The hum of the engine faded into silence as I pulled into the estate’s private garage, the heavy doors sealing shut behind me with a muted hiss of magic. Ravenrest Heights might’ve been full of mansions, but none of them hid what mine did. To the humans, the Firebrand Estate was just another piece of obscene wealth tucked behind iron gates and glamour-touched hedges. Elegant. Intimidating. Unreachable.

They had no idea.

I sat for a moment in the driver’s seat, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel in an uneven rhythm I couldn’t stop—three taps, pause, two taps—while staring at my reflection in the rearview mirror. My eyes were still green—glamoured—and my hair still tamed into that perfectly mundane auburn, wavy but not wild. The uniform clung politely to my figure, ironed and unwrinkled. I looked like a normal rich girl. Like Mira Quinveil.

But that girl was dissolving fast.

The music cut off as I killed the engine. Silence swelled around me. Heavy. Pressing. My foot bounced against the floor mat—too fast, too loud in the stillness.

“One afternoon of peace,” I muttered as I grabbed my satchel. “That’s all I wanted.”

I shoved open the car door and stepped into the mudroom. Sleek marble tile. Hooks I never used. Enchanted sconces that pulsed to life with soft blue fire as I passed—recognizing me.

I kicked off my boots, flexing my toes against the cool tile to ground myself, and snatched a piece of fruit from the crystal bowl on the counter. It was warm. Overripe. Magic-sweet. Probably wouldn’t even bruise if you dropped it.

The house was quiet.

Not peaceful quiet—funeral quiet.

It always felt like the estate was holding its breath when I was home. Waiting to see what version of me would walk through the door. Mira Quinveil? Mira Firebrand? Or the firestorm beneath both?

Each step deeper into the house made the glamours pull tighter against my skin, like clingwrap stretched too thin. The walls whispered in silent heat, the ambient magic clawing at the edges of my illusion. My nails dug into the strap of my satchel, a pressure point to focus on. I passed a mirror and caught the faintest flicker of silver in my gaze before the green shimmer snapped back into place. My hair threatened to brighten, streaks of gold trying to bleed through like wildfire under glass.

I passed the main portrait hallway and slowed instinctively. There, above the central hearth, hung a masterpiece in goldleaf and lacquer: Seara and Selene, posed like goddesses. Selene’s hair was pinned perfectly, her gown draped like flame, her posture poised and infallible. Mother looked radiant, cold and commanding in equal measure. There was no joy in her face. Only power.

“Guess hybrids don’t get framed,” I muttered, brushing imaginary lint from my uniform just to keep my hands busy. “Shocking.”

I climbed the stairs two at a time, the creak beneath my feet syncing to a quiet counting pattern in my head. I could feel the house watching—alive in its own way. Not sentient, exactly, but aware. It belonged to the Firebrands, and whether it liked me or not, it knew I was one of them.

The east wing loomed like a secret I wasn’t supposed to touch, but I didn’t hesitate. This was my path. My duty. My prison.

My room greeted me with soft light and subtle warmth, the kind that always made me hesitate in the doorway. The wardrobe stood open—of course—and the gown lay draped across the chaise like an accusation. Gold thread. Red silk. Sunlight stitched into molten glass.

It was beautiful.

I hated it.

I stood there too long, thumb rubbing against the edge of my satchel strap in a small, repetitive circle until the heat in my chest crept higher. The uniform suddenly felt like it weighed twenty pounds, pressing against my ribs, too tight at the collar. I stripped it off in jerky movements, blazer and blouse hitting the bed in a tangle, tie flung onto the chair.

Then, with a breath that shivered on the way out, I pulled the glamour down.

It was always like peeling away skin—an ache and a rush, both at once. My shoulders loosened under the sudden weight shift. My hair cascaded in a flood of real flame-color, bright and alive, brushing my arms with static warmth. My ears sharpened; the subtle hum of the wards outside the window grew clearer, as if they knew the mask was gone. My eyes caught the fading light in the mirror, glinting silver starlight instead of human green.

For a moment, I just stood there and let myself be.

