Page 24 of Ashes to Ashes

I move to the window overlooking the Academy grounds. In the gardens below, I can make out figures moving with inhuman grace—some glowing faintly, others wreathed in shadow. Beyond them, the forest that surrounds the Academy pulses with life I can sense even at this distance, trees swaying in patterns that have nothing to do with wind.

Their movement calls to something in my blood, something ancient and buried.

Turning back to the room—my room, apparently prepared with disturbing accuracy—I remove the pendant from around my neck for the first time since Graves gave it to me.

The pendant hits the floor and power explodes through me. Thorns blaze up my arm, stones moving by themselves. Pleasant warmth spreads through my body like wildfire. My knees buckle with the intensity.

The patterns pulse with bluish-gold light that illuminates the stones on the nearby table, and with it comes the scent of pine and starlight—the exact fragrance from my recurring childhood dreams. The stones shift in response, physically rearranging themselves into a pattern I shouldn’t recognize but do—a constellation that doesn’t exist in Earth’s sky but feels more familiar than any I’ve ever studied.

My hand rises to touch the birthmark behind my ear, finding it hot and pulsing in time with the light from my arm. As I watch, transfixed, Litvak’s cut seals itself, but it’s not healing—it’s changing. My flesh transforms into something else, and the pendant can’t stop it anymore. The edges knit together not with scar tissue but with delicate patterns that resemble the very stones on the table, as if my flesh becomes something both more and less than human.

I replace the pendant hurriedly. The moment it touches my skin, the thorn patterns recede, and the stones return to their previous arrangement. The healing sensation diminishes but doesn’t entirely stop, continuing as a subtle warmth beneath my skin.

My heart pounds with a mixture of adrenaline and something deeper, more primal—recognition of transformation I can’t control but that feels, despite everything, right. My body betrays me with every breath, accepting what my mind still fights.

I sit heavily on the bed, finally allowing my carefully maintained composure to crack when no one can see. My hands shake so violently I have to press them between my knees, my chest heaving with shallow breaths that can’t seem to find oxygen.

Everything I thought I knew about reality, about myself, about my mission—all of it suddenly feels insufficient, incomplete.

I’m in fucking Faerie. With magic and floating professors and living architecture. And somehow, impossibly, my body recognizes this place even when my mind doesn’t. My blood remembers what my memories can’t access.

I glance at the small collection of stones—my stones, somehow—and whisper to the empty room, “What the hell am I doing here?”

6

FINNIAN

The momentI close her door, the Crown burns through my ribs. Metal searing flesh. It’s never reacted to humans before. Never responded this violently to anyone.

“Impossible,” I breathe, but the artifact’s heat doesn’t lie.

The memory of her touch brands me deeper than expected. Her warmth still lingers on my skin—not just physical contact, but recognition. Like a magical bond trying to reawaken.

I stop walking and lean against a stone that pulses with its own heartbeat.

I want more. More contact. More of the wildness I saw flickering behind her eyes.

This stopped being professional the moment she walked into the dining hall, and I saw her for the first time. I knew—knew—she isn’t just my ending but my beginning as well.

My quarters occupy the western section—privacy away from court politics. Spelled lamps ignite with warm amber light, recognizing my magical signature.

I move through my familiar rituals—setting water to boil, selecting chamomile and valerian root, arranging research materials in concentric half-circles. My fingers sort throughstacks of parchment while my mind analyzes every moment with Professor Morgan.

Her handshake—firm, no tremor most humans display when encountering Fae. None of the typical fear responses.

Most intriguing—her stillness upon entering her quarters. Recognition. The quarters shouldn’t have adapted so quickly unless... they didn’t need to adapt at all.

The sudden pounding on my door carries a familiar signature—heavy, impatient, distinctly lacking in courtesy. The wood actually flexes inward with each impact, preservation spells shimmering visibly.

“It’s open, Orion,” I call, hastily blotting the spilled tea. “Though I should note that my door’s preservation spells weren’t designed to withstand what amounts to a siege engine with enthusiasm.”

The door swings open to reveal a mountain of a man with hair that actually flickers with flame when he’s excited. His grin splits his bearded face, revealing teeth slightly too sharp for human standards.

Orion Wildfire—officially listed as visiting lecturer in naturalistic combat, unofficially my oldest friend and most consistent headache.

“If you wanted delicate tapping, you should’ve befriended a librarian instead of a Wild Court barbarian,” he announces, dropping onto my reading chair with casual disregard for the ancient texts beside it.

“I did befriend a librarian. Unfortunately, he turned out to be catastrophically boring compared to barbarians who set things on fire for recreational purposes.”

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