Rowan woke up just before three in the morning with her heart punching its way out of her chest.
For a few disoriented seconds, she couldn’t remember why. Her dark bedroom blurred around her—heap of clothes on the chair, bookshelf sagging under the weight of too many paperbacks, the faint glow of the digital clock on her nightstand carving harsh red numbers into the dark.
2:53 a.m.
Her sheets were tangled around her legs. Sweat dampened the back of her neck. The room felt…wrong. Too still. Too *aware.*
Then the dream rushed back.
Silver eyes in the dark. Fingers trailing down her spine without touch. A voice in her ear, low and rough, saying her name like it had teeth.
She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “No,” she muttered to the empty room. “We’re not doing this tonight.”
The dreams had been worse lately.
For years, they’d been…background noise. Sometimes vivid, sometimes so faint she barely remembered them. Always the same general shape—a tall figure in the shadows, eyes like molten metal watching her with unnerving intensity. Sometimes she’d hear a word or two, a name that slipped away on waking.
Sometimes she woke up with the vague, disorienting sense that she’d been *talking* to him. Laughing. Arguing. Teasing. Flirting. Like they were old friends. Old something.
Lately, the edges had sharpened. The shadows had gained weight, the line of his shoulders clearer, the outline of his jaw more defined. She still couldn’t see his whole face, as if the dream itself blurred whenever she tried too hard to focus, but…he felt closer.
More there.
“I blame Gran,” she muttered. “You say the words ‘silver eyes’ in the vicinity of my subconscious and it goes hey, great idea.”
She threw the covers off and swung her legs out of bed. The floor was cold under her bare feet. She padded to the kitchenette, the little apartment too quiet around her.
The place wasn’t big—just a main room that tried to be bedroom, living room, and office all at once, a kitchenette with exactly four cabinets, and a bathroom where the shower alternated between “arctic” and “boil your skin off” no matter how carefully she turned the knob. The walls were painted a beige so bland it offended her soul. She’d tried to liven them up with art prints and fairy lights, but the building’s bone-deep cheapness showed through.
It was hers, though. The lease was in her name. The plates in the cabinet were ones she’d chosen, not mismatched leftovers from Gran’s house. The crooked secondhand table had wobble-marks from her elbows, water rings from nights she’d stayed up too late with Harper, wine rinds staining the cheap wood.
Home, she thought, and the word wrapped around her like a thin but genuine blanket.
She filled the kettle. The tap squealed. The ancient appliance wheezed to life on the stovetop.
Outside her single window, the street was mostly empty. A streetlight bathed the sidewalk in sickly orange. Somewhere in the building, a toilet flushed. A car rolled by, its tires hissing softly on the damp pavement.
She tried to breathe in time with the city’s noises. In. Out. In. Out. Not listening for footsteps that weren’t there. Not imagining eyes in the dark.
*You’re being ridiculous,* she told herself.
The kettle started to sing.
As she poured hot water over the tea bag—chamomile and mint and some dried flowers from the little shop Zia liked—her phone buzzed on the counter.
She glanced at the screen.
HARPER: u up
The timestamp was 2:51.
Rowan huffed. She typed with one thumb.
ROWAN: define “up”
Harper replied immediately, as if she’d been waiting.
HARPER: awake and contemplating the void
ROWAN: i mean that sounds like my hobby
HARPER: couldn’t sleep HARPER: you ok?
The warmth in Rowan’s chest surprised her with its intensity. She wrapped her fingers around the mug. The heat bit her palms, but not cruelly. Ceramic was safe. Clay never burned her the way iron did.
ROWAN: nightmare ROWAN: same old ROWAN: creepy eyes, dramatic vibes, no useful exposition
HARPER: ugh HARPER: tell mr. spooky that if he wants screentime he needs to deliver plot
A half laugh escaped Rowan, tight and brief.
ROWAN: pretty sure that’s the opposite of what we want ROWAN: “hi i’m your fae stalker, here to explain your tragic backstory” is not on my bucket list
There was a pause.
