The first morning in the cabin began not with sunlight, but with the specific, muted grayness that defined the Pacific Northwest. It was a soft, diffusing light that turned the forest outside the A-frame windows into a painting of emerald moss and charcoal bark.
Violet woke first. The air in the loft bedroom was cold—a damp, seeping chill that ignored the thick duvet. She could see her breath misting in the air. beside her, William was a furnace, his Lycan metabolism churning out heat, but even he was curled tight against the temperature.
She didn't reach for the blankets. She reached for the Core.
Violet sat up, the duvet falling to her waist. She closed her eyes and visualized the air in the room as a collection of shivering molecules. She didn't want fire; fire was too aggressive for a morning wake-up. She wanted kinetic warmth.
Move, she commanded silently.
She pushed a pulse of pure, golden energy outward from her skin. It rippled through the room like a heat mirage on asphalt. The temperature spiked instantly, shifting from a shivering forty degrees to a balmy seventy. The condensation on the windows evaporated in seconds.
William groaned, stretching his arms over his head. The muscles of his back rippled, scars from old battles stretching with him. He opened one golden eye.
"You're a very convenient thermostat," he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.
"I aim to please," Violet said, sliding out of bed. She grabbed one of his flannel shirts, pulling it on. It hung to her knees. "Coffee?"
"Please. Real coffee. Not the instant stuff we had on the road."
They went downstairs to the small, rustic kitchen. The cabin was sturdy, but it felt... tired. The floorboards creaked with a sound like old bones. The tap sputtered before delivering water. The wood stove in the corner was cold and filled with ash.
Violet started the coffee—using a French press they'd unpacked—while William walked to the sliding glass door that opened onto the overgrown backyard.
"The house is sleeping," William noted, placing his hand on the doorframe. "The wood is dormant. It's forgotten it used to be a tree."
"Can you wake it up?" Violet asked, leaning against the counter, warming her hands on a ceramic mug.
"I can remind it," he corrected.
He unlocked the door and stepped out onto the rotting deck. The morning mist swirled around his bare feet. He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of damp cedar, decomposing leaves, and the deep, rich soil of the valley.
He knelt and placed both palms flat on the deck boards.
Remember, he whispered. You are Cedar. You resist the rot. You hold the weight.
A groan echoed through the entire structure, loud enough to make Violet jump. It wasn't a sound of breaking, but of settling. The soft, spongy rot in the deck boards seemed to harden, the wood fibers knitting themselves back together, pushing out the moisture. The grey, weathered timber regained a hint of its original reddish hue.
William stood and walked into the yard. The blackberries were a chaotic tangle of thorns, choking out a small apple tree in the center.
"Excuse me," William said to the bushes. He didn't shout. He spoke with the calm authority of a landlord evicting a noisy tenant. "You're crowding the apple."
He swept his hand to the left. The blackberry vines shuddered, then physically uncoiled, slithering across the ground like snakes, retreating to the perimeter of the yard where they wove themselves into a dense, protective hedge.
The apple tree, suddenly free, seemed to sigh. William touched its trunk. "Breathe."
New buds appeared on the branches, defying the season.
Inside, Violet watched him through the glass. He looked like a deity in sweatpants, orchestrating a symphony of chlorophyll and cellulose.
"Show off," she muttered affectionately.
She looked around the living room. Dust motes danced in the shaft of light she had cleared. The corners were filled with cobwebs.
"My turn."
She didn't use a broom. She focused on the air currents in the room. She summoned a draft—not a storm, just a controlled circulation.
Gather.
She twirled her finger. The air in the cabin spun into a mini-cyclone in the center of the room. It pulled the dust from the rug, the cobwebs from the rafters, and the ash from the stove into a tight, gray ball of debris hovering in mid-air.
With a flick of her wrist, she sent the ball shooting into the trash bin, slamming the lid shut.
"Teamwork," William said, stepping back inside. He smelled of rain and sap. "The roof moss agreed to act as insulation instead of eating the shingles. We should be dry."
They sat at the small table, drinking coffee in their warm, clean, structurally sound cabin.
"Registrar opens at nine," Violet said, checking the time. "Are you ready to be William Black, undergraduate student?"
"I've faced Vampire Lords and Shadow Council assassins," William said, finishing his coffee. "I think I can handle a syllabus."
The campus of Oregon State University was a sprawling landscape of red brick and massive trees. It felt grounded in a way the Citadel never had. The Citadel was built on ley lines and old blood; this place was built on knowledge and rain.
They parked the Subaru and walked toward the administration building. They drew looks—they always would. They moved with a predatory grace that no amount of flannel could hide. William was too tall, too broad, his amber eyes too intense. Violet was too striking, her presence vibrating with a subtle magnetic pull.
But here, amidst thousands of students, they were just the "intense couple."
"Botany and Forestry building is that way," William said, pointing toward a greenhouse complex. "I need to speak to the department head about waiving the prerequisites. I don't need 'Intro to Soil Science'."
"Don't be arrogant," Violet warned, adjusting her bag. "You know magical soil. You might not know the chemical composition of loam."
"I know what loam tastes like," William countered. "I'll be fine. Where are you going?"
"History department. Located in the library quad. I want to see if they have any courses on local folklore. I want to know what else lives in these woods."
