The forest closed around us as we left the town behind, the evergreens tall and silent, their branches weighted with snow. I couldn’t feel the ley line beneath my feet, couldn’t sense the pulse of dimensional energy that had once guided me through these woods like a beacon. But my body remembered the path, and I found myself navigating around roots and rocks with an ease that had nothing to do with supernatural awareness.
“How are you doing?” Ben asked without turning around. “With the practice and the house, and, well…everything, I guess.”
I considered his question for a beat or two before answering. The past month had been a whirlwind of paperwork and planning, of meeting with lawyers and real estate agents and the Small Business Administration. Hope had been true to her word — she’d sold me both the veterinary clinic and her beautiful Victorian house at a price I could actually afford, spreading the payments out over a timeline that wouldn’t bankrupt me before I’d even gotten started.
Of course, the hefty down payment my grandmother had gifted me from one of her numerous accounts had helped a lot.
The clinic was still being renovated and updated with new equipment and a proper surgical suite. But I’d already started seeing patients, working out of the cramped back room of Hope’s current office while the contractors finished their work. Word had spread quickly through Silver Hollow that I was a bona fide vet now, and I’d had a steady flow of people showing up with their dogs and cats and guinea pigs and ferrets. It had surprised me at first, and then I realized that people had been doing that almost since I started the veterinarian program at UC Davis, even though I’d told them over and over again that I could only offer advice and not any real treatment. The thing was, Hope might have been a good vet, but I was one of Silver Hollow’s own.
“I’m good,” I said, and realized those words were true. “Tired, mostly. There’s a lot to learn, and I keep second-guessing myself. But…good.”
“And the other stuff?” He glanced back at me, his expression open but careful. “The silence?”
The silence. That was what I’d taken to calling it — the missing hum of the portal network, the vast quiet that had replaced the constant background music of dimensional energy. Some mornings, I still woke reaching for it, my mind grasping at emptiness where there used to be connection. Some nights I dreamed of fire in colors that didn’t exist and woke with tears on my face.
“It’s getting easier,” I said honestly. “Most of the time, I don’t even notice it anymore. And then something will remind me — a storm rolling in, or that particular feeling right before dawn — and it all comes rushing back.” I shrugged, the movement awkward beneath my layers of winter clothing. “I’m learning to live with it. That’s all anyone can do, I think.”
Ben nodded and didn’t press further. That was one of the things I loved about him — he knew when to push and when to let things be. He’d learned my rhythms over the months we’d been together, the same way I’d learned his, and we’d gotten good at moving around each other’s tender spots.
We walked in silence for a while, the only sounds our breathing and the crunch of snow beneath our boots. The path wound upward through the forest, climbing toward the ridge that overlooked the portal site, and I felt my heart beat a little faster as we approached.
I hadn’t been back here since that night, since I’d walked into the Dragon’s fire and given everything I had to save the town I loved. My grandmother had visited several times with Eric, monitoring the site and confirming that the ley line was healing, but I’d found a whole mess of reasons to stay away. The memory of what I’d lost was too fresh, too raw. I hadn’t been ready to stand in that clearing and feel nothing where there should have been everything.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe Ben was bringing me here because he knew I needed to face it, to make peace with what had happened before I could truly move forward.
We crested the ridge, and the portal site spread out below us.
The standing stones rose from the snow like ancient sentinels, their granite surfaces dusted with white, their Ogham inscriptions hidden beneath a layer of frost. The clearing itself was a perfect circle of unmarked powder, smooth and pristine, as if nothing had ever disturbed it. No cracks in the earth where the Dragon had emerged, no scorch marks from dimensional fire, no sign at all of the apocalyptic battle that had been fought here just weeks ago.
The forest had reclaimed its secret and buried it beneath snow and silence.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured.
“It is.” Ben took my hand and led me down the slope toward the clearing. “Come on.”
We picked our way through the trees and entered the circle of standing stones. I braced myself for the rush of memory, for the grief and loss that I’d been avoiding, but what I felt instead was something far gentler. Sadness, yes, but also a strange sort of peace. This place had been part of my family’s story for generations. It would continue to be part of that story long after I was gone, whether I could sense the ley line or not.
Some legacies didn’t require magic to endure.
Ben led me to the center of the clearing, to the spot where the portal had once appeared, where I had once felt the pulse of dimensional energy like a second heartbeat beneath my skin. He stopped there and turned to face me, and I saw that his expression had changed, becoming something more serious and more open.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “About what you said at Thanksgiving, I mean. About building a life together.”
My heart seemed to skip a beat. “Ben — ”
“Let me finish.” He squeezed my hands, his grip warm even through our gloves. “When I came to Silver Hollow, I was looking for proof that magic existed. I thought if I could just find evidence, could just document something real, it would give my life meaning. I’d spent years chasing shadows and rumors, and I was starting to wonder if I’d wasted everything on a fantasy.”
He paused, his breath cold little puffs of mist in the cold air, his warm hazel eyes never leaving mine.
“And then I found you. And you were more than I ever could have imagined — more complicated, more stubborn, more brave. You showed me a world I didn’t know existed, and you let me be part of it. You let me stand beside you through shadow stalkers and corrupted phoenixes and an ancient dragon that wanted to burn everything to the ground.”
“You stood beside me,” I corrected him, but softly. “I didn’t let you do anything. You chose it.”
“I did.” He smiled, that lopsided smile I’d fallen in love with. “And I’d choose it again. Every time. Powers or no powers, ley lines or silence — I’d choose you, Sidney. I’ll always choose you.”
He released one of my hands and reached into his pocket. When his fingers emerged, they were holding a small velvet box, its surface dusted with snowflakes.
“Ben.” My voice sounded unfamiliar to me, filled with a rush of emotion I hadn’t been expecting.