Chapter 2 What’s the Worst That Could Happen?
The elevator descends from the top floor of Darkmoor Industries, ward-lines threading through its glass walls like veins of light.
Below, Crown Heights stretches wide, its obsidian-and-platinum skyline knifing into the orange-stained sky.
Every structure shimmers with containment wards, the Darkmoor family’s greatest legacy etched into steel and stone.
Not mere protection spells, but permanent arcane infrastructure.
Blood-anchored systems that watch, record, and retaliate.
Ten years, and every echoing step through this place still conjures the memory of weathered stone paths and garden soil beneath my feet.
A home where sorcery meant discovery, not spectacle.
Our old townhouse in the Aureum Quarter had character, worn smooth by time and quiet enchantments.
Gardens where Luna and I practiced in secret, away from our parents’ eyes.
The wards there were simple. Door locks and window alarms powered by modest household blood rubies.
Nothing like the omnipresent security web Alexander built here, where even the air hums with surveillance spells.
My AetherLink chimes in my pocket. I pull it out, remembering how Mom used to curse the old runic scrolls they relied on at the Academy—messages that took hours to manifest and often vanished before you could reply.
Now, everyone carries palm-sized crystal devices, their sleek displays making ancient methods laughably primitive.
The message unfolds in Dom’s elegant script, the letters flickering like they’re alive.
Dom: Still on for tonight, love? I got something special planned.
Me: Wouldn’t miss it. Though your latest ‘special’ nearly got us in trouble.
His response is immediate.
Dom: That’s half the fun, darling.
The elevator opens into the lobby, where enchanted fountains project shifting constellations across polished marble floors.
Security drones hover near the entrance, sleek metal shells glowing with embedded protective enchantments as they scan every visitor.
The latest Darkmoor innovation. Half machine, half magic, all annoyance.
One breaks formation to trail me, its glass eye pulsing a soft blue as it whirs and clicks, scanning for a badge I reluctantly fish from my pocket.
“I work here,” I mutter, swatting at the persistent thing as it circles my head like an oversized, mechanical hummingbird.
I’ve complained about these particular drones before, about the way they fixate on me despite my full clearance, and the way their engines whine at a frequency designed to make my molars throb.
Maintenance swears they’re functioning perfectly.
Just another charming quirk of cutting-edge magitech, they say.
Though sometimes I wonder if Alexander had them programmed just to piss me off.
Seventy-three steps.
That’s the exact distance between Darkmoor Industries and the residential tower Alexander claimed would suit us best.
Same path every day.
Past the Marrowgreen Park, where no one actually sits. Beneath the looming billboard of yet another flawless family basking in the glow of their blood rubies.
I know every beat of that holographic ad by heart. The sweeping aerial shot of their Crown Heights mansion. The daughter’s first ruby ceremony, complete with the mother’s artfully-timed tear. The son casting advanced wards—no blood sacrifice required, of course.
Then, right on cue, the father’s voice dips into that solemn, oh-so-concerned tone. “Remember when power demanded sacrifice?”
Cue the tonal shift—flashes of bloodied palms, drawn faces, suffering in tasteful slow motion—before the screen warms again to their smiling family, rubies gleaming like medals at their throats.
The Blood Ruby emblem fills the screen, my parents’ masterpiece reduced to a marketing symbol.
That perfect ruby floating above the ageless palm, the drop of blood suspended in its core representing years of their research and brilliance.
Even the veined pattern encircling it was Mom’s design, meant to honor the sacrifice behind the science.
Elevate Your Magic. Elevate Your Life.
The Gift of Magic. Without the Sacrifice.
I could time my walk to each frame by now. You’d think after six months they’d at least update the script. But I suppose when you’ve perfected the formula, why bother changing it?
Three minutes.
That’s all the “fresh” air I get each day—if you can call it that after it’s been filtered through wards and layered beneath the constant hum of containment spells. Thank the gods for Dom and The Den. Without those nightly escapes into chaos, I’d lose my mind in this perfectly curated routine.
The black-glass tower looms ahead, its surface catching the sunset like a mirror.
Another monument to Darkmoor’s obsession with flawless aesthetics.
The elevator responds to my magical signature before I even reach for the call panel, its wards already reading that distinct cocktail of personal essence and Ellis bloodline.
As precise as a fingerprint. All courtesy of Alexander’s generous security upgrades.
Though I’ve never been sure if the biometric recognition is meant for convenience . . . or surveillance.
The elevator deposits me in our penthouse.
Every inch screams curated luxury: enchanted artwork that shifts with the viewer’s mood, furniture crafted from materials so rare they’re nearly extinct, windows that adjust their transparency with the hour.
Sometimes I wonder if Father realizes how desperate it all looks.
This need to prove we belong among Eclipsera’s elite.
As if their legacy of innovation wasn’t already carved into this city.
Mom’s humming draws me out of my thoughts.
Her presence at this hour is wrong, like waking from a dream where everything looks familiar but nothing behaves the way it should.
She’s usually still at the lab, buried in whatever latest obsession has caught her attention.
For as long as I can remember, she’d stay even later than Father, both of them consumed by their endless pursuit of the next breakthrough.
“Mom?” The leather sofa accepts my bag with a soft thud.
When she emerges from the kitchen, my breath catches.
Elyra Ellis has always been the embodiment of scientific control.
Every strand of hair precisely pinned, every gesture calculated to the decimal.
But now? Her hands flutter between her wedding ring and the blood ruby pendant at her throat, the stone pulsing unevenly with each touch.
Bruised shadows cling to her caramel eyes, and her usual pristine lab coat is nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Father?” I keep my tone even, ignoring the strange tension prickling in the air.