"Meet for lunch?"
"The quad. Noon."
They separated. Violet watched him walk away, noticing how the trees along the path seemed to lean slightly toward him as he passed.
She entered the library. It was a cathedral of silence. She breathed in the smell of old paper and binding glue—a scent that calmed her Witch side instantly. She found the history advisor's office.
"Name?" the woman behind the desk asked, not looking up.
"Violet... Black," she said, testing the alias. It tasted like a lie, but a necessary one.
"Transcript?"
Violet handed over the forged documents Wynona had created. They were impeccable, detailing a homeschooling background and high aptitude scores.
An hour later, she was enrolled in "Pacific Northwest History," "Mythology of the Indigenous Tribes," and "Research Methods."
She wandered into the stacks, running her fingers along the spines of the books. She stopped at the occult section—relabeled "Speculative Anthropology."
She pulled a book titled Legends of the Willamette Valley. As she opened it, a small spark of static electricity jumped from her finger to the page. The book fell open to a map of the coast range.
Her finger traced a line near their cabin. There was a symbol there—a small, stylized flame.
"Interesting," she whispered.
Meanwhile, William was standing in a greenhouse that smelled of humidity and fertilizer. A short, balding man with dirt under his fingernails was looking at him skeptically.
"You want to jump straight into Advanced Plant Physiology?" Dr. Aris Thorne asked, peering over his glasses. "Mr. Black, that course requires a deep understanding of vascular systems and root communication."
William looked at the tray of wilting seedlings on the table between them. They were struggling, their leaves yellowing.
"They're drowning," William said softly.
"Excuse me?"
"The Douglas Fir saplings," William pointed. "The soil mix is too dense. The drainage is blocked. They can't breathe. They're panicking."
Dr. Thorne blinked. "Panicking? Plants don't panic."
"They do," William said. He reached out, hovering his hand over the tray. He didn't use a spell. He just pushed a tiny pulse of encouragement into the roots. Push.
The soil in the tray shifted subtly. A small trickle of excess water drained out the bottom. The seedlings seemed to perk up instantly, the yellow fading to a healthier green as the stress signals stopped.
Dr. Thorne stared at the tray, then at William. He narrowed his eyes. He didn't see magic—he saw a savant.
"It takes most students four years to learn to read a plant like that," Thorne murmured. "You heard them?"
"Loud and clear," William said.
"Fine," Thorne grunted, signing the paper. "You're in. But don't think you can charm your way through the exams. Nature is complicated."
"I know," William smiled. "That's why I like it."
They met at noon in the main quad. The rain had held off, leaving the grass damp and vibrant. They sat on a bench beneath a massive oak tree—the Grandmother Oak of the campus.
William leaned his back against the trunk. "This tree has seen everything," he said, taking a bite of a sandwich. "It remembers the first brick being laid. It remembers the horses. It likes the students, mostly. Except the ones who carve initials into it."
"Did you get into the class?" Violet asked.
"I did. The professor thinks I'm a plant whisperer. Which... I guess is accurate. You?"
"I found a map," Violet said, pulling the book from her bag. "In the library. Look at where our cabin is."
She pointed to the flame symbol.
"What does it mean?" William asked, peering at it.
"It marks a 'Thin Place'," Violet explained. "A spot where the veil between the physical world and the... other... is porous. The local tribes avoided it during certain moons. They called it the 'Fire-Eater's Ridge'."
William looked at her, then at the symbol. "Fire-Eater. Sounds like your territory."
"It explains why the cabin was empty," Violet mused. "And why the professor is in Peru. Maybe he wasn't just on sabbatical. Maybe he was scared."
"We're not scared of thin places," William said, taking her hand. "We are a thin place."
Violet smiled, squeezing his hand. "True. But it means we have to be careful. If the veil is thin, then using our powers might ring a bell louder than we think."
"We'll be subtle," William promised. "No growing forests overnight. No thunderstorms in the living room."
"Deal."
As they sat there, a group of students walked by, laughing. One of them, a girl with bright pink hair, dropped a flyer on the bench.
Bonfire Night. Friday. The Coast.
"Bonfire," Violet read. "Socializing. We should go."
"I don't do crowds," William grumbled.
"You're the Alpha," Violet reminded him. "You are the crowd. Besides, we need to blend in. Normal students go to bonfires."
"Fine," William sighed. "But if anyone tries to howl at the moon, I'm leaving."
They drove back to the cabin as the sun set. The "Fire-Eater's Ridge" was silent, save for the wind in the firs.
Inside, the cabin was still warm from Violet's morning spell. The blue rose, sitting in a glass of water on the windowsill, seemed to glow brighter as they entered, responding to their proximity.
William started a fire in the wood stove—using a match this time, just to practice being normal. Violet curled up on the rug with her new books.
"This feels..." Violet searched for the word.
"Sustainable," William offered, sitting beside her on the floor.
"Yeah," she agreed, resting her head on his shoulder. "Sustainable."
Outside, in the dark woods, the roots of the apple tree stretched deep into the soil, intertwining with the ancient, waiting earth. And deep below the cabin, something ancient and fiery shifted in its sleep, sensing the return of a kindred spirit. The Ridge wasn't just a place; it was a lock. And the Singularity had just walked through the door.
❖✜❖
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