Page 162 of Ashes to Ashes

The performance is flawless. Wounded eyes. Trembling hands. The perfect picture of a man finally confessing feelings he’s been hiding.

“I’ve been protecting you this whole time,” he continues, reaching toward me like I’m a wounded animal that might bolt. “Come home with me. Let me take care of you properly.”

Graves nods approvingly, steel-blue eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “Agent Davis has been Specialist Morgan’s partner for three years. Their bond predates any... magical influences.”

The implication hangs heavy in chamber air that suddenly feels too thick to breathe: human love is real, Fae bonds are artificial.

I want to scream that it’s all performance, but doubt claws at my chest. Davis has been there. Steady. Human. Real. What if Graves is right? What if everything I feel for them is just magical confusion layered over psychological damage?

What if the only authentic thing I’ve ever felt is the familiar weight of being owned?

In the Unseelie gallery, King Moros’s attention sharpens like a predator scenting blood as Kieran’s whispered intelligence reaches him.

“How fascinating,” King Moros declares, rising. His voice carries across the chamber like winter wind cutting through flesh. “Truth magic reveals such... illuminating discrepancies.”

Graves’ confident smile falters for the first time since he entered.

“This human’s emotional signature,” King Moros continues with clinical precision, “reads as obsession, not love. Possession masquerading as partnership.”

Davis goes rigid beside me, still kneeling but suddenly tense as a wire about to snap.

“But most intriguingly...” King Moros’s smile turns feral, revealing teeth sharp enough to tear flesh. “He reeks of ironsuppression magic. Tell me, Agent Davis—how long have you been drugging her?”

The chamber erupts.

The accusation detonates through my consciousness like lightning striking a tree and splitting it down to the roots.

“The coffee,” I breathe, memories crystallizing with horrifying clarity. “Jesus Christ, every fucking briefing, every late-night talk. You’ve been dosing me for three years.”

Davis’s face goes white as bone, performance cracking down the middle like a mask hit with a hammer.

“Every mission briefing,” I continue, truth spilling from my lips as the Stone’s residual magic forces honesty. “Every late-night conversation. You’ve been dosing me with iron supplements.”

The words taste like poison and revelation. “Keeping me weak. Keeping me human.”

With the deception exposed, something fundamental shifts in my body. The thorns beneath my skin don’t just pulse—they sing, magic flowing freely for the first time in years.

I’ve been living half-dead, suppressed by systematic poisoning disguised as care. Now that the fog lifts, I see it clearly.

Davis never loved me.

He loved control. He loved silence. He loved a version of me that never fought back.

But the version that’s waking up?

She’s not silent anymore.

It should feel overwhelming. Instead, it feels like taking my first real breath after drowning.

“It was for your own good!” The words explode with desperate conviction. “You were perfect—human, real, mine. I couldn’t let them turn you into some magical princess who doesn’t need me anymore.”

“You’ve been poisoning me for three years.”

The memories fracture like old film stock catching fire.

Every coffee. Every calm smile. Every time I thought I was just tired, just broken, just human.

He made me this way.

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