HARPER: coming over
ROWAN: you don’t have to
HARPER: too late already putting on pants
ROWAN: it is a crime to put on pants at 3am
HARPER: it is a crime for u to sit alone stewing in ur feelings HARPER: brb, gremlin
Rowan stared at the screen, throat tight.
Then she set the phone down and went to unlock the door.
By the time she’d added honey to her tea and convinced her heartbeat to do something approximating normal, there was a soft knock.
She opened the door to find Harper on the threshold, hair in a messy knot, an oversized sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder, pajama shorts peeking out and mismatched socks on her feet. She held a plastic grocery bag aloft like a prize.
“I brought peace offerings,” Harper said. “One, chocolate. Two, trash TV. Three, my winning personality.”
Rowan stepped aside to let her in. “You didn’t need to—”
“Shut up,” Harper said, nudging her gently with her hip. “If you get to have ominous prophetic nightmares, I get to show up and demand cuddles. That’s the friendship deal.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” Rowan said.
“Damn right,” Harper said. She dumped the bag on the table and pulled out a family-size bag of pretzels, two chocolate bars, and her tablet. “Scoot.”
They migrated to the beat-up couch, a hand-me-down from Mrs. Carrow that had seen better decades. Harper flopped down, tugged a blanket over their laps, and queued up a dating show where everyone was beautiful and terrible at communication.
For a while, they watched in silence as a man with too much hair product tried to explain to his date that he wasn’t emotionally available, but he was very available for “vibes.”
“Men are a mistake,” Harper said. “That’s my thesis statement.”
Rowan sipped her tea. “Co-signed.”
Harper shot her a look. “You never even got to have a proper trainwreck man phase. It’s very unfair. How are you supposed to grow if you don’t date at least one guy who owns a sword for ‘decorative’ reasons?”
Rowan snorted. “I work in a bookstore that sells fantasy novels. I’ve had enough proximity to guys with swords, thanks.”
“Fair,” Harper allowed. “Still. You got the short end of the stick. No teen disaster boyfriends, no college frat mistakes, no—”
“Harper,” Rowan said, exasperated and fond. “If you’re trying to say I’ve been too selective, you can just say it.”
“I’m trying to say you’ve been too busy surviving to be allowed the luxury of making stupid choices,” Harper said quietly. “And that sucks.”
The words hit her with the gentle force of a truck.
She looked away, throat too tight.
“I make stupid choices all the time,” she said, because brushing it off was easier than letting it in.
“Sure,” Harper said. “Like buying that weird yogurt that time because the label said it had ‘mood-boosting probiotics.’ I mean in the *romantic* arena.”
Rowan fiddled with the edge of the blanket. “I’ve dated.”
“Briefly,” Harper said. “Carefully. You always have one foot out the door. Like you’re…waiting to be yanked somewhere else at any moment.”
Rowan’s jaw clenched.
Harper bumped her shoulder. “Sorry,” she said softly. “Too real?”
“Yes,” Rowan said. “And no. And…you’re not wrong.”
They watched in silence for another minute. Onscreen, someone threw a drink in someone else’s face. Harper chucked a pretzel at the tablet.
“Okay,” she said. “New plan. We find you a terrible rebound relationship before your twenty-sixth and then you can break up with them dramatically before you get kidnapped by fairies.”
Rowan laughed. It came out more like a choked sob. “Is that what you think is going to happen?”
“I think,” Harper said carefully, “that the universe is unfair and the fae are assholes and I will throw hands with anyone who tries to take you. But I also think…you might have to go.”
The word sat between them like a bruise.
Might have to go.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Rowan said automatically.
Harper gave her a look.
Rowan wrapped both hands around the mug. “Gran thinks if I go willingly, I’ll have…more leverage. Or something. Like if I step forward, I can negotiate. Bend the rules.”
Harper’s eyes went wide. “Step *forward*? You’re not supposed to step *anywhere* near them.”
“That’s the thing,” Rowan said. “They’re not *there.* They’re here. They’ve been here. My whole life. Watching. Nudging accidents out of the way. Nudging them *into* the way, sometimes, if it benefits them. I just…didn’t see it. Or I refused to.”
