The hum is the first thing that drags me back.

Low, constant, too steady to be human.

It vibrates through the metal table under me, through the bands on my wrists, through the ache buried in my bones. The sound is a pulse that isn’t mine.

When my eyes finally slit open, everything bleeds white and red.

White walls veined with crimson glyphs.

White light so harsh it erases the edges of the room.

Red everywhere the light catches—smears on metal, streaks across my skin.

I can’t move. Restraints bite into my wrists and ankles, cold enough that they’ve already left welts. My shoulders protest when I shift—each muscle trembling like it’s been stretched too long. Something tugs at my arm and I realize there’s a needle still taped into the vein, a line snaking upward to a bag half-empty of something translucent and wrong.

My breath catches. There’s a sharp, sterile scent of alcohol and iron under it all.

And underneath that—blood.

Mine.

When I turn my head, the motion tears at the skin along my collarbone. Stitches.

Crude, uneven.

They’ve opened me up and closed me again.

My clothes are gone. A thin shift clings to my body, the fabric stiff with dried saline. Cold air licks the bruises along my ribs, and goosebumps rise everywhere the fabric doesn’t reach. I can feel where they’ve marked me—tiny burns along my arms where electrodes were placed, shallow cuts that sting when I breathe.

There’s movement beyond the wall. A soft, choked sound—then another. Muffled cries, maybe words. Too many voices to count. Girls. My age. Younger.

Not alone. God help me, not alone.

I drag air into my lungs, try to focus past the ringing in my ears. Each inhale burns. My chest feels heavy, like there’s something wrong with the rhythm, like my heartbeat’s learned someone else’s tempo.

They wanted me awake for this.

The thought lodges hard and cold.

I flex my fingers; the cuffs tighten in reply. They’re alive—breathing, listening. Every movement feeds the hum.

A whisper cuts through it—faint, rhythmic, one cell over. A girl sobbing until it turns into a wheeze. A sound that ends too suddenly.

I clamp my teeth together. The fear tries to crawl up my throat, but I shove it back down. Panic helps them. Patterns under pressure—that’s what Mira would say. Breathe. Catalogue.

Chemical tang. Iron. Ozone.

Pain: ribs, wrists, stitched collarbone.

Light source: overhead, runic.

Exits: none visible.

Number of voices: dwindling.

Every fact is a nail in the wall I can lean against.

The hum deepens. Machinery clicks, then stops. Footsteps approach—measured, soft, confident.

I close my eyes before the figure in red steps fully into view.

The air changes, too clean, too calm.

Whoever he is, he’s been here the whole time.

And they made sure I’d be awake to see what comes next.

The footsteps stop beside my table.

“You regained consciousness faster than I expected,” the voice says. Calm. Curious.

A man’s voice—low, precise, trained never to betray surprise.

“Excellent.”

Something hisses behind my head. My IV line shivers.

He’s already adjusting the drip before I can turn my head to see him.

A clear solution threads down the tube, and when it hits my veins it feels like ice being poured into fire. My whole arm seizes.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek, hard enough to taste copper.

Don’t give him sound. Don’t let him know what it does.

The hum in the walls steadies, syncing with the rhythm of my pulse again—too perfect to be coincidence.

He turns toward me at last.

Ordinary face. Brown hair, neat part. Wire-frame glasses catching the red glow overhead.

If not for the robe—deep crimson with surgical precision in every fold—he could’ve been a teacher, a banker, someone harmless.

But his eyes aren’t brown. They’re red. Not glowing—lit. Like embers buried behind glass.

“Human…” he says softly, more to himself than to me, “…yet resonating. How does that feel, Cassandra Fairborn?”

I blink the blur out of my eyes, meet his. “Like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

And it’s Firebrand. I’m married.”

The smallest twitch touches his mouth—something that might be a smile if you’d never seen a real one before.

“Oh, I’m very aware,” he murmurs, turning away to a tray of instruments. Metal clinks, sterile, rhythmic. “I’ve read the reports.

The Princess of Eternal Summer and her mortal bride. A union of fire and flesh.”

He glances back, amused. “Tell me, does she still burn in her sleep?”

Every nerve in my arm screams. I grit my teeth until my jaw aches.

He hums, as if logging data. Picks up a crystal device—no buttons, just a faint pulse inside it—and speaks into it with clean enunciation.

“Subject 102, Cassandra Firebrand. Human female.

Observable residual resonance: high.

Pain threshold: adaptive.

Reaction time: above predicted range.

Attunement—”

He pauses. His gaze flicks toward me again, sharp now, not clinical.

The red behind his lenses brightens.

“—Attunement registers as… reciprocal?”

He frowns, glancing at the crystal, then back at me.

“No. That can’t be. That is impossible for a human— even if her wife were full Fae.”

He steps closer, and the air around him warps slightly, Veil energy bleeding off his robe. “Royal-blood or not, such bonds are a not possible for humans.”

