Lucian didn't bring it up again that night.
He let her sit on the balcony until her fingers went numb around the new stylus, let her stumble through a few hours of jagged sleep, let her drink one cup of coffee in the morning without comment.
Then, after breakfast, he knocked on the studio door like this was just another workday.
He stepped in without waiting for her to answer.
She was at her desk, tablet on, stylus rolling idle between her fingers. The new pen lay beside it, darker than her old one, a snake coiled and watching.
"Good morning, Ms. Reyes," he said.
"Define good," she muttered.
He ignored that.
"We're running a test," he said.
Of course.
She turned in her chair. "What kind of test?" she asked. "More 'my uploads vs your stab wounds' or something fun, like BuzzFeed quizzes?"
He moved closer, setting a thin folder on her desk. "You said you made it up," he said. "The ambush. The details. You called it dramatic instinct."
"Yeah," she said warily.
"I want to see," he continued, "what happens when we remove 'instinct' from the equation."
She blinked. "You want me to stop being dramatic?"
"Just for a day," he said. "Think of it as a creative challenge."
She eyed the folder. "What's in there?"
"A script," he said. "Mine."
He opened it.
Inside were printed pages—short descriptions, bullet points, diagrams. Nothing mystical. Just… instructions.
"Scene one," he read. "Living room. Ten a.m. Zara visits. She sits on the couch, talks too much, leaves after twenty minutes without breaking anything."
"That last part is wishful thinking," Amara said.
His mouth twitched. "The point," he said, "is that I decide the scene. You draw it. We enact it. We see if anything… bleeds."
She frowned. "Bleeds how?"
"Inconsistencies," he said. "Deviations. Details you include that we didn't plan. Things that show up in reality without us deciding them in advance."
"So you want to stage… harmless scenes," she summarized. "Low stakes. No knives. See if my panels still predict nonsense."
"Exactly," he said.
"And if they don't?" she said. "If it's just… normal? Boring? If nothing matches?"
"Then we know the ambush was a convergence," he said. "Unrepeatable. A nasty coincidence in a bad week."
"And if they do?" she pressed.
He didn't answer right away.
The new stylus buzzed softly on the desk, as if amused.
"We'll cross that bridge when we draw it," he said.
She groaned. "Did you just make a pun?"
"I blame Adrien," he said. "He's contagious."
She stared at the folder.
Part of her wanted to say no.
To walk out, to slam the door, to reclaim some sliver of her life that wasn't an A/B test for old magic.
Another part—smaller, sharper—wanted to know.
Because right now the paranoia had no edges. Everything felt dangerous. Every line she drew, every dream she remembered. If they could confine the horror to small things—chairs, coffee cups, jackets—maybe she could breathe again.
"Fine," she said. "One test. Harmless only. No more 'oops my feelings put you in the ER.'"
He inclined his head. "Harmless only," he agreed.
She didn't trust him.
But she trusted the part of him that wanted answers as badly as she did.
"Where do we start?" she asked.
He slid the first sheet toward her.
"Scene one," he said. "Zara at ten."
—
At 9:12, Amara sat on the couch in the living area, tablet balanced on her knees, new stylus in hand.
The pen buzzed faintly, synchronized with the band tight around her wrist. She could feel the bond paying attention, waiting.
Lucian sat in an armchair opposite, laptop open but clearly not his focus. He watched her in the way he watched a board meeting—alert, clinically interested, ready to pounce on anomalies.
"I've already texted Zara," he said. "Told her to drop by. I didn't specify the time. I didn't tell her why."
"She said yes?" Amara asked.
"Zara always says yes to chaos," he said.
At 9:13, her wrist warmed.
She swallowed.
"Okay," she murmured. "Couch scene. Simple."
She sketched the room first—quick lines, rough blocks of furniture, angled a little more dramatically than real life because plain rectangles offended her sensibilities. The bonding hum rose and fell with every stroke.
She left the far corner empty.
It was what Lucian's script had said: couch, coffee table, Zara sitting somewhere in there, talking. No props beyond that.
Her hand paused.
Safe, she thought.
Harmless.
