The Selwick Manor attic perches just beneath the eaves, a hidden sanctum of memory and magic. Its low, slanted ceiling is crisscrossed by dark oak beams, each one scarred by time and layered in a fine patina of dust. A single, small round window set into the far wall admits a slender shaft of moonlight that drifts across the worn plank floor, igniting a swirl of dust motes like golden embers adrift in still air.

In one corner stand stacked trunks and crates—grandmother’s tea tins, faded quilts, and leather-bound journals of long-ago Whitelighters—each leaning this way and that as if straining to be heard again. At the room’s center sits a battered oak table, its surface scarred by years of ink spills and candle drips. A brass lantern, tethered by a frayed iron chain, casts pools of soft Antique Gold light, illuminating meticulous piles of crime-scene photos, Parker’s neatly typed reports, and the tattered fragment of the Selwick Book of Shadows.

Here, in half-darkness and hush, the sisters confront both secrets and each other. late at night, Sylvie kneels by the table, her pale-gold empathic aura pulsing with every heartbeat, spreading subtle currents of feeling through the air. She arranges photographs of Harborview Pier—blood-slicked planks, chalk outlines, and the charred ward—into precise grids, her focus absolute. Selene arrives by creaking stair, telekinetic sparks dancing at her fingertips, her steady antique-gold glow dispelling shadows as she offers to help piece together the supernatural mystery.

This attic bears witness to their most vulnerable moments: Sylvie’s silent tears as she pores over a torn rune; Selene’s whispered apologies and protective runes traced mid-air; the clatter of parchment falling to the floor when buried truths finally break free. Above them, the attic seems to hum with anticipation—the distant tick of the grandfather clock downstairs, the soft rattle of the windowpane in a rising breeze, and the faint susurrus of ancestral voices hidden in the trunks.

By dawn, the attic transforms again: lamplight snuffed out, trunks closed, and evidence gathered into leather folders. In that quiet aftermath, a fleeting rune of golden light—born of their combined magic—lingers on the floorboards as a promise: that here, in this secret chamber of dust and memory, Sylvie and Selene will mend what was torn, forge what was broken, and stand together—sisters in magic, heart, and purpose.

Selene hesitated in the center of the attic, her chest tightening at the sight of Sylvie still bent over the battered oak table long past midnight. The Selwick Manor attic perches just beneath the eaves—a hidden sanctum of memory and magic. Its low, slanted ceiling is crisscrossed by dark oak beams, each scarred by time and layered in a fine patina of dust. A single round window admits a slender shaft of moonlight that drifts across the worn plank floor, igniting a swirl of dust motes like golden embers adrift in still air.

In the lantern’s antique-gold glow, Sylvie’s pale-gold empathic aura pulsed with every ragged breath as she traced the torn fragment of the Book of Shadows. Propped against a trunk lay a half-opened birthday card addressed to “Sylvie,” its envelope still crisp—the last one Selene had sent. A black smartphone—screen dark—rested beside Parker’s reports, its unanswered midnight texts from Selene a silent testament to the distance she’d created. All around her lay crime-scene photographs: the body of art student Marisol Vega, discovered face-up on Harborview Pier before dawn; her sketchbook smeared with water; her life inexplicably drained—and that same scorched ward carved into a support piling, its ash-smoke residue curling like a silent scream. No defensive wounds, no prints, no explanation.

“Sylvie,” Selene said softly, stepping into the lantern’s pool of light. “You need to rest.”

Sylvie’s shoulders tensed, but she made no move to gather the scattered papers. The broken rune beckoned her obsession onward, drawing her deeper into the crime’s darkness.

Selene crossed the room in three swift strides and placed a firm hand on her sister’s back. The lantern light caught her worried expression. “You’re running yourself ragged,” she murmured, voice taut with concern. “If you don’t sleep, you’ll miss something important—or worse, you won’t be able to think clearly tomorrow.”

Sylvie’s empathic glow faltered, doubt flickering in her downcast eyes. The attic held its breath—the distant tick of the grandfather clock, the soft rattle of the windowpane—waiting for her answer.

Selene knelt beside her and gathered a clean sheet of parchment. “Let me handle this for now,” she offered, brushing Sylvie’s hair back from her forehead. “I promise I’ll keep every detail safe. You go rest—tomorrow, we’ll piece together the rest, together.”

Sylvie rose without a word and slipped toward the stairs. Selene remained rooted in the center of the room, listening for the familiar scrape of her sister’s boots—but heard only silence.

