-Jasper-
The first time I met her, she called me a magical cat toy.
I'd conjured a glowing orb-warm, harmless, a classic fae trick. She looked at it like it was a joke. Like I was the joke. But not in a cruel way. More like…she saw right through the performance and dared me to try harder.
Gods, I liked her then.
Now? I'm not sure she even looks at me at all.
I sit on the rooftop over the east wing, the same place I always go when my thoughts won't shut up. The sky above is clear, stars sharp like pinpricks in velvet. I used to come here to think. To escape. Now I'm up here to hide from the wreckage I helped cause.
My coin lies in my palm, still and silent. No flips. No games.
Because this isn't a game anymore.
"She's unraveling," I said.
And I helped pull the thread.
The door opens behind me with a soft creak. Footsteps-measure,precise. Not Finn. Not Asher.
Soren.
Of course.
I don't look up. "If you're here to tell me I screwed up, get in line."
The vampire doesn't answer right away. He crosses the rooftop and sits beside, unnervingly quiet. Typical. Even his silence feels like judgment.
"She's with Finn," he says eventually, voice like ice on glass. "Down in the courtyard."
"I figured," I mutter.
"She looked…steadier."
That surprises me. "You're not usually one to comment on emotional stability."
He shrugs. "I watch people. It's what I do."
I finally glanced at him. Silver eyes like moonlight, unreadable as always. "So? What do you see when you look at her?"
He's quiet for a moment too long. Then, softly: "Someone who doesn't know whether to fight the storm or become it."
I stare at him, startled. "That's…poetic."
"It's the truth," he replies, unbothered. "And truth doesn't care if it's pretty."
I fall silent again, watching the wind pull at the treetops below.
"I was the first to befriend her," I say eventually. "The first one who made her laugh. And now? She can barely stand to be near me."
"Because she trusted you," Soren says simply. "And you flinched."
The words land harder than I expect. Not cruel, just precise. A scalpel instead of a sword.
"I didn't mean to."
"I know."
He leans back, silver eyes scanning the stars. "I've stayed close. Watched. Even when she started pulling away, I didn't. But I didn't push either. Not hard enough. Maybe I thought if I stayed steady, it would be enough."
"It wasn't."
"No," he agrees quietly. "Not for her. Not for what she's facing."
I glance at him, surprised by the flicker of something like regret in his voice.
"She needs us," he says. "Not just to stand behind her. To stand with her. You used to do that."
My throat tightens. "And I broke it."
"Then fix it." he rises with that eerie grace of his. "The rest of us can hold the line. But you? You're the only one who made her laugh when she first got here."
He walks to the edge of the rooftop and pauses, one hand on the railing. "That still means something. If you let it."
Then he disappears down the stairs, silent as ever.
I sit there a while longer, the wind tugging at my hair, the night stretching around me like a held breath.
My coin rests cold in my hand.
This time, I don't flip it.
This time, I choose.