"This is your scene," she said, glancing at him. "I'm just copying."
He watched her draw, eyes sharp. "Then copy," he said. "Nothing added. Nothing… embellished."
She bit the inside of her cheek.
She could do that.
Just a girl on a couch.
At 9:17, she drew the couch, cushions, coffee table, the angle of the rug.
At 9:18, her fingers twitched toward the far corner again.
The empty space nagged at her.
Put something there, her mind whispered. It looks wrong.
"No," she muttered. "We're not improvising."
Her wrist tingled.
The stylus buzzed harder, as if protesting.
She exhaled sharply. "Fine," she told it. "Tiny thing. Harmless."
She drew a vase.
Just a simple one—a tall, narrow cylinder, half in shadow. She added a few sketchy lines of stems sticking out of it. Not flowers. Just suggestion.
"Why the vase?" Lucian asked.
She flinched.
He'd been watching too closely.
"It looked empty," she said. "Corners need clutter. Calm down. It's not a bomb."
His gaze flicked to the real corner of the room—bare, nothing there but wall.
He said nothing.
At 9:20, she sketched Zara.
Loose curls, rings on fingers, expressive eyebrows. She'd drawn her enough times in fan doodles that the lines came easily.
"Don't give her a knife," Lucian said dryly.
"I'm not giving her a knife," Amara muttered. "Just overcaffeinated opinions."
She drew Zara in a hoodie and jeans, flopped casually, legs tucked under her.
Stylus buzzing.
Wrist warming.
She ignored it.
At 9:26, she added a mug in Zara's hand, sloshing slightly. Drew the steam curling up.
Then, on impulse, she added one more detail: a single strand of hair stuck to Zara's lip, her free hand mid-gesture as she tried to blow it away.
She smiled faintly at the image.
"Done," she said. "Your scene, my lines."
He leaned forward, studying the sketch.
His eyes lingered on the vase.
"And you swear," he said, "you will not move anything in this room to match this before Zara arrives."
She rolled her eyes. "I swear," she said.
"Solemnly," he pressed.
"On my unpaid bills," she said. "Happy?"
"Not even slightly," he said.
He checked his watch.
9:29.
They waited.
At 9:41, the door code beeped.
Zara breezed in like she owned the place.
"Wow," she said, tossing her bag onto a chair. "The energy in here is tight. Did someone forget to sacrifice a spreadsheet at sunrise?"
She headed straight for the couch, not even glancing at the corner where Amara had drawn the vase.
Amara's heart sank.
Maybe that was it, then. Maybe the magic needed stakes. Maybe simple domesticity didn't interest it. Maybe all she'd done was stress herself out over nothing.
"Coffee?" Lucian offered, getting up.
"Obviously," Zara said.
He disappeared into the kitchen.
Amara's wrist cooled.
Relief spread through her chest.
"So," Zara said, flopping onto the couch exactly where Amara had drawn her. "Are we acknowledging the universe tried to stab my brother yesterday, or are we doing the denial dance first?"
"Straight to it," Amara said weakly, tablet face-down beside her.
Zara studied her for a second. "You look like you fought the moon and lost," she said. "Bad dreams?"
"Bad everything," Amara said.
Zara opened her mouth to reply.
Then paused.
"Where's the vase?" she asked.
The world narrowed.
Amara's head snapped toward the corner.
It was still empty.
"The what?" she croaked.
"The stupid glass thing Mei keeps threatening to buy," Zara said, frowning. "She said she wanted something to break up that corner because it 'looked like a sad hotel.' I told her to get a plant. Dad told her to get a camera."
"She hasn't bought it yet," Amara said.
"Not yet," Zara agreed. "But she will. She ordered it yesterday. It's hideous. She made me pick the color."
Amara's mouth went dry.
"What color?" she asked.
"Teal," Zara said. "Like, obnoxious teal. She's losing her edge."
Teal.
Amara saw, in her own sketch, the faint shading she'd added without thinking.
Not quite gray.
A little too cool.
Her wrist buzzed.
Lucian returned with coffee.
Zara took her mug, then paused again.