Selene drew a long, shaky sigh. Dust motes drifted through the antique-gold lantern light as she spoke into the hush. “I know you didn’t go anywhere,” she called gently. “I can feel you there. Come back inside. We’ll do this—together.”

And in that stillness—neither at threshold nor doorway—Selene held the space between them open, ready to welcome her sister home and forge their path to justice side by side.

The attic pressed in with a familiar hush, thick with memory and fraying spells. Sylvie sat cross-legged at the center of it all, spine hunched, hands ink-stained, the air around her pulsing faintly with her pale-gold aura—thin tonight, like candlelight in fog. Her fingertips ghosted over the torn fragment of the Book of Shadows again and again, tracing the rune she couldn’t fix, the language that once came easy now crumbling under the weight of her distraction.

She hadn’t noticed the time. She rarely did when the attic swallowed her.

Outside, some stranger's anger flared on the street below—sharp, bitter, not hers. It bit at the edges of her skin like cold wind through a cracked window, and she grit her teeth against the static in her chest. Her empathy, unfiltered and erratic lately, buzzed with a thousand borrowed emotions that weren’t hers to carry. But she carried them anyway. She always had.

Then—footsteps. Familiar.

She felt Selene’s presence a breath before she heard her voice. The steady weight of it, the quiet care stitched into each step. Her sister always meant well. That was the problem.

“Sylvie,” Selene said gently, her voice dipped in lanternlight. “You need to rest.”

Sylvie didn't move. She barely breathed. The instinct to snap curled in her throat like smoke—but she swallowed it. Selene’s concern pressed warm against her back, fingers through her hair, words that almost felt like an order.

Rest. Like she hadn't lived five years on her own. Like she hadn’t crawled out of bed every morning when it would’ve been easier not to. Like she didn’t know what tired really was.

But the rage wasn’t hers. Not all of it. Someone angry was walking their dog down on Ashmere Street. Another person was screaming behind the walls three houses down. A headache pulsed between her eyes—too many hearts beating through her ribs.

So she stood, wordless. Her boots made no sound.

She left before she could say something cruel and mistake it for her own voice.

She didn’t go downstairs.

Instead, Sylvie perched quietly on the narrow landing at the top of the attic stairs, tucked into the shadow where the lantern glow couldn't reach. She folded herself small—knees to chest, chin on knees—and focused on her breath. One. Two. Three. Not her anger. Not her sadness. Not her ache. Let it drain out like smoke through the floorboards.

She pressed her forehead against the banister and shut her eyes. Sleep wasn’t coming. It never did when it was supposed to. Her dreams were loud again—fractured visions laced with seafoam and static, dead girls and warnings she couldn’t read. Half of them weren’t even hers.

She’d tried to ask the Book of Shadows for clarity, but the pages curled when she touched them now, like they didn’t trust her hands.

Still, she wanted justice. For Marisol. For everyone they’d failed before the ash ward showed up. Selene didn’t deserve to hold that weight alone.

From inside the attic, her sister’s voice floated through the hush.

“I know you didn’t go anywhere,” Selene called softly. “I can feel you there. Come back inside. We’ll do this—together.”

It wasn’t a command. It was an opening.

Sylvie stood. Quiet again. The ache in her knees from crouching made her human. The thread of guilt in her chest made her sister’s. She stepped back into the attic, barefoot now, boots abandoned beside the door.

Selene didn’t turn. She was hunched over the oak table, shoulders tense but steady. Still holding vigil.

Sylvie crossed the floor, her aura low and tentative, like moonlight through gauze. She said nothing—just reached for the corner of the parchment Selene had picked up and anchored it gently with her fingers.

“I’m not tired,” she said at last. “And even if I was, sleep doesn’t help.”

She could feel her sister about to argue. Instead, Selene just nodded once, silent, the air between them beginning to soften.

They leaned over the table together, not quite touching, lit by the brass lantern and the weight of everything unspoken. Two sisters. One lost girl. One mangled rune. And all the ghosts between them.

She didn’t speak right away.

Didn’t want to.

The warmth of Sylvie’s hand near hers, the hum of magic—dim but alive—between their fingertips, the slow settling of the air around them like dust on old floorboards… it felt like something sacred.

Not fixed.
Not healed.
But honest.

And sometimes, that was enough.

