CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The door opened before any of them could knock.

I was still in the center of the room, barefoot on cold stone, glass biting into my skin where I’d stepped without noticing. My hands were shaking, not from fear but from too much—too much power, too much pressure, too much of everything trying to exist at once. Fire flickered across my palm, snapping in uneven bursts, while a thin spiral of air cut through it like it didn’t care about the rules. Water hovered at my wrist, trembling, and somewhere beneath all of it, something heavier shifted—earth, slow and restless.

Blaze, Raven, and Lucian stood in the doorway.

For a second, no one moved.

It wasn’t silence. It was awareness. Sharp, immediate, complete.

Raven stepped in first.

“You’re awake,” he said, voice low, steady, already working through the situation. His gaze moved over my hands, my stance, the shattered mirrors, then settled on my face. “You’re here. What element first?”

I swallowed. My throat felt dry, which didn’t make sense with water hovering inches from my skin. “All of them.”

“Not helpful.” He stopped a few feet in front of me, not too close, not too far. Measured. “Pick one. Start there.”

Fire.

It came easily, too easily. I focused on the heat, the sharp, immediate presence of it, the way it responded faster than thought. The flame in my palm steadied, just slightly, the jagged edges smoothing into something more controlled.

“Good,” Raven said quietly. “Hold it there.”

Behind him, Blaze hadn’t moved.

He was still at the threshold, shoulders squared, gaze fixed on me in a way that made my chest tighten for a completely different reason. He wasn’t stepping in, not yet. Waiting. Letting Raven take the lead. That alone told me everything about how bad this looked from the outside.

Lucian remained in the doorway.

Still. Watching.

“Next,” Raven said. “Air.”

I exhaled slowly, forcing my attention outward. The current shifted, stopped slicing through the fire and instead circled it, controlled, contained. Not fighting. Not pushing.

“Again.”

Water dropped from my wrist to hover in my palm, merging at the edges of the flame without extinguishing it. My pulse kicked, hard and uneven, but I held it.

“Last,” Raven said.

Earth.

It was the hardest to reach and the easiest to lose. Heavy. Slow. Unwilling to be rushed. I clenched my fist slightly, grounding myself, feeling the stone beneath my feet, the weight of it, the steadiness.

The tremor in the room eased.

Not gone. Just… quieter.

Raven watched me for another few seconds, then nodded once. “You’re back.”

I didn’t realize how hard I’d been breathing until it slowed.

Blaze moved then.

Not toward me. Not immediately.

He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, the soft click cutting off the corridor completely. Then he crossed the room and lowered himself to the floor, back against the wall, like he’d decided his role was simply to be there and nothing else.

Lucian finally stepped in last, closing the distance with the same unhurried precision he did everything with. He didn’t sit. He didn’t speak. He just stayed near the door, hands loosely at his sides, watching in a way that felt less like observation and more like calculation.

I sank down onto the edge of my bed.

For a moment, no one said anything.

Then Raven’s voice again, quieter now. “What happened?”

I looked at my hands. The elements were still there, but subdued, like they were listening instead of reacting.

“I had a dream,” I said.

Blaze’s head lifted slightly.

Lucian didn’t move, but something in his expression sharpened.

Raven didn’t interrupt.

So I told them.

The field. The sky. The girl with my face.

The city burning in colors that didn’t belong to fire.

The three figures on the ground.

And the thing standing over them.

I didn’t rush it. I didn’t soften it either. I said it exactly the way it had happened, even the parts that didn’t make sense, even the parts that made my chest tighten just thinking about them.

When I finished, the room felt different.

Heavier.

Raven sat down.

He didn’t do it abruptly. Just lowered himself where he was, like his body had made the decision before his mind caught up. His arms rested loosely over his knees, his gaze fixed somewhere just past me.

I noticed.

Blaze noticed that I noticed.

Lucian was the only one who didn’t shift.

“Did the figure have a face?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. It was—blurred. I couldn’t see it.”

“Good.”

