Chapter 153: Familiar Voice
The voice was low, smooth, and far too composed for the destruction that had nearly taken place a heartbeat ago.
Aveline did not need to turn.
She knew that voice.
And the light that had appeared to save her had already told her everything she needed to know.
Theron.
Relief rushed through her so quickly it almost made her weak.
Of course he had come. Of course he had found her at the exact moment she needed him most. The tight, frightened knot in her chest loosened all at once, replaced by a swelling warmth that made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.
He was here.
She was not alone.
Gathering the last of her courage, Aveline stepped forward, the fear that had frozen her only moments ago already beginning to recede. "You heard him," she said, her voice steadier now that she knew Theron was behind her.
What could hurt her with him here?
She moved toward the scattered stones, guilt prickling at the back of her mind. It had been her mistake. She could see the colors, the resonance, the patterns, while Lucien could not. It would take him ages to sort everything back into place, especially when he treated his work like sacred scripture and his laboratory like the center of the world.
He would be furious.
That was understandable.
Trying to incinerate her, however, had been a little much.
Lucien’s brows drew together, his gaze lingering on the stones before shifting back to her. "I don’t think it would have mattered," he said slowly.
Aveline blinked.
He sounded certain. Not angry in the way she expected, but suspicious in a different, sharper way.
Lucian, however, was thinking. He was sure the first fire he sent had been aimed directly at her. There was no way the table had intercepted it. She must have deflected it somehow. And the second flame, he had not let dissipate on its own either. He had felt someone else interfering with it.
Her.
That was why he had escalated. That was why he had used the third flame to test her more directly, to see whether she truly possessed the kind of control he suspected.
But before he could satisfy his curiosity, someone from the royal family had interrupted him.
Whoever it was... Didn’t matter.
Lucien clicked his tongue and, with a look of obvious irritation, reached to brighten the room. He hated bright lights, but apparently even his aversion had limits when he wanted to inspect a problem closely.
Then his eyes landed on her again.
"Oh, it’s you again, Leveret," he said.
Aveline froze.
Her heart gave a hard, startled thump.
Leveret?
Only Theron called her "little hare." Only he called her that with that infuriating tenderness that made her want to smile even when she was trying to be angry. And now this old man—this absurd, fire-throwing, impossible old man—was calling her Leveret in front of Theron?
The sheer awkwardness of it made her cheeks warm.
He was old enough to be her grandfather, for gods’ sake.
And yet the way he said it sounded so familiar, so certain, that it made something uneasy and strange stir in the back of her mind.
She did not want Theron to get jealous.
She had no idea why that thought flustered her, but it did.
"Who’s your Leveret?" she muttered, half to herself, half in protest, before bending quickly to gather the stones.
If she could focus on something sensible, perhaps her heart would stop racing like this.
She had watched Lucien carefully. She knew where each stone had been placed, knew the approximate arrangement by color and frequency. So she collected them one by one and set them back in order with painstaking care, matching what she remembered with what she had seen in the lab.
Lucien blinked down at her.
"What is that?" he asked, clearly thrown by her calm.
"I’m replacing them according to the frequencies you arranged them by," Aveline replied, as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world.
His expression changed at once.
"How do you know that?"
His tone had shifted to something far more alert. Curious. Confused. He had spent who knew how long calculating and measuring and testing, and she was simply kneeling here, sorting them back into place like she had done it all her life, as if she could see them just by looking.
"You can check it if you want," she said.
Lucien muttered under his breath as he crouched to examine the stones more closely, his attention pulled away at last.
And with that, Aveline finally turned toward Theron.
Her Theron.
Her heart leapt in her chest with foolish, aching joy.
He had come for her.
She could stand close to him now. See him properly. Maybe even touch him. Maybe, if she was very lucky, she could hold onto the relief of this moment long enough to breathe again. And... she needed to ask him about Hamilton.
A little giggle nearly escaped her before she could stop it.
He looked beautiful.
His dark eyes were sharp, his dark hair perfectly combed, his cloak draped over him with that familiar, effortless grace that made him seem like he had stepped out of a dream rather than walked into a fire-scorched laboratory. There was light on his face now, clear and steady and very real.
But then... she saw the woman behind him.
Amber eyes... elaborate dress...
Aveline’s joy faltered.
Her body went still.
The world, which had just begun to warm around her, suddenly seemed to lose all its color.
Was that... his betrothed?
Her gaze flickered back to Theron, then to the woman standing just behind his shoulder, and the answer struck her before she had even finished asking the question.
He had come here for her, not because he had sensed her danger. But because he was here to bring his fiancée to the Archduke.
The realization hit her all at once, hard enough that her chest physically tightened.
Pain rushed through her in an instant, sharp and ugly and far too familiar.
Her heartbeat stuttered.
For a moment, she could not breathe properly.
It felt as though the warmth that had filled her only seconds ago had been swept out of her body and replaced by something cold and hollow. She could still see Theron, still see the way he stood there beside the woman the court had chosen for him, but the sight no longer comforted her.
It wounded her.
Deeply.
Because she had thought, just for one foolish, fragile moment, that he had come for her.
And now she could see the truth.
She stared at him, her lips parting slightly, while the joy that had once made her want to run to him dissolved into a pain so sudden it almost made her sway.