Selene watched the rune again, watched the ink shimmer where it had once fractured. It didn’t make sense yet. It wasn’t whole. But it also wasn’t cold. Not anymore. It responded, however faintly, to their presence now.

Maybe that was the spell. Not power, but proximity.

“You know,” Selene said quietly, her voice low and steady, “I used to think I had to carry everything alone because I was the eldest. Like that made me some kind of shield.”

She let out a breath—not sharp, but exhausted. Not weak, just real.

“But I didn’t become stronger by holding it. I just became quieter. Colder. I thought silence meant control. But really, it just meant lonely.”

She let her eyes drift over to Sylvie—not to measure her, not to manage her, but to simply see her.

Hair falling forward. Fingers inked. Aura faint but still glowing, like the last ember in the hearth.

Selene’s voice dropped to a whisper, the kind meant only for sisters.

“I’m glad you came back.”

A pause.

“I don’t care if you scream. Or cry. Or leave the rune unfinished for the next five days. Just… don’t leave the room. Not all the way.”

And finally, after everything, she reached.

Not with magic. Not with ceremony.
Just her hand—bare, human, open—and let her fingers rest gently over Sylvie’s knuckles.

“You don’t have to carry it alone either,” Selene said. “You never did. I just forgot how to tell you that.”

The attic stayed quiet. But it no longer felt empty.

It felt held.

Like something ancient remembering its name.

Like a spell waking up because the right people were finally in the room.

Sylvie didn’t look up right away.

She felt Selene’s hand settle gently over hers, and it was… warm. Steady. No push. No pull. Just there.

But even that touch sent something sharp and raw curling behind her ribs. Not from Selene—never from her—but from everything else. From the weight that never fully let go. From the ache of carrying feelings that weren’t hers, in a body that still hadn’t figured out how to block them all out.

She wanted to say thank you.

She wanted to say you don’t get it.

Instead, her fingers tensed beneath her sister’s, just enough to be noticed. Not enough to pull away.

“You mean it,” Sylvie said finally, voice low, rough around the edges. “I know you do.”

She glanced down at the rune, still fractured, still faintly pulsing in that not-dead kind of way. Her magic stirred beneath her skin, unsure if it was ready to rise again.

“But you’ll never feel it like I do,” she added, a quiet truth laid bare. “It’s not just mine, Selene. None of it ever is. Every time I walk into a room—every time I breathe—I’m carrying someone. Some thing.”

Her throat tightened. Not with tears. With exhaustion. With truth too long bottled.

“And I know you want to help. I know you are helping. But it’s not the same. It’s never going to be the same.”

She could hear how harsh it sounded. Could feel the slight shift in Selene’s aura—wounded but not retreating.

Sylvie sighed, scrubbing her free hand over her face.

“I don’t say that to push you away,” she muttered. “I say it so you stop trying to fix me. I’m not broken. I’m just… tired. And half the time, I don’t even know if the tired is mine.”

The attic gave a soft groan as the wind shifted outside. Dust swirled once, then stilled again.

She finally turned her head, meeting Selene’s eyes.

“But I came back. That counts for something, right?”

A faint spark flickered between their hands—barely-there magic, responding to proximity again. Not to control. Not to ritual.

Just presence.

Just the decision to stay.

Sylvie exhaled through her nose, her gaze drifting back to the torn rune.

“This isn’t about proving anything,” she said, quieter now. “It’s not about being strong, or stubborn, or right.”

She paused, throat tight. The flicker of Marisol’s smile ghosted behind her eyes—half-faded charcoal sketches in a weather-warped notebook. Sylvie blinked hard.

“She was an artist. All she ever wanted was to create something that mattered. Something that lasted.”

Her voice broke slightly, but she didn’t look away. “And someone took that from her. Took everything.”

She swallowed. Her fingers pressed a little firmer to the parchment between them.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever figure out how to block the noise out again. I don’t know if my magic’s strong enough, or focused enough, or whatever version of ‘enough’ I’m supposed to be.”

“But I know this—” she met Selene’s gaze again, steady this time “—I am not walking away. I’m not letting another girl end up like Marisol. Face-up on the pier. Drained of everything beautiful she had left.”

Her voice dropped to a near-whisper, sharp with quiet conviction.

“We’re going to stop this. Whatever it is. Whoever’s behind it.”

Then, after a breath, softer—

“Because she mattered. And so do the next ones. The ones who still have time.”

The words hurt.

