Page 33 of A Soul’s Awakening

“Hard to tell. The innermost circle is completely empty. Caspian was probably using himself as the anchor in the middle. He was probably searching for his family. If he couldn’t be with them, he’d bring them to him instead.”

“Does anyone know where Gray is?” Ivy interrupted. She was met with a series of shrugs and head shakes. Gray had disappeared once Caspian had vanished and no one had heard from him since. “He’s probably our best chance at figuring out what this means and why the Syndicate is interested in it.”

“We can figure that out tomorrow.” Ren stood from his chair and glowered at me. “You. You are a mess. Go sleep. Markus can reach out to Nick to see if he knows anything. I’ll go through Caspian’s grimoire.”

“Of course, Mom,” I teased. I said my goodbyes to Jordan and Markus and headed upstairs to my room. Ren wasn’t far behind. “Are you following me so that you can tuck me in and read me a bedtime story?”

“You’re not five,” Ren quipped as he shut the bedroom door behind him.

I sat down on the bed, removing my shoes. Ren bashfully looked away as I changed into my pajamas and I crawled under the sheets.

The mattress dipped when he sat beside me, reaching over to touch the matted hair on the side of my head where Albert had smashed me into the wall. Ivy had meticulously cleaned it up, but I didn’t have enough energy left in me to take a shower to rinse off the rest of my body. My head was still throbbing, and I knew that while I’d have a massive headache come tomorrow morning, ‌my magic would ensure there were no lasting effects from what happened.

“Does it hurt?” Ren spoke softly.

“Of course it hurts, Ren. My head was slammed against a brick wall. Stella was right. I probably do have a concussion. Are you sure I should even be sleeping right now? Maybe you should stay the night with me.”

“You’ll be fine.” Ren saw right through my scheme. I sighed as warm magic seeped into my skin, absorbing into the wound. I recognized this power instantly.

“You’re pretty good with my magic,” I mumbled. He wasn’t as adept at using it as I was, but in two months, he had reached a level that had taken me years. My skin tightened in response, drawn taut in a way that felt like caterpillars wiggling under my skin. But in the end, it worked.

“I learned a lot while I was in the underworld.” He pulled away. “Actually … I met someone while I was there.”

“Oh?” Jealousy flashed across my face before I could hide it.

“Not like that, Theo.” Ren rolled his eyes. “I met a ghost who had studied disruptive magic in his past life. I showed him what you had taught me, how I could trade or borrow magic instead of stealing it, and he showed me how to refine it.”

“Oh. Well, I’m really happy to hear that. And I’m glad you weren’t alone the whole time. Tell me more about this mysterious ghost friend of yours. He sounds like a nice guy.”

“Yeah. He was. Maybe another time. Get some rest, Theo.” Ren got up and moved toward the closet door, the portal that led him back to his other home in Boston. “I’ll start digging through Caspian’s grimoire tonight to see if that array is in there. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Hey, Ren …” I said softly, my voice catching in my throat. Warmth tightened in my chest as I looked at him.

He turned around with his hand on the doorknob.

“This doesn’t change anything. We’re still on for tomorrow night. We’ve got a date, and no serial killer phantom is going to stop me from taking you out for a nice mediocre dinner.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Night, Theo.” I caught a faint flicker of a smile as he turned around and left.

That night I had a dream. It wasn’t one of Caspian’s memories, nor did I relive my own past. It was a glimpse of a life that had never existed, but felt real all the same. Ren and I were together in a small, sun-warmed apartment, the kind where nothing creaked with hidden meaning and silence wasn’t a warning. He moved through the space without looking over his shoulder, bare feet on the floor, happily humming to himself without the restraints of fear.

I wasn’t listening for ghosts. My magic was quiet, settled, like it finally trusted the world was safe around us. Ren smiled at me, that beautiful, heartwarming smile he had only shown me once before. It spoke of a promised tomorrow, a time together when love didn’t come with a body count.

Ren was pulling away from me, retreating behind walls I didn’t know how to breach, for reasons he hadn’t yet trusted me with. It hurt in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Part of me understood it. Ren had always kept people at a distance, but with me, he had started to let those walls crack. And now it felt like I was watching him slowly build them back up.

This was all my fault. Because I couldn’t stop caring. Because kindness meant I couldn’t look away while the city burned, couldn’t stand by while they mocked, hunted, and erased innocent lives. I couldn’t let them take Alex. And I had to do something to free Lukas. No matter how badly I wanted the quiet life with Ren from my dream, I knew this was the one I had to survive.

I woke with a sharp gasp, lungs burning and heart pounding against my ribs. The remnants of the dream clung to me—warmth, sunlight, Ren’s easy presence—only to dissolve as reality rushed back in. The room was dim and quiet, broken only by the press of a brutal winter wind rattling the windows. My magic stirred uneasily in my chest, no longer gentle or trusting but coiled and alert, as if it too had remembered it was only a dream. The real threat was still out there.

“What are you trying to show me?” I spoke to the magic as if it would actually give me an answer. Did I really have a future with Ren? Could we live happily ever after? Was the Syndicate going to tear us apart?

I lay there in bed for a moment, staring at the ceiling, letting the ache settle. Knowing sleep wouldn’t return, I got up and showered, then made my way down to the basement to work on some spells. I hadn’t been giving the business my full attention since I started searching for Ren, and I was grateful to Ivy and Stella for helping me keep it up and running while I was gone.

As I flicked on the light and made my way down the stairs to the basement, I rubbed at my eyes, half-expecting the scene to dissolve like an illusion. It didn’t. Boxes were stacked everywhere, crowding the room in uneven towers, each one packed with a dozen or more orders waiting to be delivered. My workbench was a disaster. Vials were uncorked, notes half-smeared with ink, and a container of dirty equipment lay untouched, waiting to be washed. Ivy had been racing to figure out how to replicate my spells with just fragments of my bottled magic, trying to keep up with a demand that refused to slow.

“Did you leave the light on last night?” A groggy voice came from the top of the stairs and was followed by an obnoxious yawn.

“No. I’m sure I shut everything off before I went to bed.”