<b>Chapter </b><b>109 </b>
<b>Envy </b>
Theughter around the table was easy and warm, the kind that curled in your chest and made you feel like the world beyond these walls didn’t exist. Elliot was wedged between Haiden and Tommy, stealing bites from both their tes without shame. My coffee was hot, my mates were calm, and for a rare moment, it felt like the chaos outside had taken the day off. Then Dad cleared his throat. It wasn’t loud, but it carried. Every voice at the table faded, every eye shifting toward him. He sat tall at the far end, shoulders squared, his expression steady but unreadable. The kind of expression that meant whatever he was about to say was going to change the tone of the morning.
“I think,” he began slowly, “it’s time we decide what to do about Marcus.”
The name hit like a cold draft under the door.
My fingers tightened around my mug, the warmth bleeding into my skin. Marcus, still locked in the dungeons. Still breathing. Still a shadow I hadn’t shaken, no matter how far
I’de.
“It’s been long enough,” He went on, his gaze sweeping the table. “He’s healed enough to stand, and there’s nothing left to be gained by letting him rot in a cell. The question is, do we end this now, or give him another trial he doesn’t deserve?”
I didn’t need time to think.
“End it,” I said, my voice quiet but sure. I met Dad’s gaze without flinching. “I want this chapter closed. For good.”
There was a pause, and then a small voice broke in from halfway down the table.
“I want to be there.”
Elliot. He sat up straighter, eyes locked on his pop, his little chin tilted in that stubborn way I’d seen a hundred times in the quads. The air in the room shifted instantly.
“Elliot-” Haiden started, but the boy cut him off.
“It’s my right.” His voice didn’t shake. “After everything Marcus did to me, to all of us…
13:29 Wed<b>, </b>Sep 3 GR
It’s my right to see him at the end.”
The adults exchanged uneasy nces, Noah’s jaw tightened, Levi’s gaze flicked between his dad and me, and even Aleisha’s usual smirk had faded.
“He’s just a kid,” Xavier said finally.
“I’m not just a kid,” Elliot shot back. His voice cracked slightly, but he didn’t look away. “I’m someone he hurt. And I want to know he can’t hurt anyone else. Ever again.”
The room was silent for a long moment, the weight of his words pressing down on all of <ol><li><b>us</b><b>. </b></li></ol>
I reached out, brushing my hand over his, grounding him. “Then you’ll be there,” I said.
Dad studied me for a beat, then Elliot, before he gave one short nod. “After breakfast, we
settle this.”
No one went back to eating. We sat quietly for a moment before I stood, and everyone
followed.
The air grew colder the deeper we went. The stone under my boots was damp, slick with the condensation that clung to these underground walls. Every footstep echoed too loud, too long, bouncing back at us in hollow reminders that we were descending into the bowels of the packhouse, into the ce where we had kept Marcus caged like the rabid thing he was. Elliot walked between Haiden and me, his shoulders square, chin high. There was no trace of the boy who had been hiding under the breakfast table this morning. His silence was sharp, heavy with something coiled tight in his chest. The guard at the heavy iron door stepped aside at dads’s nod, unlocking the multiple chains that had beenid over it. As the final lock nged open, a stale, metallic scent seeped out, the
smell of blood and rust.
Marcus sat shackled in the corner of his cell, head tipped back against the wall. He looked up at us with eyes still burning, despite the bruises and weeks of confinement.
“Well,” he said, his voice hoarse but still dripping with that familiar arrogance, “if it isn’t
the ungrateful little brat.”
I didn’t answer. He straightened as much as his chains would allow, his gaze cutting over
each of us before settling on me again. “Do you have any idea what you’ve destroyed? The
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vision I had for the realms? The order I built from chaos? Everything I’ve done, the years, the blood, the power I’ve gathered, you’ve undone it like a child knocking over a sandcastle.”
“You built nothing but cages,” I said tly.
“Cages are necessary for control,” he snapped, chains rattling as he jerked forward. “You don’t understand the cost of freedom, what it takes to keep the worlds from devouring themselves. I could have given you everything, and you threw it away.”
My jaw tightened. “I have everything I need. And it doesn’t include you.”
Marcus’s gaze slid past me, and his smirk returned, twisted, cold. “And you brought the little ghost boy. How fitting. Tell me, Elliot, do you still dream of the dark? Still hear them
calling your name from the other side? Have you told them what you are yet?”
I saw it before I could stop it, the flicker of rage that darkened Elliot’s eyes. The stillness
that fell over him wasn’t the stillness of fear. It was the stillness before the storm.
“Don’t-” I started, but it was toote.
The air around him shifted, deepened. His small frame seemed to ripple with shadow, stretching taller, broader. Bones elongated, wrapped in ck smoke that curled and coiled like living me. His eyes burned white, and when he opened his mouth, the voice that came out wasyered, his own, and something older, colder.
<i>“</i><i>I </i><i>am </i><i>not </i><i>your </i><i>ghost</i><i>,</i><i>” </i>Elliot said, and the walls themselves seemed to shiver. “<i>I </i><i>am </i><i>your </i>
<i>end</i><i>.</i><i>” </i>
He moved faster than I thought was possible for him. One moment, Marcus was smirking, and the next, Elliot’s hand was pressed t against his chest. The shackles rattled violently, the magic in them hissing as if they could feel what wasing. Marcus’s eyes went wide, real fear blooming there for the first time. His breath hitched, then choked as ck light poured from Elliot’s fingers, wrapping around his ribs and sinking in, and then it happened. His soul, ragged, twisted, ckened with centuries of cruelty, was ripped from him, screaming <b>as </b>it tore free. The sound wasn’t in my ears; it was in my bones, my blood, the air itself. It was the sound of something final<b>. </b>Marcus’s body crumpled like an
empty shell<b>, </b>the light gone from his eyes before it hit the floor. Elliot stood over him, the spectral form of death itself shimmering in the torchlight, breathing hard. Then<b>, </b>slowly, the shadows folded back into him. The boy returned, chest rising and falling, his gaze
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dropping to Marcus’s still form.
“It’s done<i>,</i><i>” </i>he said quietly, looking down at his feet as if he was too ashamed to be seen. I knelt before him, cupping his little face in my hands. “Hey, you did good, okay? You did so good and I am so proud of you.”
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