Not because they were cruel—but because they were true. Raw-edged and hard-won, the kind of truth you only learn from surviving the things no one else can feel.

Selene didn’t pull her hand away.

Even when Sylvie’s fingers tensed. Even when her voice cracked on pain Selene could never fully touch. She stayed right there—grounded, steady, letting the ache settle without trying to bury it under comfort or solution.

Because for once, she understood: this wasn’t about fixing.

It was about witnessing.

She breathed in. Slow. Controlled. A centering breath, not to calm herself—but to stay open. To not flinch when the hurt was bigger than her ability to soothe it.

“You’re right,” she said softly. “It’s not the same.”

Her voice didn’t wobble. It didn’t harden. It just was—honest and quiet, like stone warmed by the sun.

“I don’t feel what you feel. I don’t hear what you hear when a stranger screams three houses away, or what your magic carries when you walk past someone with a broken heart.”

A pause.

“But I feel you.”

She met Sylvie’s eyes then—direct, grounded, the way only a sister who had watched her world shatter could manage.

“And that matters to me. Even when it’s heavy. Even when it’s loud. Even when you’re so tangled in other people’s pain that you forget your own heartbeat.”

Selene’s hand gave the slightest squeeze, not insistent—just here.

“You came back,” she echoed. “That does count. It counts for everything.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It pulsed, low and alive. Between their joined hands, the magic stirred again—thin threads of pale gold reaching out from Sylvie’s aura, wrapping through Selene’s bones like warmth returning to frostbitten skin.

And when Sylvie’s voice broke on Marisol’s name—on the memory of her, on the cruelty of what had been taken—Selene felt her own throat tighten.

She didn’t speak right away. Not when Sylvie looked away. Not when her voice thinned to nothing but purpose.

She waited.

And then—quiet, certain, the way truth should sound—she said:

“She did matter.”

The words landed gently, but firmly, like stones marking a sacred path.

“And you do, too. Not because you’re powerful. Not because you’re empathetic. But because you stayed. Because you fight. Because you let yourself feel, even when it drowns you.”

Selene reached out with her other hand, fingertips brushing the edge of the rune between them.

“And you’re not alone, Syl. Not in this. Not ever again.”

Her jaw clenched. Not from anger. From resolve.

“We will stop this. For Marisol. For whoever’s next. For the part of you that still thinks she has to carry it alone.”

A breath.

“And when it’s over, you won’t be the girl who held it together. You’ll be the girl who refused to let it go. The one who stayed in the attic long after the others went to bed. The one who traced a broken rune like it could still remember how to save someone.”

The light between them flared softly—still faint, still flickering—but steadier now.

Selene let the moment settle. Let the vow take shape between them, wordless and sacred.

Then she whispered, just for Sylvie:

“We’ll carve her memory into every spell we cast from here on out.”

And finally, gently—

“Let’s finish the rune. Together.”

Sylvie didn’t answer at first.

Couldn’t.

Selene’s words sank into her like rain into cracked earth—gentle, steady, almost unbearable in their kindness. Not a balm. Not a fix. Just presence.

And for someone like Sylvie—who lived her life half-possessed by the feelings of others—it was dizzying to be witnessed without being drowned.

The instinct to retreat was still there. Always there. That coiled need to fold in on herself, to be thorned and unreachable. But her sister wasn’t demanding entry. She was simply there.

Still holding her hand.

Still seeing her.

Still saying things like you matter in a voice that didn’t ask for anything in return.

She blinked, hard, and looked down at the rune—at the delicate curl of ink she’d traced so many times her fingers knew it by muscle and memory. Something in it shimmered now, faint but alive. The kind of glow that only came from shared magic. Shared will.

The kind of thing that needed more than just power.

It needed belief.

“I don’t want to be the girl who held it together,” Sylvie said quietly, her voice ragged but sure. “I want to be the one who stopped it.”

Her thumb brushed the edge of the paper. Her magic curled outward, subtle and tremulous, catching on Selene’s like it remembered how.

“For Marisol,” she whispered. “And for the next girl. And the next.”

She finally lifted her eyes, meeting her sister’s gaze with something unguarded. Not whole. Not healed. But open.

“I’m still mad, you know,” she added, a faint smile ghosting over her lips—wry, worn, familiar. “Not at you. Just… the world. The way it’s always loud and cruel and doesn’t stop, no matter how tired you are.”

Her fingers curled more fully around Selene’s.

“But I’m still here. I came back. And I’m not leaving again.”

