The stairs creaked under her weight as Rowan descended into the apothecary. The smell hit her first—sawdust and dried lavender, undercut by something mineral and old, like stone that had been wet for centuries. The low-hanging lamp cast a circle of amber light over the table where Sera and Kaelen sat, their silhouettes sharp against the dim morning.

Rowan's hand found the pendant at her throat before she'd fully reached the bottom step. The sea-glass was cool against her fingers, a familiar weight she was already learning to reach for without thinking. Her jaw ached from the punch last night, a dull throb that reminded her every time she spoke or swallowed that nothing about this was a dream she could wake from.

Kaelen looked up first. His horns caught the light as he turned, his hazel eyes tracking her with the slow assessment of someone who'd been watching the stairs for a while. He didn't smile. That was new. Last night he'd been all warmth and riddles, a jovial host testing his guests. This morning, his face was flat. Expectant. A man who'd stopped performing.

"Sit," he said. Not a suggestion.

Rowan's jaw tightened. She didn't like being told what to do, especially not by someone who spoke in riddles and offered tea instead of answers. But her legs were still heavy from a night of broken sleep, and the chair at the table was right there, and Sera was watching her with those winter-sea eyes that held something close to pity.

She sat.

The wood was worn smooth under her palms, dark with years of use. A bowl of broth sat in front of her, steam curling up in lazy spirals. It smelled good—herbs and chicken and something earthy she couldn't name. Her stomach clenched. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten.

"Eat," Kaelen said, pushing the bowl closer with one thick finger. "You'll need it."

Rowan looked at the broth. Then at him. "Are you going to tell me what's happening, or are we just going to communicate in one-word commands all morning?"

Sera snorted. The sound was quick and sharp, cutting through the tension like a blade. She was sitting sideways in her chair, one leg hooked over the arm, a knife in her hand that she was tapping against the wood in a slow, rhythmic beat. Tap. Tap. Tap. The sound was starting to drill into Rowan's skull.

"She's got a point," Sera said. "You've been sitting there looking like a disappointed father for the last hour. At least give her the speech before you start brooding."

Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "I do not brood."

"You're literally brooding right now." Sera pointed the knife at him. "That's brooding. That's the face of a man who's about to deliver bad news in a calm, measured tone so it sounds reasonable."

"I—" Kaelen stopped. His mouth pressed into a thin line. "I am considering the best approach."

"Uh-huh." Sera went back to tapping her knife. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Rowan wrapped her hands around the bowl of broth, letting the warmth seep into her fingers. The ceramic was rough under her thumbs, chipped at the rim. Real. Solid. Something she could hold onto while the rest of her world kept slipping sideways.

"Just say it," Rowan said. "Whatever it is. I've already found out I'm not human, I have magic that possibly killed someone, and I can't go home. There's not much left that's going to surprise me."

Kaelen studied her for a long moment. His eyes moved over her face like he was reading a text only he could see, searching for something she wasn't sure she had. Then he leaned back in his chair, and the wood groaned under his weight.

"Training starts today," he said.

Rowan blinked. "Training."

"Your magic is raw. Volatile. It nearly blew through my wards last night, and I've spent decades reinforcing them." He gestured at the bottles lining the walls, the symbols carved into the doorframes, the iron nails driven into the corners of every window. "This place is built to contain all magical energy. The fact that your power strained it means you are not safe to be around—not here, not anywhere—until you learn to control it."

The words landed like stones in her chest. Not safe. She'd spent her whole life being safe, being ordinary, being the person who showed up on time and paid her bills and never caused trouble. And now she was a danger just by existing.

"So you're going to train me," Rowan said slowly. "Here. In the apothecary."

"No."

The word was flat. Final.

Rowan's fingers tightened on the bowl. "No?"

"I cannot train you." Kaelen's gaze didn't waver. "Your magic is too powerful, too unstable. If you lose control during a lesson, you could level this building and everyone in it. I am old, but I am not immortal."

"Then who?"

The silence stretched. Sera's knife stopped tapping.

Rowan looked between them, her pulse starting to pick up. "Who's going to train me?"

Sera set the knife down flat on the table. The sound was soft, but it cut through the room like a bell. "There's someone," she said. "Someone who knows about old magic. Old bloodlines. The kind of power that runs in your veins."

"Someone who's been waiting for you to surface," Kaelen added, his voice low. "He sensed you the moment your magic woke. The pulse of it traveled through the underground like a shockwave. Anyone with any sensitivity to fae power felt it."

Rowan's mouth went dry. She thought of the amber-eyed man from her dream—the way he'd watched her without speaking, the way his gaze had felt like a weight against her skin. "Who is he?"

Kaelen and Sera exchanged a glance. Something passed between them, silent and heavy. Rowan hated it. Hated being the one outside the conversation, the one they had to communicate about in looks and pauses.

"His name is Dorian Ashvale," Sera said. Her voice was careful now, stripped of its usual snark. "He's an incubus. Old. Powerful. Connected to things I don't fully understand."

An incubus.

Rowan's brain snagged on the word. She knew what an incubus was—everyone knew. A creature of dream and desire, a predator who fed on lust and pleasure. The stories painted them as monsters, seducers who drained their victims dry.

"And he's going to train me?" Rowan's voice came out sharper than she intended. "A creature that feeds on—on that—is supposed to teach me how to control my magic?"