The dress waited. I touched it like it might bite—fingers dragging over the gold embroidery, feeling each thread pulse faintly with magic. Summer Court craft never just sat still. The fabric sighed under my touch, the weave shifting slightly to welcome me. When I stepped into it, it slid against my skin like heat incarnate, settling around my collarbones with a faint, possessive whisper.

It fit too perfectly. Magic like this always did—tailored not to the body, but to the blood.

When I finally stepped into the hall, the air itself seemed to change. The eastern corridor shimmered with Veil-folded layers, wards thrumming faintly in the walls. I could feel them recognize me—Firebrand blood keyed to pass. To anyone uninvited, the path ahead would lock, bend, or vanish entirely.

The hallway bent at impossible angles, each turn feeling longer than it looked. No human architect could have drawn this place. The Summer Court’s magic twisted space around it like silk and flame, drawing me toward the heart of the realm whether I wanted to go or not.

I reached the sliding glass doors that marked the threshold. From this side, it looked like nothing more than a lavish courtyard—elegant, enclosed, full of manicured hedges and perfectly sculpted fountains. Harmless. Familiar.

I pressed my palm to the etched glass. The wards hummed in recognition, a note only blood could unlock. For anyone else, this door would be an unbroken wall.

I stepped through the Veil.

The world split.

The courtyard peeled away like painted paper dissolving in flame, revealing the true Summer Court. The air here was heavier, hotter, tasting faintly of cinnamon and sunlight. The sky pulsed with an endless dusk-gold, brighter than firelight but softer than noon, the horizon stretching into miles of scorched beauty.

Golden fields rolled away in every direction, dotted with flame-blossomed trees whose petals flickered between silk and ember. Towering spires rose in the distance like molten glass caught mid-drip. Emberhall gleamed at the heart of it all, its walls alive with shifting runes that sparked and vanished as though the building itself were thinking.

It existed inside Dominveil but also far beyond it — wrapped into the city’s bones like a second, secret heartbeat. Humans couldn’t see it. Most fae couldn’t enter it. But my blood unlocked the way.

And me?

The land responded.

Flowers pivoted to face me, blooming wider in my wake. The ground warmed beneath my bare feet, every step leaving a faint shimmer that faded only when I moved on. The stones themselves pulsed, eager to be touched. Magic curled up around my wrists like warm bracelets, whispering through the wind in a language I couldn’t understand but somehow knew was my name.

It was too much. Too alive. Too aware.

I hated it.

I hated that no matter how unwanted I was, the land still wanted me.

My fingers twitched — counting the movements of the petals on the nearest flower. One-two-three-four. My mind snagged on the rhythm, clinging to it until my pulse slowed.

“To the humans at Ravenrest, I’m Mira Quinveil,” I thought bitterly. “Smart. Sharp-tongued. Fake as hell. Here? I’m Mira Firebrand. Half-blood disappointment. Unwanted miracle. The girl the land won’t stop looking at.”

The sun here would never set, not unless the court willed it.

Fire licked at my heels as I walked toward Emberhall. The flagstones softened beneath my steps the closer I came, as if the building were leaning toward me.

The scent hit first—sun-warmed stone, jasmine so sweet it almost hurt, and that ever-present hum of restrained heat clinging to the air like perfume. I paused at the arched threshold, fingertips tracing the carved doorframe, eyes lifting toward the gilded spires overhead.

The fire inside me twisted tighter.

“You’re late.”

Her voice, cool but not unkind, reached me before she stepped into view. Selene emerged from the prep corridor like grace had been hammered into flesh and tempered in discipline. Her gown shimmered with faint runes of tradition and rank—deep crimson cut with silver filigree, every thread a statement of belonging. Copper-blonde hair, lighter than Mother’s, coiled in perfect spirals without a single rebel strand.

She stopped beside me, gaze sweeping over my form—not in judgment, but in quiet assessment. “Mother is already inside. You smell like hesitation.”

“I was savoring the walk,” I said, deadpan. “Such a welcoming landscape.”

Her lips twitched—half amusement, half disbelief. “The Court doesn’t welcome. It watches.”

“I know.”

Her eyes held mine for a long moment, the gold in them catching the light in a way that made it hard to look away. There was no mask in her expression—just concern, sharp and unsoftened.