The rune shimmered brighter between them—ink deepening, magic weaving along the edges like gold catching firelight. Not finished. Not yet.

But ready.

She exhaled slowly.

“Let’s finish it.”

She didn’t need to say together.

It was already written there—glowing softly between their joined hands, in the attic that no longer felt like a tomb of failure, but something else.

A beginning.
A promise.
A reckoning.

She didn’t move at first.

Didn’t speak.

Because sometimes awe didn’t come in thunderclaps. Sometimes it came in watching your sister—your wild, hurting, gold-lit sister—choose belief over fear. Choose fight over flight.

Choose you.

Selene felt the magic coil through the rune again—slow, certain, almost shy. Like it was waking up from grief, stretching toward something it hadn’t known it needed.

She kept her hand steady where it covered Sylvie’s, grounding them both. Not because she had the answers. But because she knew the way forward wasn’t power alone.

It was presence.
And Sylvie had stayed.

She felt the warmth of her sister’s magic press into her palm, that pale gold flicker threading through her own in soft, searching sparks.

“For Marisol,” Selene echoed, her voice catching slightly. “And for all the ones still waiting to be saved.”

She looked at Sylvie then—really looked. At the tired truth in her eyes. At the storm she carried like a second skin. At the steel beneath the softness.

And Selene didn’t see fragility.

She saw fury. Purpose. Magic that refused to stay quiet.

“I’m glad you’re still mad,” she said, her voice soft but unshaking. “This world should be better. And maybe it doesn’t stop. Maybe it never quiets. But neither do we.”

She gave Sylvie’s hand the smallest squeeze—something silent but certain.

“And you came back. That’s more powerful than anything in this book.”

The rune pulsed again—sharper now, more sure. Gold lining ink, curling into meaning. As if it heard them. As if it agreed.

Selene reached with her free hand and placed two fingers gently at the rune’s edge. Her magic flared warm, deep bone-white tinged with gold, syncing with Sylvie’s like breath matching breath.

Together.

Even without saying it.

The parchment trembled faintly beneath their hands—no longer resisting, no longer fractured. The rune wasn’t just repairing.

It was becoming.

Selene let out a slow, sacred breath.

“Let’s finish it,” she murmured.

A promise, a vow, a spell.

Not the end.

The beginning.

The old wood didn’t creak. The lantern didn’t flicker. Even the wind outside had hushed, like the world had paused to witness this—two sisters, one broken spell, and the fragile, fierce thing called hope.

Between their hands, the rune glowed—not brilliant, not wild, but steady. Like a heartbeat. Like memory given shape.

Sylvie’s magic whispered through it first—pale-gold threads, trembling but sure, curling into the fractured lines like ivy reclaiming stone. Her energy was soft, but not weak. It felt everything. And that feeling stitched itself into the page.

Then Selene’s followed. Bone-white edged in gold, hers was clean and protective, structured like lattice beneath Sylvie’s bloom. Their magics didn’t just meet. They wove. Interlocking. Harmonizing. Not battling for dominance—co-authoring.

The rune began to change.

Not rewrite. Not replace.

Heal.

Ink lifted slightly off the page, suspended in air like ash before it falls. New lines etched themselves in gold—not drawn by hand, but conjured by understanding. The broken symbol wasn’t simply restored. It was transformed. Finished in a way that honored what it had been, and what it needed to become.

As the glow settled, a hush passed between them.

Sylvie was the first to breathe again.

“What did we just finish?” she asked, voice hushed, as if afraid to scare the spell away.

The Book of Shadows responded—not with words, but with a subtle shift.

The page beneath their hands curled, then turned itself gently, revealing what lay on the next.

A spell for protection.
But not the usual kind.
This one pulsed like a ward turned inside out—meant to shield not just places, but souls.

Meant for empaths.

Meant for Sylvie.

Selene’s throat tightened as she read the title, the looping script forming itself anew in the flickering gold light:

“To Guard the Golden Thread: A Rite for Those Who Feel Too Much.”

There were annotations in the margins. Familiar ones. Handwritten in a slightly crooked scrawl.

Marisol’s.

Sylvie went still beside her.

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

And then Selene whispered, with something fierce and aching in her chest:

“She left it for you.”

A pause.

“For us.”

Sylvie stared at the page.

Not blinking. Not breathing. Not moving.