The word landed strangely.

I frowned. “Good?”

His gaze met mine, steady and intent. “It means you weren’t remembering. You were being shown something that hasn’t happened yet.”

The room went very still.

“A warning,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Warnings can be wrong.”

“They can,” Lucian agreed. “They can also be altered.”

Blaze leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees. “Or stopped.”

Raven didn’t say anything.

I looked at him. “What do you think?”

His eyes shifted to mine, unreadable for a second. Then, “I think you don’t get dreams like that for no reason.”

Not comforting.

Not meant to be.

Honest.

The silence that followed wasn’t empty.

It was full of things none of us were saying.

Time passed.

I didn’t know how much.

At some point, the tension in my shoulders eased enough that I noticed the rest of the room again—the broken glass, the cold air, the faint smell of something burned and something wet.

Blaze got up without a word and moved to the window, pushing it open just enough to let the night air in. It cooled the room instantly, cutting through the lingering heat from earlier.

“Better,” he said, mostly to himself.

Lucian crossed to the chair in the corner and picked up a book from the small stack I’d left there earlier. He flipped it open, not looking at me, but not not paying attention either.

Raven shifted back until he was sitting with his back against the door.

Blocking it.

Not in a threatening way. In a deliberate one.

I watched him for a second. “You planning to guard me?”

“No,” he said.

A beat.

“Then why are you sitting there?”

His gaze flicked up, direct. “Because it’s the most efficient position.”

I almost smiled.

Almost.

No one suggested leaving.

No one suggested sleep.

So we didn’t.

The hours stretched, quiet but not uncomfortable. Blaze asked once if I was cold. I said no. He didn’t ask again. Raven didn’t speak unless I did, but every time I shifted, every time my breathing changed, his attention adjusted with it like he was tracking something only he could feel.

Lucian read.

Or pretended to.

At some point, I realized I wasn’t watching the door anymore.

Or the windows.

Or my hands.

I was watching them.

Three different people.

Three completely different ways of being in a room.

And somehow, none of it felt like pressure.

The sky outside my window shifted slowly from black to gray.

Then to gold.

Morning.

Blaze was the first to stand.

He stretched once, easy, then glanced at me. “You good?”

I nodded.

He studied me for a second longer, like he was checking something he couldn’t quite name, then seemed satisfied.

Raven got to his feet next.

He didn’t say anything. Just moved to the door and opened it, pausing briefly like he expected me to say something.

I didn’t.

Lucian closed his book.

He placed it back exactly where he’d found it, then looked at me, his expression composed but not distant. “If the dreams continue, tell me.”

Not a request.

I nodded anyway.

They left one by one.

Raven first.

Lucian after.

Blaze last.

He stopped at the door.

Turned back.

Looked at me in that direct way of his that made everything feel simple even when it wasn’t.

“The dream won’t come true,” he said.

I frowned slightly. “You don’t know that.”

His jaw tightened, just a fraction. “It would require all three of us to go down.”

A pause.

“I’d like to see something try.”

Then he left.

The door closed behind him with a soft click.

I stood there for a second.

Then another.

Then I looked around my room.

Seven mirrors.

All gone.

Just empty frames left on the walls, jagged edges catching the morning light.

Three weeks ago, I didn’t know any of them.

Three weeks ago, I had one life, one set of people, one version of myself that made sense.

Now—

I exhaled slowly and pressed my palm flat against my chest, like I could steady something that wasn’t entirely physical.

Three people had run toward my door at three in the morning.

Not away.

Not later.

Immediately.

After everything.

After Jake.

After Emma.

After learning exactly how quickly people could choose something else over you.

I swallowed hard.

The feeling that rose wasn’t clean enough to be relief.

Wasn’t simple enough to be trust.

But it was close.

Close enough that I had to sit down before it turned into something else.

I didn’t cry.

I thought I might.

But I didn’t.

It stayed right there, under the surface.

Waiting.

And for the first time since I got here, I didn’t try to push it away.