"Wait," she said. "Did I leave my jacket—"
She jumped up, rifling through her bag, then groaned. "Of course," she muttered. "I left it in the car."
"What jacket?" Amara asked, dread coiling.
"The yellow one," Zara said. "With the stupid patches. Adrien said it looks like a traffic cone. I promised myself I'd stop wearing it and yet here we are. I'll go get it before I forget."
She set her mug down and headed back toward the door.
"Ten minutes," Lucian said. "And don't charm the guards into a smoke break. We're surveilling the…" He glanced at Amara, swallowed the word experiment. "…morning."
Zara flashed him a salute and vanished.
The second the door closed, Amara grabbed her tablet, flipping it over.
She zoomed in on the sketch.
Zara on the couch.
Hoodie.
Jeans.
Mug.
Strand of hair stuck to her lip.
And on the arm of the couch, draped carelessly, a jacket.
She hadn't thought about it when she drew it. Just a soft block of color to break up the silhouette. She'd shaded it with a few loose strokes.
Not gray.
Not blue.
Something bright.
"Show me," Lucian said quietly.
She did.
Up close, the shading was unmistakable.
Not teal, thankfully.
But bright.
Loud.
A color you'd notice in a crowd.
"You knew she'd forget it," he said.
"I didn't," she whispered. "I just… scribbled. I always give her props. It's a design thing. I didn't think—"
The door beeped again.
Zara reappeared, dragging the yellow jacket over her shoulders as she walked.
"See?" she said, arms out. "High-vis Zara. Try to lose me at a concert now."
She flopped back onto the couch.
The jacket slid half off her shoulder, pooling on the armrest.
Exactly where Amara had placed it in the sketch.
Her hair fell into her face.
She blew at it, annoyed.
A strand stuck stubbornly to her lip.
She made a face and swiped it away with a ringed finger.
Amara's wrist burned.
Lucian's eyes flicked from the sketch to his sister and back.
"Well," Zara said, oblivious. "Now that I'm comfortable, let's talk about your poor life choices."
The pen in Amara's hand felt like a live wire.
Harmless, she thought.
Harmless details.
But the precision of it made her skin crawl.
When Zara left twenty-three minutes later—after a whirlwind monologue about old traditions, new enemies, and terrible men in suits—Amara tapped the stylus against her knee, trying to steady her hand.
"That wasn't proof," she said, preemptively. "Not really. Zara forgets things all the time. Mei always wanted a vase. Hair sticks to lips. These are human realities."
"Of course," Lucian said. "One data point. Nothing more."
He didn't sound reassured.
"Next scene," he added.
—
Scene two was his.
Meeting room, late afternoon. Adrien, two junior lawyers, a stack of files.
Boring.
Safe.
"This is ridiculous," Adrien said hours later, waving a file. "I don't do rehearsed meetings. I barely do scheduled ones."
"We're not rehearsing," Lucian said. "We're observing."
"And I'm the lab rat," Adrien said, not exactly displeased. "Fine. As long as I get extra cheese."
Amara sat at one end of the long table, tablet propped against a mug.
She'd drawn the panel earlier that day, per Lucian's script.
Adrien at the head of the table, tie loose, pen in hand. Two junior lawyers opposite, one looking intimidated, the other smug. Lucian standing near the window, arms folded.
She'd stuck to the plan.
Mostly.
As the lines had come, though, she'd added a couple of tiny touches.
A coffee ring on the polished surface near Adrien's elbow.
A crooked stack of files leaning just so.
And, because it amused her, a panel where Adrien patted his pockets with increasing frustration, speech bubble reading: "Has anyone seen my pen?" while said pen sat tucked behind his ear.
She'd laughed when she drew it.
Now, sitting in the real room, stylus clutched in one hand, she didn't feel like laughing.
The meeting progressed as scripted at first.
Adrien talked too much. The juniors took notes. Lucian looked like he wanted to murder a spreadsheet.
For fifteen minutes, nothing magical happened.
Then Adrien knocked over his coffee.
Not dramatically.
Just a little bump. Enough to send the mug tilting, liquid sloshing over in a crescent that spread across the wood.
