CHAPTER 3
“Why can’t people know about you?” I asked, sitting at the edge of a long, rectangular dining table, surrounded by the same distrustful faces as before.
When we returned to the ominous, forsaken castle, the Mage Lord had summoned his staff for a meeting, announcing that, despite the obvious discomfort my presence caused, I would be staying. The others showed little reaction.
“It’s not just about us,” Gwinifer drawled, twirling a dagger between her fingers. The candlelight glinted off the blade as she leaned back in her chair, legs crossed. “All those capable of wielding power are kept secret. Humans don’t handle power disparities very well.”
Reagan smirked. He had been bitter since we arrived, but now he glanced at me with amusement. “A brave bunch.”
Gwinifer gave a throaty chuckle.
The apathetic tones, the mockery—it all made my skin prickle.
“Yes, very amusing,” Barracus added flatly. “It will be particularly entertaining the moment she runs off, reaches human territory, and tells the first person she sees.”
Silence followed, the others turning their gaze to the older man. The long shadows cast by the flames danced across the walls, the movement terribly lively for the tension that settled.
Reagan clicked his tongue, breaking the quiet.
“What exactly do you propose, Barracus? Should I challenge Malory on this?”
“No, the woman doesn’t like to be countered,” Cerridwen said, examining her nails.
“What if I said I would keep your secret if you let me go?” I asked, though it was a desperate attempt at this point.
Still, their flippancy was beginning to gnaw at me. I had hesitated to ask again ever since his threat in the Court.
“So you say,” Gwinifer mused, her expression shifting into a wry smile. “But can we trust you?”
“Trust or not, it’s forbidden to let her go now,” Reagan pointed out, tapping his finger against the wood, his eyes locked on me.
“To answer your question,” Cerridwen cut in, her horned hat looking eerie in the dining room, “there is a long history between the mageborn and humans, one riddled with unnecessary conflict. The Shroud is the name given to that separation. It was a necessary precaution to prevent bloodshed and, of course, to keep amateurs from meddling with dangerous artefacts.”
My thoughts snagged on the words conflict and separation, which implied that the two groups had once lived alongside one another, or at the very least crossed paths. That could not be true, or it would be common knowledge. Our loose-tongued neighbours would have heard rumours of it.
“What exactly are you?” I asked, thinking of stories I’d read as a child. “Some kind of witches?”
Gwinifer chuckled.
“Witches practise folk magic,” Reagan said flatly. “They are practically humans who rely on herbs and runes. The mageborn wield high magic across many disciplines. We’re the most powerful practitioners in the country.”
I arched a brow. He might as well have reclined in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head for all the arrogance pouring from him.
A door eased open to our left, revealing a tall man in a grey blazer.
He was solidly built and young like Reagan, walking towards us casually, with unhurried steps, as if he were part of this group.
My gaze lingered a moment too long before it caught on his ears, pointed at the tips and peeking from his neatly kept blond hair.
“I heard we have company,” he said, his olive-green eyes sweeping the room before settling on me.
“The most fun kind in a while,” Gwinifer quipped.
“You clearly have a different definition of fun, sister,” Reagan said. “Finn, this is Jane Darling. She’ll be staying with us.”
I blinked. Sister? I had assumed they simply worked together.
“Hello, Jane,” the blond one said, dropping into a chair. “I’m Finnegan.”
“Hi,” I replied, trying not to ogle his ears. “Are you a mage too?”
His lips curled into a smile. “For the most part. And you?”
His gaze was assessing, but his expression was warmer than the rest. I sensed a measure of curiosity in him, different from the others, whose smiles dripped with mockery or disdain.
“Not even close,” I said.
Before I could think too much about it, Reagan turned back to him. “Didn’t know you’d be back so soon,” he said.
Finnegan ran a hand through his hair. “Silas had a hunch. We think we’ve found the place.”
Guilt and a strange sense of being out of place weighed on my shoulders.
Dominik would have noticed my absence already. Meanwhile, I sat at this table, not locked in a cell, yet not truly free. That had to mean something. Perhaps they were not all entirely cruel. Perhaps with witnesses present, they might show some measure of flexibility.