“Still at the lab.” She tries to smile, but it falters before it ever reaches her eyes. “He will be working late.”
“On a Friday night?” I lift a brow.
My father, obsessive as he is, usually insists on leaving the lab by dusk. Something about maintaining work-life balance, though that never stopped him from dragging research home.
“You know how he gets with his projects.” She waves it off, but I catch the tremble in her hand as it drops back to her side.
I do know. I’ve seen that glint before. The hunger in his eyes when something new takes hold. The way he loses himself in potential and precision. The same look he used to wear when I was younger, watching me solve equations or cast spells, like I was just another variable in need of refining.
“Are you going out?” she asks, though her gaze slides past me to the cracked leather journal on the desk.
I’m already halfway to my room, mind on the new dress I bought for tonight. “Meeting Dom at The Den.”
Her lips flatten, and the magic in the apartment pulses faintly with her disapproval.
Lately, though, there’s been a shift. A quiet effort, like she’s trying to make up for years of pressure and expectations.
Sometimes I think she convinced Father to stop pushing so hard about Dom, hoping I’d get bored and move on, but they don’t understand how he gets me in a way no one else does.
“The Den.” She says it like others might say sewage. “Aria, you could do so much better than—”
“Better than what?” I spin around, jaw tight. “Better than Kian Blackwood’s son? Better than the heir to one of the Founding Families? Who else would meet your standards, Mom?”
She presses her lips together, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. Who she’s thinking of.
“I love Dom,” I say firmly, cutting off whatever argument Mom’s rehearsing. “And I’m going to be late.”
“Aria, wait. We need to talk.”
“About Alexander’s offer?” Everyone’s holding their breath, waiting to see what brilliant path I’m going to choose. What legacy I’ll create. It’s exhausting. “Because I really don’t—”
“No, not about that.” She moves to the desk. “There’s something I need to give you.”
I glance at my watch. An hour to get ready if I want to be fashionably late rather than rudely late. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”
She picks up the worn leather book, the pages yellowed with age. “I wrote this . . . This is my personal journal. I want you to have it.”
I take it, more surprised by the gesture than interested in its contents.
From what I’ve pieced together over the years, my birth wasn’t exactly a celebration for her.
The nurses used to whisper about how she refused to hold me, wouldn’t even look at me.
A brilliant scientist reduced to tears by something as simple as motherhood.
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll read it later.”
“Aria.” Her hand catches mine, grip strong for someone who once couldn’t bear to touch her own child.
“Mom, are you okay?”
Her fingers tighten, then release. “Yes, sorry.”
“Can I please go get ready?”
She nods, but her focus clings to me as I retreat to my room. The journal feels heavier than it should despite its size, and I wonder if its pages hold the truth of why she couldn’t love me then. Or maybe it’s just more scientific notation and cold observations about the burden growing inside her.
I shut the door before she can say anything else. The journal lands with a soft thud on my cluttered desk, right next to a half-finished report on ward security—one Alexander is probably expecting tonight.
Whatever. It can wait.
I emerge from my room an hour later in a mini dress that somehow manages to be both elegant and scandalous, the blood-red silk enchanted to shimmer with each shift.
A gift from Dom, naturally. Father nearly choked on his whiskey when I wore it to the last Blackwood gala.
That small rupture in his carefully controlled world, watching his brilliant daughter become something other than the pristine face of Ellis innovation.
Those tiny cracks in his composure are all I can manage these days.
Before Dom, I used to dream of escape. Past the wards, past the checkpoints, somewhere where my name didn’t come with a legacy attached. Silly dreams, really. The kind you outgrow like childhood toys, tucked away with other impossible things.
But Dom . . . he makes Eclipsera seem less like a prison. He sees past the Ellis heir to the girl who just wants to breathe.
Mom’s still on the sofa, staring at nothing with a focus so sharp it makes my skin crawl.
“Luna called earlier,” I say, fastening my favorite blood ruby pendant around my neck. The stone pulses warmly against my skin, already amplifying my magic. “She’s stressed about those job offers. Maybe you could help her decide? You know, since you’re home early and all.”
“Luna will figure it out. She usually does.” It’s the same dismissive refrain they’ve fed her for years. A brilliant, soft-spoken girl, who could rewrite magical theory if they ever stopped obsessing over their firstborn. “The Blackwoods—”
“Please spare me the lecture tonight,” I cut in, sharper than intended. “All I’m asking is one night. Tomorrow I’ll be up bright and early, in the lab like I promised, and you can explain whatever it is you wanted to go over.”
“I’ve been trying to show you, but you only half listen.” A deep sigh escapes her. “And don’t worry about tomorrow. Enjoy your night.”
I freeze for half a second.
No curfew? No lab briefing at dawn?
It means I can spend the whole night with Dom without watching the clock, but something about her tone sets my teeth on edge. Still, I’m not about to argue.
“Thank you,” I say, crossing the room to kiss her cheek.
She stands suddenly. “Aria—”
“Mom, I’m already late, and you know how busy it gets between districts on Friday nights.” I grab my clutch, double-checking for my ID. The last thing I need is some overzealous Darkmoor enforcer deciding to make an example of me, Founding Family connection or not.
“Just . . .” She inhales slowly. “Be careful tonight.”
I laugh, already halfway to the door. “It’s just The Den, Mom. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Aria.” Her voice wavers, and my hand stills on the knob. “I love you. You know that, right?”
“Of course.” I force a smile. “Love you, too. Try not to wait up.”
The last thing I see as the door closes is my mother, standing alone in our too-large living room, drinking in my features as if committing them to memory.