I don’t understand half of what he’s saying, but I understand how he says it—like he’s looking for a seam to tear open.

He lowers the recorder, studying me the way one might study an unsolved equation.

“There’s something in you that shouldn’t exist,” he says finally. “Something even she wouldn’t understand.”

He reaches toward my face. Reflex kicks first—I jerk my head aside, the cuff at my wrist tearing at skin.

His fingers stop midair, an inch from my jaw.

Defiance flashes through me, raw and ugly and alive.

“I’m not your experiment,” I whisper.

His voice lowers, almost tender. “Everyone is, eventually.”

Then he turns away, making another note.

The red glyphs pulse brighter in answer, like the room itself approves.

The world narrows to sound and temperature.

A hiss. A click.

The steady hum of wards tightening around the table.

The faintest smell of burning — not flesh, not yet — magic.

He moves like a metronome: precise, mechanical.

Every step followed by the whisper of fabric, every breath synchronized with that damn machine hum.

I can’t see his face anymore, only his hands—pale, careful, wrapped in surgical gloves that never quite stop trembling with red light.

The first needle goes in at the crook of my elbow.

It burns cold, then hot. Like shards of glass turning to steam inside my veins.

My back arches before I can stop it.

Vere’s voice is maddeningly calm.

“Response within acceptable range. No neural degradation.”

Another note. Another hiss.

A second injection, this one in my shoulder.

The liquid spreads slower, but deeper—like it’s thinking about where to hurt.

I clamp my teeth until I taste blood.

He doesn’t look up. “Still stable. Adaptive.”

I manage to rasp, “You keep saying that like it’s bad news.”

He tilts his head, intrigued, not insulted. “Oh, on the contrary. It’s remarkable. You might actually survive.”

“Pity,” I whisper, forcing a smile through clenched teeth. “I was hoping to disappoint you.”

For the first time, he laughs—softly.

The sound is wrong. Not mirth. Appreciation.

He sets the syringe down, trades it for a scalpel so fine it almost hums.

When the metal touches my skin, it doesn’t slice—it parts.

The air around it ripples, like the Veil itself flinching away.

I focus on the ceiling. Count the pulses in the glyphs.

One, two, three—don’t move. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

The sting comes and goes.

Then a faint suction noise as he collects the blood into a vial—silver glass, marked with runes that glow faintly red.

He holds it up to the light. “Still adaptive,” he murmurs, almost disappointed. “No breakdown of mortal tissue. You’re absorbing what should destroy you.”

My voice scrapes out dry, thin. “That’s me. Overachiever.”

“Or anomaly.” He turns the vial slowly, studying the swirl of gold in the crimson. “Even anomalies have a limit.”

“Yeah,” I manage, forcing the words past the ache in my throat. “So do gods.”

His smile sharpens. “We’ll see.”

He moves again—air distorting around him, Veil ripples bending light. Even the shadows seem to look away when he passes.

The smell of ozone spikes, sharp enough to make my eyes water.

I feel every drop of blood leave the cut before he seals it with a whispered glyph—hot pain, then nothing but a numb ache.

He steps back, voice clinical once more. “Rest, Cassandra Fairborn Firebrand. The next sequence begins once your vitals stabilize.”

“Sorry,” I mumble, head lolling to one side. “I’m all booked up. Maybe try again never.”

He only smiles again, faint and infuriating. “Defiance—always the last refuge of lesser creatures.”

Then the lights dim. The hum lowers to a purr.

He turns away, writing more notes, and I lie still—counting every heartbeat, every breath—because stopping would mean he wins.

I stay as still as the restraints will let me, eyes slitted, breath shallow.

Let him think I’m sedated. Let him talk himself clever.

The hum of the machines fills the silence—measured, mechanical, too alive.

Each beep mirrors my pulse until I can’t tell if I’m following it or it’s following me.

Vere’s voice cuts through, low and precise, the cadence of someone cataloging a rare animal.

“Subject: Cassandra Fairborn Firebrand. Human physiology confirmed. No external infusion.”

“Residual Veil harmonics persist beyond tolerance. Stronger than projected resonance.”

“Possible attunement via long-term exposure to a Luminborn mate.”

My heart stutters.

Luminborn?

He says it like a lab note, not a myth. Not a word reserved for celestial bloodlines and old prayers.

He keeps going, smooth as oil.

“Analysis of tissue sample reveals mixed patterning—foreign essence embedded at the molecular level.”

“Not contamination. Integration. Fragmented essence linked to the half-Fae royal’s energy signature. Possibly exchanged during metaphysical union.”

The meaning sinks in like cold water.

He’s talking about Mira.

About us.

He’s found her in me.

“The Quinveil line shows dormant Luminborn markers—diluted to dormancy for centuries. Curiously, they have reawakened in the hybrid princess. Perhaps the Veil reclaims what divinity abandons.”