“Then don’t give it a reason to look closer,” she said. It wasn’t a warning. It was protection.

I broke eye contact first, focusing instead on a nearby vine curling up a column. It bloomed as I breathed in slowly—golden petals turning toward my shoulder like they wanted to brush my skin.

Selene’s gaze flicked to it, then back to me. The land never moved for her. No flowers bent, no heat stirred. Just stillness.

I hated that she noticed. I loved that she noticed.

“I hate this,” I whispered.

“I know,” she said softly.

And for a heartbeat, she wasn’t the Court’s crown jewel. She was my sister—the one who used to hold me after Seara’s rages, brushing fire-tangled hair out of my eyes and promising it wouldn’t always be this hard.

I turned toward the Emberhall. “Let’s get it over with.”

She fell into step beside me—not leading, not following. Just there. Like she always was. Even if it never changed a damn thing.

The Emberhall’s golden doors opened with the hush of enchanted air, breathing heat and light into the corridor as if the hall itself had exhaled in welcome.

Inside, fire lived in everything.

The ceiling rippled like molten sky, impossibly high, the gold catching and throwing light in waves that shifted with the air. Summer constellations glittered faintly above, constellations only the fae knew, their shapes flexing and rearranging in slow, impossible arcs. Braziers lined the walls, each flame caught mid-flicker, suspended by spells older than the bones of Dominveil itself. The whole room pulsed with a heat so constant it felt like a second heartbeat under my skin.

At the far end, the obsidian dais waited. Twin thrones rose upon it — one of solar stone, carved with a hundred suns in different phases, the other of blackened rosewood tangled with real thorns that pulsed faintly with life.

Only one of them was occupied.

Seara Firebrand sat like a flame given human form, her posture regal, her presence a kind of pressure you felt in the teeth. Her crimson gown melted into the throne’s solar stone, golden embroidery blooming across the fabric in the shape of fire lilies just about to open. Her hair, liquid copper and perfectly coiffed, spilled down her back, catching the hall’s unnatural light so it glowed brighter than the braziers. Amber eyes locked on me the moment I stepped into the room. Even at this distance, her attention was a blade — precise, cutting, impossible to escape.

My feet hit scorched stone tiles. I kept them moving.

The courtiers clustered in glittering knots, jeweled hands half-hiding wine-slick smiles. Their voices were pitched just low enough to be private but just loud enough to be heard if you were meant to. Some of the gazes that slid over me were amused, some pitying. None kind.

Selene peeled away from my side like a ribbon pulled from a braid, gliding toward Mother’s throne without hesitation. She looked like she belonged there. I didn’t.

I followed protocol, dipping my head as I reached the dais.

“High Lady,” I said, voice smooth, hands clasped to keep the heat in my fingers from sparking.

“You’re late,” she said.

“I arrived when expected.”

Her gaze flickered — approval? amusement? calculation? — then settled again. Nothing more.

And then the air shifted — perfume, shadow, silk.

Zyrella Thornsflame emerged from the crowd like she’d been conjured from a nightmare you couldn’t quite wake from. Her gown was a waterfall of midnight velvet stitched with shadowthread so fine it seemed to drink the light. Her lips were the color of bruised petals, and her eyes gleamed with ink-bright knowing.

“Oh, but look at her,” she purred, the words curling like smoke. She circled close enough that the whisper of her sleeve brushed my hip. “The little firebrand herself. Half human, half heir… and still upright. Mira, darling, you wear instability like a second skin. It’s practically luminous.”

Soft laughter rippled through the nearest cluster of courtiers. I kept my head high.

“Zyrella,” I said evenly, nodding just enough to be polite. “How fortunate the shadows spared you tonight.”

Her teeth flashed in a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “One must make time for milestones. You are the court’s most… unique treasure.”

Unique. Acid on the tongue. The word had been thrown at me since I was old enough to know it wasn’t meant as praise.

The braziers along the wall hissed — barely audible, but I felt them. The flames leaned toward me, drawn to my pulse, their heat curling up in slow, deliberate waves.