“You saw more than most,” Harper pointed out. “You always did. Even when you didn’t understand what you were seeing.”
Rowan thought of the barista. The way his glamour had flickered around his eyes. The way he’d said *Be careful. The wind’s strange today.*
“I think…something’s shifting,” she said slowly. “Like they’re…getting closer. Less careful.”
Harper stared at her. “Because of your birthday?”
“Because of the bargain,” Rowan said. “It’s like…a clock. And the closer we get to midnight…”
“The more the monsters start drooling,” Harper finished.
“Basically,” Rowan said.
Harper took the mug gently from Rowan’s hands and set it on the coffee table. Then she turned on the couch so she was facing Rowan directly, one knee tucked under her, one foot on the floor.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s…pretend for a second that this is an actual choice. That you could stay. Or you could go. No magic dragging you, no fae brute squad. Just…you. What would you choose?”
Rowan stared at her.
“I’d stay,” she said immediately.
“Would you?” Harper asked quietly.
“Yes,” Rowan said. “Obviously. This is my life. My job. My…you.” Her voice wobbled.
Harper’s eyes softened.
“I’d stay,” Rowan said again, more softly. “I’d help Gran die. I’d scatter her ashes on the back forty of the old farm like she wants. I’d keep working at the store, maybe take night classes again. I’d…” Her words faltered.
She looked around her apartment. At the thrift store lamp, the crooked art prints, the book with its spine cracked from rereading, left open on the arm of the couch.
Her gaze drifted to the window.
Beyond it, the streetlight flickered. For a second—just a second—she saw a tall shadow at the edge of the light, where the glow thinned into dark.
Her breath caught.
“Ro?” Harper asked, following her gaze. “What is it?”
The shadow didn’t move. It might have been a trick of the angle, the way the light grazed the tree beside the building. It might have been a reflection. It might have been nothing at all.
Rowan’s skin prickled.
“Nothing,” she lied. “Just…thought I saw something.”
“Creepy something?” Harper demanded.
“I’m not sure,” Rowan said.
Harper picked up the remote and paused the show. “Want me to go poke it with a stick?” she asked.
Rowan’s mouth twitched. “You can’t even lift a stick if it’s made of iron.”
“I’ve been doing pushups,” Harper said. “My noodle arms are much less noodly now.”
Rowan smiled, but it didn’t quite stick.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Harper said abruptly.
The words hit like a physical blow.
Rowan looked at her.
Harper’s face was open, stripped of her usual jokes. Her hazel eyes shone in the dim light.
“You’re not going to,” Rowan said hoarsely.
“You can’t promise that,” Harper said. “Not with *them* involved. Not when they can…change the rules, or decide that what they promised doesn’t count because you stepped on a leaf in the wrong pattern.”
“They can’t undo all of physics,” Rowan said.
“Magic *is* physics, just the annoying kind,” Harper retorted weakly.
Rowan reached out and took her hand. Their fingers laced automatically. They’d been doing that since they were twelve, holding on in the backs of movies and under cafeteria tables.
“I can promise I’ll fight,” Rowan said. “I can promise I won’t just…go quietly.”
Harper’s grip tightened. “Good,” she said. “Because if you went quietly, I’d haunt your ass.”
Rowan laughed, a real sound this time. “Deal.”
They sat like that for a while, the TV screen frozen on a mid-eye-roll expression. The city hummed quietly outside. Somewhere, a siren wailed, then faded.
“Tell me about him,” Harper said suddenly.
Rowan blinked. “Who?”
“Mr. Silver Eyes,” Harper said. “The one you dream about. The one Gran apparently also knows about, which is a whole thing we’re going to unpack later.”
Rowan hesitated. “There’s not much to tell.”
“Liar,” Harper said gently.
Rowan exhaled slowly. “He’s…tall,” she said. “I mean, I think. It’s hard to tell in dreams. He’s always in the shadows. There’s…a sense of height. Of…presence.”
“Does he talk?” Harper asked.
“Sometimes,” Rowan said. “Not…clearly. It’s like…you know when you wake up and you know you had a conversation, but you can’t remember the words, just the…the feeling?”
