My bedroom in Millhaven always felt like a waiting room.
The walls were the color of oatmeal, the furniture was sparse and impersonal, and the floorboards groaned if you put too much weight on them. It was a space designed to be easily abandoned, much like the life I was supposed to be living here.
I sat on the edge of my bed, my hands still stained with the Prussian Blue that the red tape had smeared into my skin. I was shivering, though the heat was rattling in the radiator.
I reached into the inner pocket of my coat and pulled out the burner phone.
I'd felt it vibrating against my ribs while Hayes held me on the loading dock. I'd felt the physical weight of the secret between us, a cold, hard piece of plastic that he hadn't seen, but had definitely sensed. He'd looked at me with those hazel eyes, so full of a fierce, protective love that made me want to scream.
He wanted to set the Heritage Society on fire. He wanted to buy the building. He wanted to be my knight.
But Hayes Callahan was made of light. He was the Golden Boy. He didn't know how to fight people like the Sterlings, who traded in shadows and city codes and century-old grudges. If he tried to protect me, they would just pull him down into the mud with me.
I couldn't let him burn his future to save mine.
I turned the phone on. The screen flickered to life, casting a harsh, artificial glow across my palms.
One new message.
Vance: I heard you have a trouble at hand. Need me to slaughter a dragon for you, Princess?
The breath left my lungs in a sharp, painful hiss.
Princess.
It was a name from a different lifetime. A name from a world where I went to benefits and wore silk dresses and pretended I didn't see the way my father's lawyers moved through the room like sharks. It was Julian's name for me—a name that meant I was something to be owned, protected, and displayed.
He knew.
Chloe had shut me down less than four hours ago. The red tape hadn't even finished sticking to the wet paint before Julian had found out. He wasn't just watching me; he was monitoring the very air I breathed.
I stared at the words until they blurred. Julian Vance didn't offer favors; he offered debts. Accepting his help meant opening the door I'd spent six months trying to bolt shut. It meant that every inch of progress I made—Columbia, the mural, my very freedom would be something he'd bought for me.
But if I didn't finish the mural, there was no Columbia. There was no shared future with Hayes in New York. There was only this room, these groaning floorboards, and the slow, agonizing death of my soul in Millhaven.
My thumb hovered over the keypad.
Yes.
I pressed send. The word felt like a death sentence. Or a lifeline. I wasn't sure which.
I turned the phone off and shoved it under my pillow. I didn't sleep. I just listened to the rain and the groaning of the house, waiting for the dragon to die.
The next morning, the world was different.
I walked into school, bracing myself for the whispers, the gloating smiles from Chloe's court, the heavy weight of being a 'violation.'
Instead, I found Ezra waiting by my locker. He was vibrating, his camera bag swinging wildly at his side.
"Wren," he breathed, his eyes wide. "Did you see? Have you heard?"
"Heard what?" My heart hammered a frantic rhythm.
"The Mayor's office. They issued a public apology at 7:00 AM. They called the injunction a 'clerical error' and a 'misunderstanding of the heritage guidelines.' They've officially invited you to resume the project immediately. They're even offering to pay for the materials to repair the damage the tape did."
I leaned against my locker, my lungs screaming for air. "What?"
"That's not even the big news," Ezra lowered his voice, leaning in. "Chloe's father. Mr. Sterling. He was escorted out of the bank this morning. Apparently, there's a federal audit—some massive inconsistency in the Heritage Society's funds. He's taking an 'immediate leave of absence' from all his boards. The town is losing its mind."
I didn't hear the rest of what he said. The hallway noise faded into a dull, underwater roar.
I saw Chloe.
She was standing at the far end of the corridor, alone. Her court was gone. Her cream-colored coat looked too big for her. She was staring at her phone, her face as pale as bone. For the first time since I'd met her, she looked like what she'd called me.
A stray girl from nowhere.
I felt a wave of nausea so strong I had to grip the metal handle of my locker to keep from falling. This wasn't a resolution. It wasn't justice. It was an execution.
Julian hadn't just 'slaughtered a dragon.' He'd salted the earth. He'd destroyed a man's life and a family's reputation in the time it took me to brush my teeth.
I looked through the lobby windows. The black-and-silver truck was pulling into the parking lot.
Hayes stepped out, looking around with a confused, cautious expression. He'd clearly heard the news, too. He caught my eye through the glass. He smiled—a brilliant, relieved smile that should have made me feel like I was flying.
We won, Wren, his eyes said. The shadows are gone.
I managed a weak, trembling smile back.
But as I watched him walk toward the gym, his shoulders relaxed for the first time in weeks, I felt the cold, invisible tether around my neck tighten.
The injunction was gone. The red tape was in the trash. The mural was safe.
But I wasn't.
I had invited a monster into Millhaven to kill a dragon. And now, I was the only thing left in the room for him to look at.