”
Stellan’s jaw tightens, and for once, he has nothing to say.
“And I didn’t remember until right fucking now,” Thane says.
Seth raises his head. “So what are we going to do about it?”
Rhett finds his voice. “We go get her. We go into the Void and bring her home.”
“And the one upstairs?” I ask.
No one answers.