Chapter 6

I didn’t move for a long time.

Kael’s words still hung oppressively in the room.

He was quiet again, pacing from one side of the apartment to the other in that coiled, wary way I was starting to recognize. He didn’t want me to see his worry, but it clung to him, quiet and heavy, like armor he couldn’t take off. I stayed on the floor, wrapped in the blanket I hadn’t realized I’d grabbed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling.

Watching him pace was easier than thinking about what had happened since last night. Easier than asking what it meant to be tied to someone like this, to have your life woven into another’s by magic you never agreed to.

But even silence can’t last forever. I noticed it first when the air began to change. It felt like something else had started paying attention.

The air had a weight to it—not just the heaviness that lingers after too much stillness or the pressure that follows magic. This was denser, making the apartment feel smaller, and breathing felt like work.

Kael hadn’t spoken since the sun set. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to give me space or if he didn’t know what to say now that the truth was out. We were tied, and our fates weren’t just tangled but shared.

I sat on the floor again, legs stretched across the faded rug, fingers absently tracing the hem of my sweater. If that’s what it was—magic—it had settled into something like a second heartbeat. Always present. Sometimes quiet. Sometimes not.

I could feel him even across the room, not just because of the bond, because his presence filled every corner, as if he didn’t know how to be anything but dangerous. Even at rest, Kael radiated the kind of tension that made the air feel thinner.

“Does it ever stop?” I asked, not looking at him.

He didn’t ask what I meant. Just replied, “You’ll stop noticing it eventually. Or it’ll become part of you.” I didn’t know which was worse.

I shifted onto my knees and started gathering the books he’d knocked over the night before. I wasn’t sure why. Habit, maybe. Or the need to fix anything in a world that no longer made sense. As I worked, a sliver of pale light from the window slid across the cracked mirror by the door. The shimmer pulled my attention—something about it felt wrong. I looked up and froze. There was a faint symbol in the mirror. It wasn’t on the wall behind me or hanging in the air. It was only visible in the reflection—a glowing mark, hovering near my head.

Circular. Lined with jagged edges. It pulsed once, like it saw me. I turned, heart thudding. Nothing. Just the wall. I looked back into the mirror.

The mark was still there.

“Kael?” My voice barely rose above a whisper. He crossed the room in three strides, silent and sharp. His gaze locked onto the mirror, and I saw something shift in his eyes. Recognition. Not surprise. Not fear.

He exhaled, slow and sharp. “I’ve seen that before.”

“What is it?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“A warding mark. But twisted.”

“Twisted how?” I asked, sure I was not going to like the answer.

“It was once meant to protect. Now… it summons.”

A chill slid down my back. “Summons what?”

He didn’t answer. His shoulders tensed. His fingers curled into fists. Then he stepped forward, reaching toward the glass with two fingers—as if touching it might confirm something he didn’t want to say aloud.

And that’s when it happened, a snap of pure energy. My magic flared without warning, like it had a mind of its own. It surged out and shoved him back. Kael stumbled. His expression didn’t change, and he caught himself immediately, but the shimmer between us was unmistakable—something had cracked wide open between us again. The mark in the mirror pulsed once more and vanished.

I gasped, my hands trembled, and my skin buzzed. The tether between us felt tense, not from fear or anger, but from some deep instinct neither of us could name.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” I whispered.

“I know,” Kael said, steadying himself. “That wasn’t you. That was the bond. It reacted.”

“To what? You touching the mirror?”

“To something behind it,” he said, his voice lower now. “Or through it.”

I stared at my hands. They weren’t glowing. But they didn’t feel normal either. There was a current running beneath my skin—sharp and alive. The symbol hadn’t just appeared; it had targeted us.

Kael moved to the window without another word and pulled back the curtain slightly, just enough to look out.

I stayed near the mirror, frozen, arms wrapped tightly around myself. I wanted to ask him about the symbol, if he felt what I felt, if he thought we were being watched, but I didn’t trust my voice not to tremble, and I didn’t want to give him another reason to treat me like something fragile. So I said nothing.

The quiet stretched out like a thread between us. After a long moment, Kael spoke. “We can’t stay here.”

I didn’t respond right away. My apartment had never been much, but it had been mine—a quiet barrier between me and the rest of the world. A place where I could breathe, even when everything else was falling apart, and now, like everything else in my life, it had turned into a doorway. One something—or—something might already be standing behind.

“I know,” I said softly.

The hum of magic settled into something quieter. But it wasn’t gone. It was the silence after a scream. The kind that makes you wonder what’s coming next. Something was coming, and wherever it was, it had already found our reflection.