"Shit," he said, grabbing napkins.
The coffee spread to where Amara had placed the ring in her sketch.
Her wrist flashed hot.
She winced.
Lucian's eyes cut to her.
She looked back at her tablet.
The coffee ring she'd drawn had been darker. Slightly larger.
Close.
But not exact.
Coincidence, she told herself. People spill coffee.
Her heart wouldn't slow.
Five minutes later, one of the junior lawyers made a clumsy joke. Adrien snorted, scribbled something, then frowned.
He patted his pockets.
"Where is it," he muttered.
Amara's breath caught.
"Problem?" Lucian asked, too casual.
"My pen," Adrien said, patting his jacket, his shirt, his trouser pockets. "The good one. I just had it."
He spun his chair slightly, checking the chair seam, the floor.
It wasn't on the table.
It wasn't in his hand.
"Did you take it?" he asked the nearest junior.
They looked terrified. "No, sir."
He checked under a file stack.
Nothing.
He sighed dramatically. "Fine. Universe wins. I'll sign with a peasant pen."
He reached for the cheap ballpoint in front of him.
Amara stared at his hair.
The pen was there.
Tucked above his ear.
Exactly where she'd drawn it.
She didn't mean to speak.
The word slipped out anyway.
"Ear," she blurted.
Three heads turned toward her.
She flushed. "Behind… your ear," she clarified, gesturing.
Adrien blinked, then reached up.
His fingers closed around the pen.
He laughed, delighted. "Oh, that's good," he said. "Predictive art. Do that again sometime, but with lottery numbers."
The juniors smiled weakly.
Lucian didn't smile at all.
After the meeting, when the juniors had fled and Adrien had been lured away with the promise of cocktails and chaos elsewhere, Lucian closed the door and turned to her.
His face was calm.
Too calm.
"Show me," he said.
She handed over the tablet.
He studied the sequence.
The coffee ring.
The pen.
The panel where Adrien looked absurdly like he had five hands as he patted pockets she'd drawn too many times.
"You didn't tell me about the pen," he said quietly.
"I forgot," she said. "It was… a joke. A tiny one. I didn't think—"
"Start thinking," he snapped.
She flinched.
He closed his eyes, exhaled, forced his voice back to neutral.
"Not because I'm angry," he said. "Because this… matters."
"I know," she said.
He opened his eyes.
"They're small things," she said quickly. "Coffee. Jackets. Pens. This doesn't mean I'm destiny's typewriter. It just means the current likes pranks."
He didn't argue.
That scared her more than if he'd tried to explain it away.
"Again," he said.
—
The third experiment was hers.
He'd gone to fetch something from his office—another script, another scene, more harmless tests—when the idea hit.
If the current was listening, she reasoned, maybe she'd get better answers if she talked in her own language.
Not his.
Not planned meetings and sister visits.
Hers.
Panels.
She opened a new file.
This time, she didn't tell him what she was doing.
On the page, she drew the kitchen.
She drew Ms. Kwan standing by the counter, chopping vegetables—not unusual. Always practical. Always cooking something.
But then, on the far side of the room, on a small side table that was usually empty, she added a vase.
She made it different from the one she'd drawn earlier. Shorter. Rounder. A squat bowl. She shaded it a deep, glossy color and wrote in tiny text beside it: arrives unexpectedly.
She added one more detail: a single spoon left askew on the counter, handle pointing toward the sink instead of lying straight on the towel as Ms. Kwan preferred. A tiny rebellion.
The stylus buzzed, her wrist warming.
"Harmless," she whispered. "Decor. Cutlery. Calm down."
The bond hummed.
She saved the file.
Did nothing else.
She didn't move any objects.
She didn't tell anyone.
Ten minutes later, she heard the front door.
A delivery man's murmur. Ms. Kwan's polite thanks.
Curiosity yanked her out of the studio.
She padded down the hall quietly, heart thudding.
In the kitchen, Ms. Kwan stood by the counter, carefully unpacking a box.
Amara leaned in the doorway, hands tight on the frame.
Inside the box was a vase.
Not tall and narrow like the one Zara had mentioned.