Zyrella’s gaze sharpened, and her voice dipped so only I could hear it. “Careful, darling. You’re smoldering.”

I blinked once. Slow.

“It must be the company,” I said, tasting smoke at the back of my throat.

And then Daevan appeared at her side, tall and sharp as a blade, his suit black as the void and stitched with threads of molten gold. His smile was polished, but his eyes — all hunger.

“If it isn’t our radiant halfling,” he drawled, drawing the word like a knife. “So serious. You’d be prettier if you smiled.”

I didn’t flinch. “And you’d be tolerable if you shut up.”

He laughed — a deep, genuine sound, like my words amused him rather than cut. “Fiery. I like that.”

Zyrella’s hand skimmed his arm like she was claiming him and mocking me all in the same motion. “Now, now, Daevan. Mira is very important to the Summer Court. A shining example of our… tolerance.”

Their laughter bit deeper than I let show. My jaw tightened. The heat surged in my veins, begging to be released. The flames rose higher, inching toward the arches above, brightening in warning.

And then — that shift.

The weight of her gaze.

Seara.

She didn’t frown. Didn’t smile. Didn’t move.

Just watched — as if she were waiting to see if I’d burn it all down.

I forced the fire back, inch by inch, like swallowing coals. My nails bit into my palms, grounding me.

“Excuse me,” I said, voice clipped and elegant. “I need air.”

And I turned before they could see my hands shake.

I slipped away before the next round of toasts could start—before Zyrella could deliver another venom-laced compliment or Daevan could fix me with that lopsided, predator’s grin. I needed air. Space. Something that didn’t reek of politics and perfume.

The corridors of Emberhall shimmered with the residual heat of enchantment, the light bending faintly at the edges of the walls the way air blurs above a forge. My heels clicked a measured rhythm against the inlaid stone, but my mind kept stuttering, replaying every barbed word until I had to shake my head to stop. My fingers tapped against my thigh in a familiar staccato—three beats, pause, three beats, pause—just to keep from clenching them into fists.

I pushed through the gilded doors of one of the upper balconies and stepped into the open night.

If you could call it that.

The Summer Court never truly slept. The sky above shimmered in an endless, painted twilight—sunless, starless, suspended somewhere between gold and rose. A frozen dusk stretched taut like skin over embers. The land hummed with the same restless energy that lived under my own skin.

And so did I.

The glow started in my palms—just a faint shimmer of embers beneath the skin at first. But I knew how quickly it could spread if I let it. Anger. Shame. The steady drum of power with nowhere to go. It gathered in my blood, coiled in my ribs, begging for something to consume.

I pressed my hands to the balcony railing hard enough for the carved stone to bite into my skin. “Breathe,” I muttered. “Breathe, you stupid girl.”

And then it hit—sharp, sudden. Stone and dust. The metallic tang of old wards. A scent I knew as well as my own heartbeat.

And I was nine again.

The cellar beneath Emberhall wasn’t cold in the human sense—nothing in the Summer Court ever was—but it was wrong-cold. Hollow-cold. The kind of absence that devoured heat instead of lacking it. The air was thick with the taste of ash, shadows pooling in the corners where the torchlight dared not reach.

I remember screaming. Pounding on the heavy oak door until the skin split across my knuckles. I remember the way the silence pressed against my ears until it felt like it might crush me.

Seara had called it “containment.” A lesson. A warning.

I’d set one of the guest banners on fire—not on purpose. I’d been overwhelmed, cornered in a conversation I didn’t want to have, and my magic had lashed out, wild and terrified. It wasn’t the first time it happened, but it was the first time she didn’t try to cover it up.

She let the courtiers see.

And she let me see what I was to her—danger, shame, something to be managed.

I’d curled up in the corner with my knees to my chest, trying not to sob too loud in case the flames came back. In case I burned the whole place down this time.

“Mira?”

The voice had been muffled, filtered through the iron grate in the door.

I didn’t look up. “Go away.”

“Not happening,” Elias Quinveil said, warm and steady, like he wasn’t standing in the center of enemy territory. “Your old man’s here to commit some light treason.”

The scrape of metal. The click of wards yielding. And then the door eased open, spilling golden light down the stairs like a sunrise I’d thought I’d never see again.