The gold light still hovered faintly in the air, as if it hadn’t quite decided whether to stay or vanish. The spell beneath their hands pulsed with quiet purpose—measured, gentle, sure.

And she didn’t understand a single damn bit of it.

Her voice came out quieter than she meant, but sharper too. Splintered at the edges.

“This is it?” she asked. “This is what she left?”

Her hand twitched under Selene’s, just slightly, like she was resisting the urge to pull it away.

“I thought—I hoped—it would be something else. A name. A vanquishing rite. A curse-breaker. Something that pointed straight at whoever did this and burned them where they stood.”

She shook her head, curls falling forward to veil her eyes. The faint shimmer of her aura flickered like a candle hit by wind.

“Instead I get a ward. A… soul shield.”

Her breath hitched, but she didn’t cry. No, this wasn’t grief-tears. This was frustration. This was fire.

“I didn’t know her, Selene. I didn’t know Marisol. And she didn’t know me.”

She finally looked up—eyes rimmed red, but blazing. Searching her sister’s face for something that might make it make sense.

“So why would she leave this? How would she even know I’d need it? Or that we’d be the ones to find her rune? What good is protecting my soul if the next girl dies the same way?”

There was no venom in her tone. Just ache. Just confusion wrapped in armor. Just a heart still learning how to feel its own beat through the noise.

“I don’t want a spell that helps me cope,” Sylvie whispered. “I want to stop this. For real. Permanently. I want the truth. I want names.”

The last word cracked in her throat like lightning.

Her fingers curled into the parchment—not enough to tear it, but enough to crease the corner. She didn’t notice.

She looked at Selene again, softer now. Not less angry—just tired underneath it.

“I’m not ungrateful. I just… I don’t know what to do with this.”

Her eyes dropped to the ink again, gold script shimmering like it knew she was watching.

“I don’t know how to carry something meant for me when I didn’t ask for any of it.”

She wasn’t rejecting the magic. Not fully.

But Sylvie Selwick had always been better at fighting than at receiving.

And somewhere in her, the question burned louder than all the rest:

Why me?

She let the silence stretch.

Not because she didn’t know what to say.
But because Sylvie needed to be heard.

Every word. Every crack. Every curl of fire trying so hard not to become a scream.

And Selene didn’t flinch from any of it.

She kept her hand right where it was—resting over Sylvie’s, not gripping, just present. Warm. Steady. Real.

When she finally spoke, her voice was low. Grounded. Almost reverent.

“You don’t have to be grateful,” Selene said. “And you don’t have to understand it. Not yet.”

Her eyes didn’t leave the page. That soft gold glow still hovered in the air—patient, unfinished, like a sentence waiting for the right person to finish it.

“I don’t think Marisol knew you. But I think something inside her—whatever spark was left in the end—recognized you.”

She looked up now. Right at Sylvie.

“Because you feel. Even when it hurts. Even when it’s too much. Even when the rest of us are trying to be made of stone, you’re still bleeding for people we’ve never met.”

Her voice caught, just for a second, but she steadied it.

“And maybe that’s why it came to you. Why this spell didn’t fade. Why it waited.”

A pause.

“It wasn’t meant to help you cope.”

She tapped the parchment gently with her free hand.

“It was meant to keep you alive. Long enough to find the truth. Long enough to stop the next girl from ending up like her.”

She could see Sylvie’s fingers curled into the corner of the page. Could feel the tremble under her palm. Not weakness.

Just weight.

Selene didn’t pull away.

“You asked why you,” she said softly. “And the answer sucks.”

A breath.

“Because someone has to carry it. And this time… it’s you.”

She let that land. Didn’t sugarcoat it. Didn’t soften it.

“But you’re not carrying it alone.”

She shifted her hand, gently uncurling Sylvie’s fingers from the parchment—just enough to smooth the page between them. Her magic stirred faintly—bone-white edged with gold, catching where Sylvie’s aura had flickered.

“You don’t have to want this, Syl. You just have to choose it.”

Her voice dropped.

“And I’ll be here when you do.”

Another long pause, but this one wasn’t heavy. It was alive. Awake.

“The spell didn’t come to you because you’re perfect. It came because you stay, even when you’re breaking. It came because someone has to make sure the next girl lives.”

She looked back at the glowing ink. It shimmered slightly brighter, as if listening.

And then—quietly, with quiet fire of her own:

“You wanted a name? We start with hers.”

She looked at Sylvie again. Fierce. Tender. Sure.

“Marisol.”