“Vaguely,” Harper said. “I never remember anything. My dreams all vanish the minute my alarm goes off.”
“Lucky you,” Rowan muttered.
“What feeling?” Harper pressed.
Rowan stared at the wall. At the faint shadows cast by the lamp. “Like…like he thinks I’m…” She swallowed. “…important,” she said finally. “Like I matter. Not in a creepy ‘you’re my sacred sacrifice’ way. More like…” She searched for words. “…like when someone actually listens when you talk. Properly. No distractions. All in.”
Harper’s brows rose slowly. “That sounds…intimate,” she said.
Heat crept up Rowan’s neck. “It’s just a dream.”
“Sure,” Harper said. “A dream that’s been following you since you were seven.”
Rowan flinched. “Don’t remind me.”
“I’m going to remind you forever,” Harper said. “It’s not normal, Ro. I mean, obviously nothing about your life is normal, but this is…extra.”
“I know,” Rowan snapped. Then, softer, “I know.”
Harper squeezed her hand. “Sorry. I’m not…trying to make you feel worse. I just…you didn’t choose this. Any of it. And I hate that. I hate that some shiny bastard decided your life was a good place to store his plot.”
Rowan’s mouth twisted. “My life is a rented closet and a bookstore job. If it’s part of some grand fae story, it’s a very boring chapter.”
“Not to me,” Harper said.
The words landed like a warm weight in Rowan’s chest. Uncomfortable and comforting all at once.
She looked away.
Onscreen, the paused reality show couple stared accusingly at each other in eternal high definition.
“That guy looks like my nightmare man,” she said abruptly.
Harper squinted. “Your nightmare guy does *not* look like Preston with the tragic jawline.”
“You don’t *know* what he looks like,” Rowan argued. “I don’t either. That’s the point.”
“Okay, but hypothetically,” Harper said, eyes gleaming with mischief, “if he stepped out of your dreams and into your crappy beige apartment right now, what would he look like?”
Rowan rolled her eyes. “I don’t do those fantasy fan cast things.”
“Liar,” Harper sang. “Everyone does.”
Rowan thought of the silver eyes. She thought of a broad hand reaching out in the dark. She thought of a mouth she’d never seen, saying her name like something expensive.
“He’d look…dangerous,” she said slowly. “Not…boy-band pretty. More like…” She searched for a reference. “…like if a storm cloud put on a face.”
“Broody,” Harper translated.
“I’m not explaining myself to you,” Rowan said.
“Would he have abs?” Harper asked.
“Everyone has abs,” Rowan said. “That’s just…anatomy.”
“You know what I mean,” Harper said. “Fantasy abs.”
Rowan thought of the shadowy outline of his chest in the dream, broader than hers, the faint impression of muscle under cloth. Her mouth went a little dry.
“Probably,” she muttered.
Harper grinned. “So we have storm cloud face, fantasy abs, and creepy hot eyes.”
“They’re not *hot,*” Rowan said, a little too quickly.
“Mhm,” Harper said. “Totally.”
Rowan dragged the blanket over her head. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because if we pretend he’s just some sexy nightmare man and not a harbinger of impending doom,” Harper said cheerfully, “it’s slightly less terrifying.”
Rowan peeked out from under the blanket. “Your coping mechanisms are weird.”
“And yours are healthy?” Harper shot back.
“I work in a bookstore,” Rowan said. “I have access to self-help. I *could* be very well-adjusted.”
“You could also have a secret romance novel addiction,” Harper said. “Which, by the way, you do.”
Rowan huffed. “I like happy endings.”
Harper’s face softened. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “Me too.”
They looked at each other.
“Whatever happens,” Harper said, voice low and fierce, “if some Autumn Prince with weird eyes shows up and starts making ominous bargains, you make him *work* for it, okay?”
Rowan blinked. “Work for it?”
“Bleed for it,” Harper said. “Gran’s right. He doesn’t get to just…point at you and say ‘mine.’ If he wants you to step into his world, he’d better be ready to crawl for it.”
