“I’m serious,” I say. “You all speak different languages, I know that. And Sarai said something to me before I entered the trial. In her own tongue. I shouldn’t have known what it meant. But I did. I felt it. And then there were the scrolls, I couldn’t read them when I first got here. The symbols, the words, they moved. And yet now I can read the missives. I wondered if maybe you’d started using English but then you asked about board games—”
He turns toward me slightly, expression unreadable. “The Flame does not translate like people do. It does not teach. It listens. And if you want to understand, truly, it lets you.”
I narrow my eyes. “That sounds made-up.”
“Magic,” he says. “Is, by definition, made up. But it is also true.”
“That’s not how wanting works,” I mutter. “I want to understand everything. All the time. Doesn’t mean I do.”
Now he does smile, just a little. “You cannot want what you do not know. No one can. That is why confusion is necessary.”
“More damn riddles,” I mumble and roll his words over in my mind. “So, ignorance is a feature, not a bug?”
“In the right hands, it is a weapon,” he says quietly.
His words hang in the air between us, heavier than before. I don’t ask who used it that way first. I don’t need to.
“The longer you stay here, the more youwantto be a part of Crimson, of Infernalis, of our world, the more you will understand.”
“But that’s not actually an option is it. Staying.”
It’s not a question. I don’t belong here. Not an opinion, but a fact. It’s the whole reason Caz is here with me, helping me through. So that on the other side of this Rite I can find my way home. It’s why I still can feel my heart thundering at the memory of that damn arena. I should leave this balcony and the intimate atmosphere behind. The trial’s over. I did what I came to do. But I don’t move and neither does he.
The quiet between us stretches again, and this time it hums.
“I meant it,” I say. “About the thread. It helped. I didn’t really knowwhat to do with it, but I tucked it in my boot. It almost zapped me when I needed a wake-up call.”
Caziel shifts just slightly, enough that I catch the flicker of something in his posture. Relief, maybe. Or confirmation. His gaze drops to my boots where the I tucked the Cobalt thread and then returns to mine. He blinks, then lets out the softest, strangest sound. It’s almost a laugh. Not mocking, just surprised. Maybe even fond.
“You kept it in your boot?” he echoes.
I nod, suddenly self-conscious. “I didn’t know where else to put it. I didn’t exactly get a user manual. And the robe things don’t have pockets.”
He tilts his head. “The pendant,” he says gently. “Around your neck.”
“Oh.” I feel heat creep up the back of my neck. “Right. That makes… actual sense.” I fish the necklace out and stare at it. The small red and gold necklace has a purpose. It wasn’t just a pretty little trinket to see me off to war. Not just a gift from my star-crossed lover while I head to battle. Not that I thought it was. I didn’t think it was for threads of magic though, I’m not even sure how they get inside. Osmosis? Is that a thing here?
His hand drifts to his belt and I don’t realize what he’s doing until he holds something out between us. Another thread. This one glowing faintly green in the dying light. It twists gently, pulsing with breathlike life.
“Viridian,” he says. “Desire. Longing. Envy. It will not show you what you want. But it might show you what is missing.”
My fingers hover over it, not touching. “You’re just giving me another one?”
He nods once. “I trust you.” I feel his words like a punch to the gut and a kiss to my forehead all at the same time.
He holds it out to me without ceremony. A living twist of green—deeper than emerald, glowing faintly like moss in shadow. The thread hums in the space between us, and I swear I feel it in my chest. The thread doesn’t burn when I reach out and touch it, but it almost tickles. It feels like it knows me. He doesn’t let go right away.
“It is complex,” he says.
I take the thread from his outstretched hand. It’s soft like silk, but warm—alive. The color catches the light in a way that doesn’t feel likedye. It pulses faintly, green-gold, and something about that unsettles me. Like I’m holding something important. A secret given solid form.
I glance up, and Caz is already watching me. He doesn’t look away. His smile is quiet but real.
“May I?” He steps closer and lifts his hand, brushing his knuckles just beneath the chain at my throat. I nod, pulse fluttering as his fingers graze my skin. He tugs the pendant forward—red glass cradled in shimmering gold, still warm from my skin—and pinches the tiny lava stone stopper at its base. I feel like an idiot at how obvious that was, but also too hot to care.
Caz holds out his hand, and I place the wiggly green thread in his palm. It glimmers between his fingers. Dark emerald, the color of midnight pine trees. Vibrating in his palm, like it knows it was meant for more than pockets and boots. The moment he uncaps the pendant and lets the thread drop into it; I swear the pendant sighs. A little shimmer of pressure pushes outward from the glass like an exhale, then collapses inward, drawing the thread in with a soft snap.
The orb pulses once, then again, and then stills. There’s no hint of green in the smooth, scarlet surface, but at the center of the pendant is a tiny column from base to top. A thread, suspended in crimson glass, cradled in gold. He replaces the lava stone and gently presses the necklace back to my chest.