He stood there in his dark suit, tie loose, coat slung over one arm like he’d sprinted from his own world into mine without stopping. Mortal. Out of place. Completely undeterred.

He came down the stairs and knelt beside me, not caring that his knees hit ash. He held the coat out like a shield. “Hey, Flame,” he said—the nickname he never used in front of Seara. “Heard you had a moment.”

I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even meet his eyes. Shame burned hotter than magic ever could.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head, jaw tight, blinking hard.

He reached out slowly, his palm warm when it closed over my soot-streaked hands. “It’s okay to burn,” he said quietly. “Just don’t burn yourself to stay warm.”

Something in me cracked at that, and before I could stop it, I was leaning into him, small and shaking, while he wrapped his coat around me. He didn’t tell me to quiet down. Didn’t tell me to control myself. He just let me exist—fire and all.

The memory receded like smoke in a breeze. I stood braced against the balcony railing, breathing slow, my fingers still faintly lit from within, the glow threading through my veins like molten glass.

It didn’t vanish. It never did. But it settled.

“I’m okay,” I whispered, first to the air, then to myself. “I’m okay. I’m not nine anymore.”

The words didn’t fix anything, but they gave my hands somewhere to put the shaking. My breathing found a steady rhythm again—four beats in, six beats out, matching the old pattern my father had taught me.

It’s okay to burn.

Just don’t burn yourself to stay warm.

That had been the first time I’d heard him say it. Not the last.

My mother might have given me magic, but my father gave me the will to survive it.

The sky above Emberhall never darkened, but I felt the shift anyway—the subtle ripple in the air that meant time was moving in the Court’s way. Somewhere deep in the gilded halls below, the evening bells began to ring. A single chime rolling outward like a command.

The ceremony would begin soon.

And I would have to go back in.

Back under the light.

Back into their world.

Two worlds.

No peace.

I straightened slowly, rolling the tension out of my shoulders. The brazier behind me flickered in the breeze, its flames no longer straining toward me, as if they’d decided I was steady enough now.

Or at least steady enough to fake it.

I smoothed my gown, let my fingertips trail over the molten silk like I was coaxing it to behave, then caught my reflection in the glass. Eyes sharp. Chin lifted. Fire contained.

“Not yet,” I murmured to the heat in my chest.

And then I turned back toward the Emberhall.

The air thickened as soon as I crossed the threshold, warm with the scent of summer spice and too many bodies pressed together under layers of perfume. Light from the braziers gilded the marble floor in ripples, while the silks draped overhead shifted like they had their own slow-breathing life.

Laughter rose and fell in curated waves—never too loud, never too raw—each peal as polished as the wineglasses clutched in jeweled hands. Conversations bent around me like I was a stone in a stream. I moved through it with a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes, my steps measured, my shoulders loose, every inch of me an echo of etiquette I’d memorized but never believed in.

The dress shimmered faintly with every breath, catching light that didn’t seem to exist anywhere but on me. Tiny ripples of flame traveled through the fabric in time with my heartbeat—small enough to pass for clever tailoring, unless you knew what you were looking for.

Let them look.

I answered questions with charm so thin it could splinter. I danced when asked, my hands light, my feet moving where they were guided. I stood where protocol placed me. I smiled when a High Lord’s wife complimented my “discipline.”

And through it all, I burned—quietly, invisibly—until even I couldn’t tell if the heat under my skin was mine or the Court’s.

The hours dragged like silk over thorns—soft enough to lull you, sharp enough to cut when you forgot to brace. Faces blurred. Compliments rolled off me, leaving no mark.

I kept waiting for someone—anyone—to pull me aside and whisper, You don’t have to do this.

No one did.

Of course they didn’t.

I was the half-blood heir who didn’t fit—too human for the Court, too fae for the human world I craved. A placeholder in gold thread, kept on display because it suited someone’s political taste.

My throat was dry. My chest was hollow. And every time another pair of eyes landed on me, I had to fight the urge to melt into the marble and let the Court forget I’d ever existed.

I didn’t belong here.

I didn’t belong anywhere.

And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could pretend I did.