She stepped through the mirror and didn't stop. Morrigan said something, maybe her name, but Holli didn't pause to catch it. Kieran looked up from where he stood beside his mother, eyes wide and solemn, but she didn't meet his gaze.
She walked fast, hands clenched, eyes forward, breath tight in her chest. Back in her room, she barely had the door half-closed when Cole was already there.
Of course he was.
She didn't jump. She wasn't surprised. He always showed up when things started to boil over. Her tears never fell, she hadn't let them. She'd blinked fast and hard until they dried up again and swallowed down whatever wanted to rise.
She leaned against the wall, spine pressed flat, eyes closed.
"If he wasn't… like that," she muttered, "I'd probably like him."
Cole tilted his head, watching her like she was something fragile about to snap in two. He closed the door the rest of the way behind her softly.
"It's all right to like him even though he is," he said.
Holli looked at him sharply. "Is it?"
Her voice cracked slightly at the edge, but she recovered fast and swallowed again. She rubbed the heel of her palm across her eye like she could scrub the memory away.
She sank down onto the edge of the desk and stared at the floor, voice quieter now. "Back home, there were guys like that. People who hurt people. Who killed people. Serial killers. Child molesters. Genocidal dictators. Real monsters." She pressed her fingers to her temples. "Did their families still love them?" She asked. "Did they have kids who said, 'Yeah, that's my dad, but he's really proud of me, so it's fine'?"
Cole didn't answer right away. He stepped closer, crouching a little so his face was level with hers.
"Sometimes," he said gently. "And sometimes not. Sometimes they tried to stop them. Sometimes they just cried. Sometimes they hated them. But sometimes… they wished they had known them before they became who they were."
Holli's throat ached.
"I didn't know him before," she said. "I only got the after. The… aftermath of what he did." Her hand curled into fists, tight enough her knuckles whitened. "I didn't ask for it."
"No," Cole said. "You didn't."
For a moment, the room was quiet except for her breathing.
Then she said, without looking up, "It'd be easier if he was just a monster. But he's not. And that's so much worse."
Cole nodded, not arguing. He didn't say anything. Didn't offer comfort or wisdom or absolution. Just nodded and stayed. She let out a long breath and pushed away from the wall, her body heavy. Tired, but not the kind that sleep could fix.
The nest of blankets in the corner called to her like water to someone parched. She crossed to it, toeing off her shoes, sinking into the warmth that still clung there from the morning. They'd lain in it together before Hawke had barged in all jokes and judgement, before reality returned. It had been soft, and quiet, and hers. Theirs.
She curled onto her side, back to the room, cheek against the cool fabric. A moment later she heard the rustle of movement, Cole settling in behind her. The blankets shifted, the air changed. He always moved like a whisper, like he belonged in silence. Then he was beside her. She turned to face him. His shaggy blond hair had fallen into his eyes again, catching the dim light like pale straw.
She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his, closing her eyes.
"Thanks for coming," she murmured.
"I like being where you are," he said, as if it was the simplest truth in the world.
A smile, brief and brittle, flickered across her lips. Her hand found his shirt, fisted there gently. She tilted her head and kissed him.
He kissed her back immediately, without hesitation. Warm, sure, and there. His mouth tasted like breath and longing, like something new and fragile trying to grow between all the cracks in her. Her hand slid up into his hair, pulling him closer. His fingers found her waist and held her there.
It deepened slowly. Then all at once. Their kisses turning open-mouthed. Her leg shifted to slide against his. His hand on her ribs. Their bodies drawn together by something deeper than want - need. A need to feel something good. To hold something real. To get lost in the one thing that didn't hurt right now.
He was gentle with her. Like he knew she was fine but also aching. Her heart thundered in her chest. Her breath hitched as his lips moved to her throat. She let her head fall back, eyes fluttering closed, fingers trembling against his skin.
She wanted more. She wanted- Then she froze, forehead resting against his collarbone, her breath stuttering.
This wasn't about forgetting anymore. It was just about wanting him. Kind of amazing how that switch flipped so easy. She opened her eyes and saw his. He was watching her, careful, present, never pushing. Just there, the way only Cole could be, as if he were tuned to the exact shape of her silence.