A strange heat lit under Rowan’s skin at the words. Not anger. Not entirely.
“I’m not some prize,” she said.
“Exactly,” Harper said. “You’re the dragon.”
The words lodged in her throat.
She thought of all the times she’d felt small. Wrong. Other. All the burns, all the nights lying awake listening for footsteps in the hall, all the afternoons spent staring at the sky and wondering if someone was staring back.
Dragon.
“I don’t know how to be that,” she whispered.
Harper smiled crookedly. “Fake it,” she said. “You’re good at that. And if you forget, I’ll remind you.”
Rowan pressed her lips together.
“Okay,” she said. “Deal.”
Harper flopped back against the couch. “Now hand me the chocolate. If we’re going to defy fate, we need sugar.”
***
After Harper fell asleep half on top of her around four—breath soft, face mashed against Rowan’s arm—Rowan lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
The apartment was dim, the streetlight outside casting a faint orange band over the wall. Her brain hummed, all sharp angles and what-ifs.
*If he wants you, he can bleed for it.*
Her grandmother’s words. Harper’s, now, too.
She wondered if he’d heard, in whatever corner of the world he occupied. In the dark between dreams.
“What do you want from me?” she whispered into the stillness. “What am I to you? A prophecy? A debt? A mistake?”
No answer came, of course.
But somewhere between waking and sleep, as her thoughts tangled and her eyes finally drifted shut, a dream unspooled.
She stood in a forest she half-recognized. The trees were taller than any she’d seen in real life, their trunks twisting up into a sky the color of bruises and copper. Leaves the color of fire drifted down around her, slow as falling ash.
She looked down.
She was barefoot. The ground was carpeted with moss and dead leaves that didn’t crunch under her weight. There was no sound but the faint rustle of branches and the distant echo of something like a horn.
“Rowan,” a voice said behind her.
Her heart stuttered.
She knew that voice. She’d never heard it properly, not in waking life, but she knew it. Low, roughened, with a slight lilt on her name, as if he were savoring it.
She turned slowly.
He stood a few paces away, half in shadow. The dream did its usual thing, smudging his features just enough that she couldn’t catalog them. But some things slipped through.
Broad shoulders. Long lines. Clothes that weren’t any particular period or style—just dark, well-fitted, practical. A fall of hair that caught the faint, unreal light in shades of copper-brown. And eyes.
Eyes like molten silver.
They burned in the dark, fixed on her with an intensity that stole her breath.
“You’re dreaming,” he said.
“Obviously,” she said, because sarcasm was her last defense. “My real life doesn’t have this much…production design.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re less afraid than usual.”
“Maybe I’m just getting used to you,” she said.
Something flickered over his face. It might have been surprise. Or something else.
“That would be unwise,” he said quietly.
“Would it?” she asked.
He took a step closer. The air between them shifted, humming with some energy she didn’t have a name for. Up close—if this could be called close—she saw faint lines at the corners of his eyes. Not age, exactly. Experience. Tiredness. He looked like someone who’d seen a lot and liked very little of it.
“Yes,” he said. “It would.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
He went still.
“You’ve been…here,” she said, gesturing helplessly at the space between them. “For years. Watching. Lurking. Doing your…” She flapped a hand. “…mysterious fae man thing. You call my name like you own it. The least you can do is tell me yours.”
His jaw tightened.
“Names have power,” he said. “You know that.”
“Yeah, and you already *have* mine,” she said. “You say it all the time. In here. Out there. I can feel you, you know. When you’re…hovering. I’m tired of shadows.”
His eyes flared, silver catching some unseen light.
“You shouldn’t feel me,” he said, almost to himself. “Not like this. Not yet.”
“Well, I do,” she snapped. “So either you suck at stealth, or we’re…linked. Or something. Either way, I have a right to know who I’m yelling at.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek.
For a moment, the dream wavered. The trees blurred. Colors bled into each other.
“Please,” she said. The word slipped out before she could stop it. Soft. Bare. “I’m so…tired. Of not knowing. Of being the only one in the room who doesn’t have all the pieces.”
His expression did something complicated.
He took another step forward.
