About the duel with Sirius, it wasn’t just Cassian dodging. That will be revealed at the end of the year. But yeah, it was more complicated than it seemed.

—

A week later, as he predicted, his interface finally caved and decided enough people had been taught the spell. Like the Ancient Variants, spells he created didn’t need to be taught to many, all knowledge of them originated with him. But this was a Lumos variant, and because the base spell was already widely known and, at this point, masterfully practiced, the requirement was still a bit steep. His fault, really, he was too good a teacher. Still, students across all seven years learning it, it was enough.

Cassian was in his room, half-reading a translation draft on Proto-Celtic spell syntax, Bathsheda tucked into his side, her hand in his. Heart was crackling with fire, his head on her thigh, it started to bubble.

The vision hit between one blink and the next. His hand squeezed hers and he shut his eyes. Her hand went to his hair instinctively.

He was being torn forward and backward at once, stretched across an impossible moment, as though reality itself couldn’t decide where to place him. It felt forbidden, to stand this close to whatever was about to unfold. Like peering behind a veil that was never meant to be lifted.

Then…

Relief.

Like seeing the sun after years underground, the sudden brightness painful and impossible to look at, but beautiful and worth it.

Like drawing a first breath after almost drowning, lungs burning as air forced its way back in. But filling him with life.

Like the first drop of water on a cracked tongue after days in the desert, under the scorching sun.

Apotheosis… no. The word didn’t feel adequate. Even the thought of it felt profane, insufficient. He felt himself lifting, beyond the flesh, but in understanding, as if a ceiling had been removed from the world.

The air hummed. It vibrated, as if the world itself had drawn in a breath alongside him. He just stood there and let it settle, let the weight of the moment press in.

Then he took a step.

Everything responded as he did that. The moss underfoot adjusted to hold his weight better. Branches shifted without wind. Even the scent in the air, clean bark, water-drenched lichen, the sharp green of something growing, seemed tuned to him.

He didn’t recognise the forest. It wasn’t from a memory. That much was certain. He’d seen a hundred forests since summer. Walked through them. Slept under their canopies. Some had whispered. Some stayed silent. He’d traced carvings into old bark, lit fire that caught differently depending on the tree, even stepped into a grove in the north that hummed like a harp string when the moon hit right.

None of them felt like this.

Those places were old, yes. Some full of thorns and secret names, some with trees older than the Ministry’s records, one that bled green mist when you touched the wrong root. Beautiful, in their own way. But indifferent.

This forest wasn’t. It wasn’t just watching. It was… adjusting. Like a body reacting to a heartbeat.

And it knew him, in the way old family homes sometimes recognise the kids who left twenty years ago.

Cassian stepped slowly, careful not to overthink it. The further in he walked, the lighter everything felt. It was welcoming.

He stood in an open glade, surrounded by trees so tall they bent the sky. Light poured through the canopy like it had been waiting for permission. The forest around him breathed.

But that wasn’t what drew him in.

At the centre stood a tree.

Not the tallest. Not the widest. Not blooming. It didn’t need to do anything to stand out. It simply was the centre of everything.

Roots twisted deep into the ground. The bark carried streaks of silver and grey. Where it cracked, gentle light slipped through.

Cassian stared at it and felt every part of him quiet.

The noise in his head, the worries he held, fears that kept him awake, the thousand thoughts, the plans, the questions, the weight of decisions made in corridors and battlefields, all of it dimmed.

There was no threat here. It wasn’t demanding. No punishment waiting in the leaves. Only… welcome.

One step. Then another. A fern brushed his calf as he passed. It withdrew, receding gently, like it had offered the space and now bowed out of it.

He turned his head to one side, just slightly. The canopy shifted above, a single beam of light adjusting to catch his face.

Cassian squinted up at it.

With each step, the feeling sank deeper. He felt being recognised.

Not as a wizard. Not as a teacher. Not even as a person.

Just… recognised.

His mouth felt dry. He doubted he could speak even if he tried.

He walked closer to the centre. It felt old, this tree. Ancient in a way you couldn’t time. Before books. Even magic, maybe.

And yet, it wasn’t distant. The opposite. It was close. Close enough it could see every part of him.

No, it was like… he was part of the tree.

He stepped closer. The bark shifted as the wind touched it. It was communicating. He knew that without knowing how. Every movement of the leaves held a tone. Something older than words. Before language needed shape.

He reached out. His hand hovered near the trunk, not quite touching.

Then stopped when he felt something coming from it.

Gratitude?

That caught him off guard.

He staggered a step back, blinking hard.

The tree was… grateful?

To him?

Cassian frowned, breathing slow and shallow, as if fearing too much noise might break whatever was happening.

More impressions filtered through.