"He's the only one who can," Kaelen said. "Dorian Ashvale has been alive for over three centuries. He has walked through courts that crumbled before you were born. He knows the language of fae power in ways I could never teach you."

"And his help doesn't come cheap," Sera added, her jaw tight. "He doesn't do anything for free. If he agrees to train you, it's because he wants something in return."

Rowan's hand drifted to the pendant again. The sea-glass was warm now, heated by her skin, pulsing faintly against her palm. She could feel the hum under her ribs, quiet but patient, waiting for her to reach for it. The power that had nearly killed a man. The power that had been hidden from her for twenty-four years.

"What does he want?" she asked.

"We don't know yet." Kaelen's voice was heavy. "He's been waiting for you to emerge. He'll name his price when he's ready."

"And if I don't want to pay it?"

Kaelen looked at her with something that might have been pity. "Then your magic will remain untrained. It will grow stronger, wilder, harder to contain. And eventually, it will consume you."

The words hung in the air like smoke. Rowan stared at the broth cooling in front of her, the steam thinning to nothing. She'd spent her whole life building something solid—a job, a home, a life that made sense. And now she was being told that the only way to survive was to trust a creature who fed on desire and wanted something she couldn't name.

"When do I meet him?" she asked.

Sera's shoulders relaxed, just a fraction. "Tonight. He'll find you."

"He'll find me." Rowan's laugh was bitter, scraping out of her throat. "Of course he will. Because nothing about this can be straightforward."

"Welcome to the world of magic," Sera said, and there was no humor in it. "Nothing is straightforward. Everything has a price. Everyone has an angle."

Rowan picked up the spoon and forced herself to take a bite of the broth. It was good—rich and savory, warming her from the inside out. She hated that it was good. Hated that her body could still want something as simple as food when her entire life had just been dismantled.

She ate in silence, feeling their eyes on her. Kaelen watched with that flat, assessing gaze, like he was waiting for her to break. Sera watched with something closer to worry, her hand resting on the knife she'd put down.

When the bowl was empty, Rowan set the spoon down and looked up.

"Tell me about him," she said. "Dorian Ashvale. What else do I need to know?"

Kaelen leaned forward, his elbows on the table. The wood creaked under his weight. "He is old. He is patient. He does not raise his voice or prove his strength, because he has nothing to prove. If you try to challenge him, he will let you exhaust yourself against a wall that does not move."

"Charming."

"He is also dangerous in ways you cannot yet understand." Kaelen's voice dropped. "Incubi are not cruel by nature, but they are predators. They sense hunger, need, weakness. Your magic is a beacon, Rowan. It calls to him. And once he has your attention, he will not let go easily."

Rowan thought of the amber eyes in her dream. The way he'd watched her without blinking, without speaking, as if he had all the time in the world. She'd felt seen in a way that was unfamiliar and unsettling. Like he'd looked straight through her skin and found something she didn't know she was hiding.

"And you trust him?" she asked.

"I trust that he will keep his word." Kaelen's gaze was steady. "That is not the same as trusting him."

Rowan absorbed that. Filed it away. She was building a mental map of this new world, piece by piece, and every new information felt like a stone added to a wall she was constructing around herself.

Sera reached across the table and tapped Rowan's wrist. The touch was brief, but it grounded her. "Hey. You don't have to do this alone. I'm coming with you."

"You are?" Rowan looked at her. "I thought you had—calls to make. People to talk to."

"I'll make them on the way." Sera shrugged, but there was something tense in her shoulders. "You're not walking into an incubus's territory without backup. That's just stupid."

"I thought you said he's been waiting for me. Why would he hurt me if he needs me for something?"

"Because 'needing you for something' and 'not hurting you' are two very different things." Sera's voice was flat. "I've seen what incubi do to people when they get bored. He might not kill you, but he can still leave marks that don't show on the outside."

Rowan's stomach turned. She thought about the dream again—the way his gaze had felt almost gentle. But dreams weren't real. And she'd learned the hard way that gentle could be a mask worn by something with teeth.

"Fine," she said. "Tonight. I'll meet him."

Kaelen nodded slowly, then reached under the table. When his hand came back, he was holding the vessel—the one that had pulsed with silver light when Rowan had touched it last night. He set it on the table between them, and the movement was careful, deliberate, like he was handling something that could bite.

The symbols on its surface caught the lamplight, faintly glowing. They pulsed in a rhythm that matched the hum under Rowan's ribs, a heartbeat she hadn't known she had.

Her fingers itched to touch it.

"This belongs to you," Kaelen said. "More than it belongs to me. It recognized you the moment you walked into my shop."

Rowan stared at the vessel. The silver lines seemed to move in the corner of her eye, shifting and rearranging themselves in patterns she couldn't quite follow. She could feel it pulling at her, a low, insistent tug, like a thread connected to something deep in her chest.

"What is it?" she asked, but her voice was distant, like she was speaking from underwater.

Kaelen slid the vessel across the table. The symbols pulsed brighter as it moved, responding to her proximity. The hum in her chest grew louder, more insistent, a second heartbeat that wanted to match the vessel's rhythm.

"I don't know," Kaelen said. "But I think you're about to find out."

The vessel came to rest in front of her, inches from her trembling fingers.

The room fell silent.

Rowan stared at the pulsing symbols, her breath shallow, her hand hovering over the surface. She could feel the heat of it, the faint vibration that traveled up through the table and into her palms. It recognized her. It wanted her to touch it.

And she had no idea what would happen when she did.