Malvor woke to silence—not the hush of morning, nor the stillness before a storm. This was the kind of wrong that came from absence.
There was no glitter raining from the rafters. No ferret reciting sonnets in his voice. No enchanted record player cycling through five genres in four seconds. Not even the scent of coffee brewing in some absurdly inconvenient corner of the Realm.
Just the echo of breath. His own. And a smell. Warm. Familiar. Her.
He sat up slowly, blinking the golden haze of dream from his lashes. His bed was untouched on the other side—where she'd usually be tangled in sheets or in him. Instead?
A single slip of paper rested on her pillow.
Not paper. Parchment. Enchanted. Rune-marked.
The curve of the symbol was unmistakably hers—neat, intentional—But the chaotic edge, the spiraling thread of mischief running through it?
His.
It pulsed once beneath his fingers when he touched it. Warm. Alive.
He unfolded it slowly, already breathless.
"You give me wonder. Let me give you something back. Follow the thread. Every stop is a piece of us.—A."
He blinked. Swallowed. Turned it over—
And scrawled in her smallest, messiest script:
"Go to the first place we met."
He stared at it. Then smiled.
A slow, reverent, terrified smile.
Because he already knew:
She was about to destroy him.
The Temple hadn't changed.
Polished white stone. Gleaming pillars. Murals that told only the stories the gods approved. And priests—so many damn priests—flocking to him like flies to power.
"Lord Malvor!" one priest gasped. Another bowed.
"An honor—truly." A third grinned nervously.
"Have you come to bless the harvest?"
He smiled. Politely. Murderously.
"No. I'm on a scavenger hunt."
They laughed. Of course they laughed. He was the god of chaos—every word he said might've been a riddle. Or a joke. Or a threat.
But he wasn't laughing.
They kept talking. Too much. Too long. And suddenly, it clicked.
"She planned this," he muttered under his breath. "She knew they'd delay me. Buy her more time."
Of course she did.
With a flick of his fingers, the doors blew open. Wind screamed through the temple as scrolls scattered and robes flared.
He moved like a shadow with purpose.
Down. Beneath the stone. To the room where they used to keep the offerings.
The door groaned open, and—
Nothing.
Just cold air. Empty chains. Dust on the floor where life used to kneel.
He stood still for a long moment. Long enough for memory to catch up. Long enough to feel the echo of her there—chained, silent, unbroken.
He stepped forward and lifted the chains.
They clinked in his hand. Cold. Familiar. And then—
"You didn't touch me that day." Her voice. Not real. A recording. Magic.
"You could have. Everyone expected it. You didn't even look at me the way they did."
"You asked for my name."
A pause.
"The next place I ever saw… was your tree."
He runs his fingers along the bark—jagged, swirling upward like a scream frozen in wood.
And there it is.
Etched not in ink, but in memory.
"You took me from chains to roots. I didn't know which was scarier. But under this tree… I stopped waiting to die."
"Dig."
He crouches, chaos pulsing at his fingertips. The dirt moves, reluctantly. Sacred, disturbed only by her.
A small, dark box rises from the earth—chaotic sigils wrap around it, but the rune sealing it is hers. Delicate. Iron-strong.
He opens it.
Inside:
A folded slip of paper.
"Go to the one who always opens the door."
He appears in a shimmer of chaos and mild exasperation, landing in the center of the house's entryway.
The walls shift subtly in response—like a held breath.
The lights dimmed. Then pulsed. Then flared—bright, dramatic, and unmistakably judgy. Malvor narrowed his eyes.
"Oh, don't start…" Malvor mutters, glaring at the nearest wall. "She recruited you for this, didn't she?"
No reply. Of course not. Arbors didn't talk. Didn't need to.
A faint warmth pulses under his feet. Then a breeze—no, not a breeze. A nudge. Magic coiling through the air like a very smug shrug.
And then—
A glowing rune etches itself across the entryway mirror. Slow. Graceful. Intentional.
"You let me choose a room. A door. A space of my own. Now go back to where I first felt safe."
Malvor closes his eyes. He knows exactly where she means.
He turns without another word as Arbors shifts behind him—walls softening. A light near the ceiling flickers briefly into a heart shape.
He ignores it.
Mostly.
It was quiet—untouched. Still carrying the scent of lavender, ink, and stardust.
He steps inside like it's sacred.
And on the bed—perfectly laid out—is a note. A familiar one.
Written in her slanted script. A callback to that first domestic morning:
"I asked if you wanted to watch me sleep."
He stares at it.
A second line appears as he holds the note:
"Now go to the only altar you ever truly worshipped at—The coffee station."
He wandered through the house, the way she used to. Slowly. Intentionally.
The library, where she read like she was starving—words, stories, life. Where she laughed, finally, like she didn't owe anyone silence.
The pool, where their first kiss had tasted like chaos and sugar. The beach room, where she kissed him again—and cried. Where Anastasia cracked, and Asha was born in the wreckage. A sandcastle stood in the corner. A note buried in the center, wrapped in sea glass.
It read: "You saw the storm and stayed."
Before he left the beach room, the door shimmered.
Not a portal—an invitation.
He followed it.
Straight into the Carnival of Chaos.
The rides had gone still, but not dead. The carousel turned lazily, its mirrors cracked, its horses half-forgotten. A single teacup spun in slow circles, creaking like it missed her laughter. The whack-a-mole game blinked with broken lights, the mallets hanging from frayed cords—one of them still bent from the day she smashed it in frustration and laughed until she cried. The Ferris wheel spun once, slowly, creaking against the starless sky. It smelled like sugar and magic and memory.
Near the carousel, tied around a cracked pole, he found it:
A ribbon. Hers. Twisted with a lock of golden thread—the color of his magic.
Attached to it, a simple note:
"This was the first place I chose to be happy.The first place I chose you."
And underneath it, another line—smaller, almost shy:
"Go to the realm that turned gold when we walked in."
He stepped into Luxor's realm, and for a moment, everything gleamed. Gold sky. Gold sand. Gold statues of Luxor doing nothing remotely modest.
Malvor almost smiled.
They had solved a puzzle here, together. His prize. A kiss that had been meant to tease—until it wasn't.
"That was hot," she'd said.
He still wasn't sure which part had wrecked him more.
Near the obelisk, he found a scroll in a wine goblet, sealed with her rune.
"Some puzzles weren't meant to be solved. Just shared. Go where I wore nothing but the sun."
He groaned. Of course.
The Italian villa greeted him with warm air and vines heavy with grapes.
On the table by the pool: the swimsuit. Folded. Untouched. Tucked beneath a bottle of enchanted sunscreen, just like she'd left it—because she knew he'd come looking .Beneath it, a note.
He took the long way to the winery. Through the vines. Past the shaded paths where their hands had brushed and pretended it meant nothing.
The wind smelled like grapes and memory.
This had been the place. Their first "couple" photo—posed, awkward, almost ridiculous. He'd hated it. Called it stiff. Unnatural.
Until he saw her eyes. She wasn't performing. She was present.
He passed the table where they'd shared a bottle of wine under starlight and tension, and there it was:
The photo.
Framed. Living. Her eyes still on him.
He touched it.
"We never posed," her voice whispered. "But we showed up."
"Go back to the place where you fell."