“My family will come looking for me,” I interrupted. The table quieted. “I was supposed to make it to the Capital. There’s a merchants’ fair happening, and I have commitments there. They’ll come searching, so let me go. I’ll explain and return.”
Finnegan cocked his head. “Are you a merchant?”
I hesitated. It was only my first time. “Of small family trades. I had to take over for my father. He couldn’t attend this year.”
A glance passed between them. I could have sworn that a phantom touch grazed the nape of my neck, skimming the faint quickening of my pulse.
Then Reagan, impassive, said, “We will take measures so your family doesn’t come looking.”
My spine stiffened against the back of the chair. “What do you mean?” I asked my captor, keeping my voice as calm as my racing pulse would allow.
He merely turned to Finnegan, ignoring me entirely.
“You know what I’m going to ask,” Reagan said, “and it doesn’t need to be sophisticated. Just a quick fix so you can get back to . . . the problem.”
“What do you mean?” I asked again, my voice sharpening. “I didn’t say that so you could interfere with my family.”
His expression remained indifferent. “We’ll stop them from coming for you. Otherwise, it’s a risk I won’t allow.”
I leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table. “You don’t get to decide how I tell them. Let me go, and I’ll explain. And come back.”
Maybe.
Reagan’s mouth curled at the corner, as if he’d read my intentions. “I can’t do that. You’re to stay here and do as you’re told. I’ll decide what happens to anyone who disrupts the passageway to the human lands.”
“You don’t decide this.”
A flicker of something—amusement, frustration—crossed his face. “You’re na?ve if you think that.”
My pulse surged. Maybe it was the lingering adrenaline, or the suffocating sense that my control over my own fate was slipping too fast. Or maybe it was the realisation that he was threatening my family. Either way, I wouldn’t stand for it.
Drawing a steadying breath, I rose from my chair.
“Listen, I’m trying to—”
He didn’t let me finish.
“You are an uninvited guest here. If you’re saying more of your kind are threatening to trespass like yourself, you’re putting my land in danger. That risk grows. I can’t allow that. So you will behave and comply with whatever we decide. Do you understand?”
His words were spoken so calmly, so casually dismissive, that it took me a moment to process their full weight.
Something inside me snapped.
“I won’t accept you involving my family. You will never know anything about them.” The rasp in my voice betrayed the raw fear I felt.
He merely raised an eyebrow. “That so?”
The room had gone silent as they all watched me, as if I were an animal in a trap. Already caught, already doomed.
“They will not be dragged into this,” I ground out, “nor threatened the way you are threatening me. You people are vile.”
His expression didn’t shift. But something in the air did, becoming charged.
Cerridwen cleared her throat. “There are ways to resolve this without anyone getting hurt.”
I shot her a glare. “Nothing will happen to my family. I’d sooner be locked away than let them be dragged into this.”
Reagan hummed in mock thoughtfulness. “You think I’m asking for your agreement?”
My teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. He seemed to be savouring it, as if my predicament were a source of entertainment.
I needed to stop appearing defenceless, stop letting him toy with me.
“You say people like me can’t know about you. But now I do, and I’ll agree to keep it to myself if you don’t try anything.”
Reagan scoffed, but something flickered across his face, gone too fast to name. “Are you threatening me now?”
“I think she is,” Gwinifer murmured, her lips curling. “Oh, let the venom drip.”
“What happens if I ignore your rules and leave?” I asked, more to the room than to anyone in particular.
“You wouldn’t make it to the gates,” Reagan said, dry and menacing. “Sit down. I’ve had enough of you for today.”
I refused to move, outrage tightening in my chest at the order. None of the others appeared inclined to object.
His jaw clenched, eyes narrowing briefly. “Sit. Down.”
Ghostly fingers lingered at my nape, so faint they might’ve been the wind. Just a prickle against my skin, yet it stayed there, hovering, as though weighing a choice.
Reagan exhaled through his nose before standing. The shift was abrupt, the scrape of his chair echoing through the room. When he leaned over the table, his hands pressed to the wood, the mask of indifference finally cracked.