The pen clicks once.

He looks at me, eyes pale and clinical behind his glasses. “The Firebrand legacy gives her flame. But the Quinveil blood—that’s the part that sings to gods.”

My stomach knots. He knows something Mira doesn’t.

“You talk like you’re jealous,” I rasp, voice raw.

He smirks faintly. “Jealous? No. Envious, perhaps. Some of us work our entire lives to brush against the Veil. Some of you simply marry into it.”

His gaze sharpens, curious. “Your mate, if we’re being accurate.”

The word lands like ice in my gut.

Humans can’t form mating bonds. Not with Fae. Not with anyone.

He’s using the word wrong. Or worse—he isn’t.

I meet his eyes anyway. “You keep saying that like you understand what it means.”

“I understand better than she does,” he murmurs.

He turns back to his recorder, dictating again with that eerie calm.

“If stabilization continues, the subject may prove the first viable human conduit to the Veil. Direct attunement without Fae heritage. A living bridge between mortal and divine.”

The pen scratches steadily, heartbeat-quiet.

He finishes the note, then finally looks back down at me.

“Sleep, Cassandra. The next phase requires endurance.”

I let my head fall back against the table, staring at the crimson glyphs crawling across the ceiling like veins under skin.

He’s found pieces of her inside me.

And now he’s trying to map the soul.

I whisper, “You’ll regret keeping me alive.”

He doesn’t even hesitate.

“I plan to.”

The sound hits first—

A shriek of sirens so sharp it seems to split the air itself.

Then the lights change. White to crimson.

Pulse after pulse, the color floods the room, bleeding over the walls, over me, over him.

Each flash feels like it’s timing my heartbeat just to mock it.

A voice crackles over the intercom, distorted by static:

“Subject Ninety-Nine—Veil attunement failure. Subject deceased.”

For a moment, everything inside me freezes.

There are others.

Dozens, maybe... One hundred and One before me.

Vere doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even look surprised.

Just murmurs, almost to himself, “A shame. Consistency remains elusive.”

He turns a dial on the console. The sirens fade to a low hum, as if the building itself knows better than to interrupt him.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek, taste metal.

The restraints cut into my wrists again, but this time there’s a faint crackle—like ice underfoot.

Something cold rushes through my veins, pushing back against the heat.

Tiny veins of frost spread from where the metal meets skin, spiderwebbing outward.

I don’t notice it at first, not consciously. I just know it hurts differently.

Vere notices.

His eyes catch the shimmer, widen slightly—just enough to betray the flicker of excitement.

He doesn’t say a word, but I see the thought forming behind his calm: There it is.

The hum of the machines shifts, almost…responsive.

Like the room itself is listening now.

Like it recognizes me.

I pull harder against the cuffs, breath ragged, pulse pounding in my ears.

If I focus too long on the sound, it feels like it’s echoing from inside me.

The red lights keep flashing. Somewhere beyond the walls, something heavy slams shut.

Vere finally steps back, watching as if I’m a living experiment recording its own data.

“Fascinating,” he whispers.

I glare up at him, every word shaking through clenched teeth.

“Keep staring, Doctor. Maybe you’ll learn how it feels.”

His smile returns—small, patient, knowing.

“Perhaps I will.”

The sirens fade, but the red light doesn’t. It clings to everything—his gloves, my skin, the steel table like it’s been stained.

Vere returns to his instruments, humming softly. Something between a lullaby and a machine’s whir.

Another syringe. Clear liquid, faintly glowing at the edges.

“Calibration,” he murmurs. “We’ll see how deep it runs.”

The needle slips in above my collarbone.

The burn spreads instantly, racing through me—liquid fire and frost mixed, impossible to separate.

My breath catches. The ceiling tilts, fractures into shards of light. Each pulse of the red lamps becomes a sunburst behind my eyes.

Somewhere through the haze, I hear him dictating again.

Words like synaptic resonance,transmutation potential,adaptive threshold.

They blend together until they’re just noise.

I try to move, but my limbs are anchors. The world narrows to sound—his voice, the hum of machines, my heartbeat stuttering out of rhythm.

I can’t hold onto anything solid.

So I hold onto her.

Mira.

The name is the only thing that stays steady. The syllables glow against the dark, soft as breath, bright as flame.

Hold on for her.

The thought loops in time with my heartbeat. Each repetition steadier than the last.

Hold on for her.

The cold spreads, then fades, leaving a strange warmth in its place. Not from the machines—deeper. Familiar.

Under the metal cuff at my wrist, the ember-cord bracelet hums once—faint, but alive.

A tiny spark of heat against my skin.

I let the sensation anchor me, focus on it until the rest of the room dissolves into static.

Until the world becomes nothing but heartbeat, breath, and that warmth that means she’s still out there.

Vere’s voice fades into distance.

The light goes white, then black.

And I fall into it, holding on to the only thing left that’s mine.

Her.