Now he was close enough that if she reached out, she could have touched his chest. The dream wouldn’t let her see its details—her gaze skipped off the exact line of his mouth, the shape of his nose—but she could feel his presence like heat. His gaze raked over her face, slow and almost hungry, as if he were memorizing her.
He lifted a hand. Stopped just shy of her cheek, fingers hovering a breath away. The air tingled where they almost touched.
“If I tell you,” he said quietly, “you’ll be able to call me. Even from waking. Even without meaning to.”
“So?” she whispered.
“So,” he said, “my enemies listen at keyholes. And you, Rowan Vance, are a keyhole with legs.”
She should have laughed. The image was absurd. But his voice wrapped around her name with a weight that made her shiver.
“Tell me anyway,” she said.
Silence pulsed between them.
He closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain.
When he opened them, the silver wasn’t smooth anymore. It swirled with darker shades, like stormlight moving behind clouds.
“Caelan,” he said. The name coiled in the air between them, heavy and sharp. “My name is Caelan.”
It hit her like a physical thing. Her breath punched out of her. The sound of it echoed, the forest around them humming briefly in answer, leaves shivering as if a wind had passed through.
Caelan.
Her mouth shaped it without meaning to. “Caelan.”
A flicker went through him. His hand dropped from her face like he’d been burned.
“Don’t—” he started, but it was too late.
The dream shuddered.
For a heartbeat, Rowan saw…too much.
She saw a great hall lit by floating candles and stained glass, leaves drifting through the air like confetti. She saw a throne of twisted branches and antlers. She saw a girl with hair like spun sunlight laughing as she pressed a bloody handprint to a tree’s bark.
She saw Caelan, younger, face less lined, standing before a crowd with his sword drawn, a crown of amber leaves in his hair and blood on his cheek.
She saw her own face reflected in a pool of dark water, except her eyes weren’t brown—they were silver.
She jerked.
The forest around them flickered. The dream lurched like a ship hit by a wave.
“What did you do?” she gasped.
“Nothing,” he said, voice rough. “You—” He broke off, eyes wide. “You *answered.*”
“I just said your name,” she snapped.
“In a place like this,” he said, “that’s not ‘just’ anything.”
The trees groaned. The bruised sky cracked, a line of pale light appearing overhead like a wound.
Rowan’s heart hammered. “What’s happening?”
He took her by the shoulders, fingers finally making contact. His grip was firm, warm through the fabric of her shirt, startlingly *real.* His touch sizzled along her nerves, not burning like iron, but something else—an electric, unsettling jolt that made her breath hitch.
“Listen to me,” he said, and there was no more wryness in his voice now, no more distance. Just urgency. “They will come for you soon. You know this.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I will come first,” he said. “Before the others. I will offer you a bargain. You must listen. You must not agree to anything lightly. You must not—”
The crack in the sky widened with a sound like tearing cloth.
Voices spilled through. Not words she could understand, but tones—sharp, hungry, joyful in a cruel way. Like a pack catching the scent of prey.
Caelan’s grip on her tightened. His eyes snapped up to the sky, then back to her.
“They heard,” he said. The expression on his face—anger, frustration, a flash of something like fear—made something cold unfurl in her stomach.
“Who?” she demanded.
“Everyone,” he said. “The moment you spoke my name, the scent of you wrapped around it. Every creature in this Court with a nose for power just got a whiff.”
“Oh good,” she said, hysteria bubbling. “So I just sent out a magical ‘come and get me’ ping. Great. Love that for me.”
“It’s not that bad,” he said automatically.
“Really?” she said. “Because the *sky is cracking,* Caelan.”
He flinched a little at the way she said his name. Like it hurt.
“It’s…complicated,” he said.
“Everything is,” she said. “Thanks for the warning.”
The crack yawned wider. Shapes moved behind it—long and lean and wrong, all teeth and too many joints. A shadow with too many eyes pressed against the tear like a hand against glass.
Rowan’s fight-or-flight lit up. Her body screamed *run,* but there was nowhere to go. The forest stretched in every direction, endless and the same.