“Let me explain how this will work,” he said, voice like ice.
“You will accept the sentence you were given. You will have quarters here and remain for one year. You will not cause trouble. You will tell Finnegan where your family is so we can ensure they don’t come for you.
You will obey everyone in this room. And above all, you will obey me, because you are bound to me for the next year. ”
I no longer thought about my words, carried by a rush of anger and disbelief and recklessness. It didn’t escape my notice that the others watched warily but still didn’t intervene. Neither of them, as if following the chain of command.
“Let me be clear, too. I don’t accept this absurd sentence. I have no intention of staying long enough to need quarters. I’d sooner die than tell you where my family is. I don’t care what you are, but I won’t behave or obey your orders.”
His expression darkened, the veneer of control gone.
“Humans are such fools,” he muttered. “You will obey, Jane Darling. You’ve already learned you’re outmatched, so I suggest you rethink your words carefully.”
My pulse hammered, but I held my ground. “Or what?”
Deep down, I knew it wasn’t reasonable to challenge him. He was a lord in this land, a status that should have given him the power to make my life far worse than simply forbidding me to leave. Yet my nerves carried me away, and I had managed to get under his skin as well.
His fingers curled into tight fists against the table, knuckles paling. A flicker of satisfaction and fear coiled through me.
Cerridwen’s voice was alert. “Maybe we should continue this later.”
Reagan snarled. “Are you truly so foolish as to challenge someone you can’t defeat? Do you have no sense, human?”
Because he can so effortlessly end me.
The thought struck cold in my mind, halting me. Still, the whisper slipped free.
“Monster.”
The man shuddered, and the next thing I knew, a chair crashed against the wall.
Reagan moved, the space between us vanishing in an instant. He stopped inches away, his pupils blown wide, the dark swallowing the blue of his irises. An unseen current rippled across my skin.
I swallowed hard, but didn’t step back.
The candle flames flickered violently, some sputtering out entirely. Gwinifer had risen, her expression grave as she fixed eyes on Reagan.
I could feel the excess tension in the room.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, lifting my chin, though my mind swirled with fearful thoughts.
They could still find my family. It wouldn’t be that difficult.
The thought that they might go to such lengths .
. . “Are you about to prove me right? Show me just how monstrous you truly are? Do it then. End me.”
Too far. I went too far. Would he really—
A gust of wind howled through the chamber, the windows bursting open all at once. The flames died, plunging the room into shadow. Glass shattered somewhere behind me.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Reagan gritted out, his entire frame rigid.
The air turned gelid, the temperature dropping so fast it made my breath mist in front of me. Outside, rain hammered against the glass, sheets of water slamming down in a sudden, furious storm.
Then I saw his hands trembling. He leaned over a chair, lowering his head with a strained expression. I heard a distinct cracking noise and backed away until I felt the wall against my back.
Finnegan cursed, and all of them sprang from their chairs.
The same noise came again, like the sickening sound of bone breaking. There was a guttural groan, and Reagan pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, falling to his knees.
Bone broke. Elongated. Reshaped itself.
My stomach churned in complete horror.
Wind howled inside, as if fleeing the storm. A bright flash lit up the windows, followed by a crash of thunder.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
He shook. Writhed. The sounds coming from him were anything but human, reverberating through the room.
It was a familiar roar, just like the one I had heard in the woods.
My eyes widened as the same dreaded fear dawned on me, and I pressed my body harder against the wall.
This cannot be the same.
He roared again, the sound echoing anger and pain.
“You’re—”
He was raging. Huffing. Grunting.
I thought I was seeing things when fur began to sprout where limbs had been, the body swelling with the growl of something feral.
Disbelief and panic anchored me in place as I watched the most impossible sight of my life unfold before me, the air heavy and thick with a metallic taste.
Where the man had been just minutes ago now stood the massive creature I had encountered in the woods, his clothes shredded on the floor. The menacing beast stood before me, teeth bared, chest heaving with laboured breaths.
Reagan was the one who captured me.