“If you want to build something real someday, stop escaping into imaginary worlds.” He pivots, muttering as he storms out, “Tomorrow, at 7 PM. I expect youto bethe daughter of the Construction Baron. And wipe that glittering nonsense off your face. It’s not a costume party.”
The door slams shut behind him.
Nicole doesn’t move. Her fingers still clutch the pencil, her hand frozen above the page. She stares off into nothing.
From the shadows, breath caught, I wait. Her fingers twitch, and the silence is sharp enough that the faint brush of graphite on paper seems deafening.
Slowly, almost expressionless, she lifts the sketchpad, then tears the page in half. Again. And again. Deliberate, vicious little movements. Her shoulders start to shake—barely at first, then harder. Tears stream down her cheeks. Her knees curl toward her chest, elbows wrapped around them. She buries her face in her hands, and her entire body trembles with sobs.
Cold rage fills me. My thoughts narrow to one brutal clarity: I can’t help her. Ishouldn’t.
And yet, I step out from the shadows.
She spots me from the corner of her eye. “Please… just go. Not now…”
I reach out and grab her elbow. My inked fingers hover over her delicate skin, the runes burning like brands. Her scent reaches me, stirring something I thought was long buried.
“Get out!” Nicole screams, trying to yank her arm away.
Her gaze clashes with mine and her expression goes slack. Magic is already crackling through my veins, preparing itself. Maybe it’s warping my features.
Or maybe it’s the fury I haven’t experienced in years.
“It’s time for the second trial,” I growl.
27
Nicole
It takes a moment to steady myself. Cold air grazes my bare arms and thighs, sending a shiver down my spine. The scent of damp stone wafts into my nostrils.
I blink several times until my vision adjusts to the darkness. Jagged walls jut out in all directions, and stalactites hang overhead like poised blades. I think I’m in the same cave where I once chased the vials.
“Gaetano?” I whisper, wiping the wet tears from my cheeks.
A thick mist drifts through the distance, dense as smoke. Silver and black threads flicker within it, climbing the walls and curling around jagged formations. It reminds me of cemetery fog on one of those bleak days when the sky bleeds straight into the ground.
And yet, an unseen force pulls me toward it.
“That’s right,” Gaetano’s voice echoes.
A heartbeat later, his silhouette sharpens through the mist, wearing the same threatening expression asbefore. My pulse quickens, though I’m no longer sure whether it’s because of him, or because of what’s about to happen.
“Your trial is simple,” he says. “Walk all the way to me.”
I freeze mid-step, gauging the distance between us. No more than ten meters… Maybe he’s about to conceal himself again?
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m waiting, Baroness.”
The fog spreads out, filling the cavern and shrouding me in a gray blindfold. I turn in place, searching for a breakin the mist, but sounds emerge: clinking dishes, glasses chiming, muffled voices, laughter, and soft music.
Gradually, shapes materialize in the haze—two long banquet tables running down each side of the hall, leading to the far end where Gaetano had just stood. Chairs line them, filled with people whose faces blur at the edges. As I step closer…
My parents. Dad sits at the head of the table, a glass in hand and an expression I recognize well. It’s the look of a man satisfied that everything has gone as planned. My mother sits beside him, her signature smile twisting her lips.
I scan the tables. Boyana and the twins are giggling, their eyes glued to their phones. A few seats down, I notice the twins Kiril and Samuil, along with more of our old school classmates. There are faces from parties, galas, and dinners. People I’ve talked with, laughed with, and danced with. Including Daniel Deliberov, who now studies the others around the table.