It wasn’t gratitude for what he’d done.

It was for what he’d remembered.

He swallowed. His throat felt like ash.

He took another step closer.

It didn’t make sense. Nothing about it followed logic.

And still.

There it was. The feeling wasn’t faint. It pressed in softly from all sides, like a blanket wrapping him.

Cassian wasn’t sure how to stand under that.

He reached forward again. This time, his hand touched the trunk.

Everything stopped.

And then…

Everything opened.

The bark under Cassian’s palm warmed. Like pressing your hand against someone’s chest and feeling the heartbeat through bone.

Then he heard a footstep.

A woman stepped into the glade from between two trees, walking barefoot across the moss. Her hair caught the wind, dancing lightly in the breeze.

She moved like she belonged. Like the tree belonged to her and she belonged to the tree. Cassian couldn’t tell if she was human. The question didn’t seem to matter here.

She passed the roots without looking down. One hand reached out to the tree and slipped along the bark like greeting an old friend. It was casual. Familiar. What he saw looked nothing like worship. It looked like intimacy.

The woman didn’t look around. Didn’t even acknowledge him. Maybe she couldn’t see him. Or maybe she could, and simply didn’t care.

Her hands skimmed branches, fingers curling gently around leaves. The light coming off the bark spilled across her shoulders. It hit her hair and turned it copper, then gold, then pale as ash. The wind changed direction to meet her.

Cassian watched her step into a break in the roots. The tree leaned slightly in her direction. Branches shifted.

She tilted her head up, eyes closed, both hands on the trunk now. A breath left her, and Cassian felt it answer.

Cassian didn’t breathe. He shouldn’t have been watching. He knew that. He felt like he’d stumbled into something private. The whole thing felt like someone else’s room, left unlocked, and he’d pushed open the door by accident.

It was private and he was intruding. But he couldn’t move. Not because the tree held him, or the forest willed it, but because leaving before understanding what he was seeing felt wrong.

The woman moved again, fingers tracing a seam in the bark. It pulsed faintly under her hand. Cassian blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, light pooled under her feet.

The tree cracked softly with her.

Cassian stepped back.

A roar rumbled behind the clouds overhead. The wind picked up.

He looked up, and the sky flickered white.

Her hand touched the bark one last time. Then she moved past the roots, into the clearing again. Her footsteps didn’t make a sound on the moss.

Cassian watched her leave the way she came. The tree didn’t move to follow.

It just stood there.

Rooted.

And for the first time since he’d lost his magic, Cassian felt something thrum in his bones.

He wasn’t sure what the hell it was.

But he knew one thing…

The tree had given it to him. No… It wasn’t given… Reminded him he’d had it all along. That he’d remembered.

He looked down at his palm.

The skin buzzed faintly.

His fingers curled into a fist.

Then the vision broke.

Cassian gasped.

At first, the room felt… wrong. Smaller. Walls too near. Gravity pulling heavier than it had been a moment ago.

Bathsheda was holding him close, her hair brushed against his face, tugged gently by the breeze drifting through the window. It brushed over his mouth when he turned toward her, soft and tickling. He didn’t move it aside, watched them dance.

Her fingers slipped along across his arm. Up, then down again. Ghosted over his shoulder, then traced the length of his collarbone. Just the way he liked it.

Cassian let his eyes adjust. Let her keep going. She moved over his chest like she was reading something there, pausing above his ribs. Then down his spine, across his back. Small circles at first, then lines.

His hand caught her hip without thinking. She shifted closer.

“You breathing?” she asked quietly.

He swallowed. “Barely.”

He blinked. Still half-caught in it. That feeling. It was there, coiled deep in his bones, curling under his skin.

Cassian dragged in air and finally said, “It happened.”

Bathsheda didn’t ask what. Didn’t rush him.

The words felt inadequate the moment they left him. He really couldn’t explain how he felt there.

He could have tried to explain the forest, the tree, the woman, but was the human language sufficient to describe it? Even standing there, seeing with his own eyes, feeling it on his skin, hearing the wind move through the leaves, he doubted he truly understood any of it.

Cassian sighed slowly. His chest still felt… open. As if something had been unlatched and not yet closed again.

Bathsheda’s hand didn’t still. That helped.

He turned his head, forehead resting against her neck.

He stayed like that. Let her touch him. Let the quiet stay. Let her breathe against his hair and trace whatever marks she thought were left. And when she finally stopped, fingers curled just under his shirt, he stayed still.

“I think I need a drink,” he muttered.

She didn’t move.

“Tea?”

“Yes please.”

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LOCAL AUTHOR SHOUTS INTO ABYSS. ABYSS DECLINES TO MAKE EYE CONTACT.

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