They didn't speak. There was no need. He already knew how something in her had shifted, how the ache had curled inward and bloomed into wanting. Not distraction. Not forgetting. Just him. She wanted him.
They were buried in the warmth of their blanket fort, the world shut out by layers of fabric and closeness. Her fingers sought the edge of his shirt, lifting it with a slow kind of gentleness. He let her. His skin was pale, a few scars, soft in the light filtering through the weave.
She pulled it off him, and he mirrored her, fingers brushing the hem of her shirt, eyes flicking to hers. She nodded. It was barely a movement, but it was all he needed. The shirt peeled away and the cold air touched her bare skin. Her arms instinctively crossed over her chest.
She wasn't used to this - being seen like this. Exposed. She could face Corypheus and spit in a magister's face, but this? This vulnerability twisted something uncertain in her. Before she could look away, he kissed her. Not urgent, not rushed. Something like worship, maybe.
His hands slid up her sides, warm and steady. His touch was smooth and thoughtful. Like everything he touched, he tried to heal. He kissed along her jaw, then her throat, and her hands slowly uncurled from her chest, one lifting to tangle in his hair. His body shifted, sliding closer, and she felt him. His length pressed against her thigh.
Her breath caught. A thrill spiked through her, half surprise, half wonder. So it did work the same for him. For someone like him. He could still feel that pull, that heat. Her thighs shifted, tension curling low in her stomach.
His mouth was moving again, lower now, kissing down her chest. He eased her onto her back, his lips closed around that sensitive peak. A sharp inhale punched from her lungs, her back arching into it, every nerve alive with something new and bright and overwhelming. Her hand fisted in the blanket, the other burying in his hair.
It was all new. Every second of it. She didn't know where to put her hands or the heat building in her, but she didn't want it to stop. She wanted to drown in it.
And then she was struck by agony. Pain. Searing and sudden. Bright like lightning behind her eyes. She gasped, choked on it, then cried out, clutching her hand. The mark. The fucking mark. It lit up with a violent green flare, pulsing, flashing and burning. Her entire arm spasmed, glowing like a torch beneath the blankets.
Cole jerked back, his hand already reaching for hers, his face full of startled worry. "Holli-?"
She couldn't answer. She was trying not to scream. Everything else - the heat, the closeness, the good, it all fell away.
She curled around her hand, the mark blazing bright enough to sear through her eyelids. It pulsed like a second heartbeat, sick and wrong, too much magic forcing its way through her skin. She felt Cole's hand on her back, steadying and grounding but even he couldn't reach her through the white-hot roar flooding her senses.
When it finally dulled - didn't go away, just dulled - she sucked in a shaky breath and uncurled her body from the knot she'd twisted into.
Cole was already helping her sit up. His face was pale, eyes concerned.
"I- I'm okay," she managed. A lie, and they both knew it.
But the sky outside the small window caught her eye. It was dark. Not night-dark. Wrong-dark. The light had gone grey and murky, like the sun had been smothered. And far off, beyond the mountains, unnatural lightning twisted through the clouds, green and gold and red.
"Fuck…" she breathed, dragging her shirt back over her head with one hand, the other still trembling.
They scrambled to dress. She shoved her feet into her worn Converses. Cole pulled his shirt over his head, hair still wild, then grabbed his boots. The room felt colder now. The blanket nest sagged limp and forgotten behind them. They were just reaching the door when it slammed open. Holli jolted, heart thudding - but it was only Hawke. His hair was wind-blown, one of his bracers was half-buckled, and a sword was strapped to his back. His eyes were wild.
Holli didn't miss a beat. "Fucking hell, Hawke. You just keep bringing bad news."
He let out a laugh, sharp and a little too high. "You don't even know what it is yet."
She jabbed a finger toward the window behind her with the most 'duh'-est look she could summon.
The lightning cracked again, closer now. The sky was bleeding colour, the kind of omen you could feel in your teeth. The world was about to go very, very wrong.