Short.
Round.
The exact shape she'd drawn.
"Oh," Ms. Kwan said, noticing her. "There you are. A bit of aesthetic finally arrived. The first one came broken. This one survived."
"What… color is it?" Amara asked, voice thin.
"Dark blue," Ms. Kwan said. "Almost black. It looked black on the website, at least. We'll see."
She pulled it out and set it on the side table.
It wasn't identical to Amara's sketch.
The shade was slightly different. The curve a little less elegant. Reality rarely matched art exactly.
But it was close.
Too close.
Amara's wrist flared.
It didn't feel like being punished.
It felt like being acknowledged.
You did this, the hum seemed to say.
Or: You noticed this first.
Or: You and I are not separate in this.
Ms. Kwan reached for a spoon, absentmindedly stirring something in a pot, then set the spoon down on the counter.
Askew.
Handle pointing toward the sink.
She stared at it for a second.
Frowned.
Straightened it.
Little details.
Harmless.
Her heart was pounding anyway.
She backed away from the doorway, hands shaking.
Lucian almost collided with her in the hall.
He steadied her automatically. The new stylus knocked against his wrist.
"What did you do?" he asked.
Nothing in his voice said accusation.
Everything in him said he already knew the answer.
"I… drew," she said. "A vase."
His jaw flexed.
"And?" he asked.
"It came," she whispered. "Not perfect. But… close."
He closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them again, they were darker.
"We're done pretending this is coincidence," he said quietly.
Her throat tightened.
"I was right," she said hoarsely. "About the coffee. About the ambush. About… all of it."
"You were right," he agreed.
It didn't feel like a victory.
It felt like a verdict.
They went back to the study.
He pulled up her files on one screen, security logs on another, delivery confirmation emails on a third. The timestamps lined up in cruel little rows.
While she'd been drawing, the vase had been in transit, rolling in the back of a truck, each bump nudging reality closer to her lines.
"You understand what this means," he said.
"Bad things," she said. "Mostly."
He ignored that.
"Your comic isn't just reflecting," he said. "It's reinforcing. Giving shape. Maybe even pulling. When you draw something with enough… emphasis, enough intent, the current uses it. It's not just a story. It's… a script."
She sank into the chair opposite him, limbs heavy.
"So every stupid joke I put in," she said slowly, "every background detail, every prop… they're all little prayers. Little spells."
"Not all," he said. "If that were true, we'd be drowning in your B-plot coffee cups."
"Thanks," she muttered.
"Some lines are heavier," he said. "Things tied to the pack. To the tower. To me. Injuries. Doors. Ritual symbols. You. Me. Those are the ones that hum."
"And the vase?" she asked.
He hesitated.
"The vase is… proximity," he said. "The tower. The home. You're bleeding into the environment. Or it's bleeding into you. Hard to say."
"Comforting," she said.
He rubbed a hand over his face.
"This is why I need control," he said quietly. "Not because I want to break you. Because if your pen is writing world around us, even a little, we can't let it wander."
"Worldbuilding with consequences," she said. "My teachers would be thrilled."
He didn't smile.
"From this moment on," he said, "we treat your chapters like staging instructions. We assume anything you give enough weight to might echo. We don't just ask what's dramatic. We ask what's safe."
She scoffed. "No pressure," she said. "Just rewrite the universe with a content warning."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
The question startled her.
Everything in her wanted to say no.
"Not entirely," she said honestly.
"Good," he said. "You shouldn't. But you trust that I don't want to die."
She blinked. "Yes," she said.
"And you trust that I don't want the pack exposed or broken," he continued.
"Yes," she said again.
"And you trust, at least a little, that I don't want you erased," he finished quietly.
The word erased sat heavy.
"I… think so," she said.
"That's enough," he said. "For now."
He turned the tablet toward himself this time.
"For the next few weeks," he said, "we stick to small things in the comic. Bottles. Jackets. Conversations. We watch how far it goes. No violence unless it already happened. No rituals unless you're quoting history with my permission."