“What do I do?” she asked, voice thin.
“Wake up,” he said.
“I *can’t,*” she snapped.
“You can,” he said, voice low and fierce. “This is your mind as much as mine. You called me. You can push me out.”
She stared at him. “How?”
“By telling me to go,” he said. “With intent.”
“That’s the stupidest magic instruction I’ve ever heard,” she said.
“It’s also the only one we have time for,” he said. “Rowan—”
Her name in his mouth did something to her spine.
“Say it,” he commanded. “Tell me to leave.”
“I don’t—”
“Rowan.” His hands tightened. “If you stay, they’ll pull more of you through. And if they get a firm grip on you in a place like this before you’re ready…” His eyes met hers, burning silver. “You’ll never wake up again.”
Panic curdled in her gut.
She swallowed. Her throat was dry.
“Go,” she said.
Nothing happened.
“You have to *mean* it,” he said.
How was she supposed to mean it?
He was the only constant in this nightmare landscape. The only…interface she had with whatever the hell was happening. Pushing him away felt like stepping out of a boat in the middle of a lake and hoping the water caught her.
“Rowan,” he said, voice softer now. “Please.”
That did it.
Anger sparked, hot and bright, swallowing the fear for a moment. “You don’t get to ‘please’ me,” she snapped. “You show up in my head for twenty years, you drip cryptic warnings at me, and now you’re telling me I’ve made everything worse by daring to ask your *name*? No. Absolutely not. You don’t get the moral high ground here, Caelan.”
He blinked.
“The next time you want to lecture me on ‘intent,’ maybe start with not skulking around my life like some kind of magical peeping Tom,” she continued, words tumbling over each other. “If you wanted me protected, you could have, I don’t know, sent a pamphlet. A bullet point list. A fucking *PowerPoint.*”
One corner of his mouth twitched helplessly. “A what?”
“Shut up,” she said, because the alternative was laughing hysterically.
The crack in the sky hissed. A slender hand with too many fingers pushed through, clawing at the air.
Rowan glared at him.
“You want me to tell you to go?” she said. “Fine. *Get out.*”
The forest shuddered.
The ground rippled under her bare feet like a sheet. Caelan’s fingers dug into her shoulders, then slipped, as if something had greased him.
“Rowan—” he started.
“Get out of my head,” she said, pouring all her fear and anger and bone-deep exhaustion into the words. “Get out of my *dreams.* Get out.”
The crack above them split fully with a sound like a scream cut short. The shapes behind it lunged, a flood of teeth and claws and void-black eyes—
—and then everything snapped.
She woke up with a strangled gasp, heart racing, chest heaving. The apartment swam into focus around her. Lamplight. The lump of Harper still snoring gently against her shoulder. The blanket half on the floor.
Her hands fisted in the fabric of the couch. Her nails dug into her palms hard enough to hurt.
The digital clock glowed 4:37 a.m.
Her throat hurt, like she’d been yelling. Sweat chilled on her skin.
She sat there, shuddering, for a long minute. Long enough to convince herself she was really awake. That there were no cracks in the ceiling. That no too-long hands were reaching down from the smoke detector.
Harper snuffled and burrowed closer, muttering something about nachos.
Rowan swallowed.
“So that was new,” she whispered.
Behind her sternum, something hummed. A thread pulled taut between her and…elsewhere. It felt like the echo of a word.
Caelan.
She clenched her jaw.
“Fine,” she muttered to the empty room. “You want a dragon? I’ll be a dragon.”
The city hummed on outside, unaware.
In the Autumn Court, in a high room that smelled of smoke and apples, Caelan jolted awake with a curse, the ghost of her voice—furious, trembling, calling his name—still ringing in his ears.
He lay there for a moment in the dim, staring at the dark canopy over his bed, her command still lodged under his skin like a splinter.
*Get out.*
“Oh, little thorn,” he murmured to the empty room. “You have no idea what you’ve just done.”
The word of his name on her tongue had been a key in a lock he hadn’t realized was so close to turning.
Now the door was cracked.
And everything on both sides was very, very interested in what lay beyond.