She bristled. "You just said my chapters are scripts," she said. "You want me to start self-censoring like crazy while a bunch of pissed-off readers scream that I'm being 'cowardly' and 'off-brand.'"
"Yes," he said simply.
Her jaw dropped.
"That's going to tank engagement," she said.
"Better engagement than lives," he replied.
"It's a webnovel, Lucian," she said. "If I start pulling punches, people will drop it. It's already edging on too intense for some. You saw the comments."
"Triage," he said. "We can rebuild a readership. We can't resurrect you."
"You keep saying that like you've never tried," she said.
He did not respond to that.
Silence stretched, hard and thin.
The new stylus vibrated faintly in her hand, the bond humming like a low, steady tone under her skin.
"You're afraid," she said quietly. "Not just of what I might draw. Of what it makes you."
He looked at her sharply.
"What do you think it makes me?" he asked.
"A character," she said. "In a story you can't fully control."
His expression shuttered.
"I've always been a character," he said. "In my father's scripts, in the council's predictions, in the old stories your comic now… updates. This is just a different author's hand on the page."
"And you're okay with that?" she asked.
"No," he said. "But I'd rather be in the room with the author than out there, hoping they don't forget me."
The word author sat between them.
She looked at her hands.
Ink-bearer.
Asset.
Liability.
Scriptwriter.
"Fine," she said at last. "We experiment. Carefully. On purpose. No more angry ambushes. No more 'oops, I bled on you.'"
"Good," he said.
"But I get something too," she added.
His brow lifted. "What?"
"Transparency," she said. "If I'm scripting your world, even a little, I get to know when my panels match. All of it. No hiding. No 'don't worry about it.' You show me the logs. The emails. The security reports. If my doodle moves a vase or a wolf or a council elder, I get to see it."
"That will make you feel better?" he asked.
"No," she said. "It'll make me feel worse. But it'll make me honest. And if I'm going to be your little script engine, I refuse to be ignorant."
He studied her for a long moment.
Then nodded, once.
"Agreed," he said.
She exhaled.
Her shoulders sagged.
As she stood to leave, he added, "One more thing."
"Of course," she muttered. "There's always one more thing."
"When you draw something deliberately," he said, "when you test… like you did with the vase… tell me first."
She froze.
"You knew," she said.
"You disappeared into the kitchen doorway like a ghost," he replied. "Mei only looks that nervous when the board comes to dinner. I put it together."
"Of course you did," she said.
He held her gaze.
"Tell me," he repeated.
"So we can… stop it?" she asked.
"So we can decide," he said. "Together. Whether it's worth letting the current have it."
Together again.
That stupid word.
Dangerous and warm.
She hated that it didn't sound like a lie.
"Fine," she said. "But if I draw Adrien stepping in gum, I'm not waking you up for that."
He almost smiled. "Please do," he said. "I want front-row seats."
She left the study feeling like she had just signed another contract she didn't fully understand.
In the studio, she sat in front of her tablet and opened a new file.
For a long time, she didn't draw anything.
Just listened.
To the hum of the city.
To the heartbeat in her ears.
To the quiet, insistent buzz at her wrist.
Then, carefully, she sketched a single panel.
No wolves.
No blood.
Just a corridor in the tower, empty, lit by the soft overhead lights she'd walked under a hundred times.
In the corner, by a door, she drew a potted plant.
Big leaves. Overwatered.
She wrote, in tiny letters beside it:
Test. Don't deliver unless safe.
The binding pulsed.
This time, it didn't burn.
It felt like a hand closing over hers, steady rather than stopping.
Somewhere in the penthouse, a man who'd lived his whole life with claws in his shadow watched spreadsheets and dreams with equal suspicion.
Somewhere in the tower, a delivery order sat in a draft folder, unsubmitted.
Not everything had to manifest.
Not everything she drew had to appear.
But now they were watching.
Now they knew.
Her story wasn't just riding reality anymore.
It was steering.
And every line from here on out would be written with Lucian's eyes on her hand, fear in both their throats, and that unwanted, undeniable pull between them tightening every time the universe proved that a girl with a pen could make wolves bleed.
Or vases appear.
Or, maybe one day, something else entirely.