Dr. Vael's pen stops mid-word with ink trembling against the paper.  Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, the facility grounds lie quiet under low moonlight.  He exhales and sets the pen down with care, taking a moment to breathe. 

His drink sits untouched on the desk, and the documents in front of him include a file titled "Celine Marlowe".  Notes are scribbled inside, such as "public return to school," but the other scrawled notes inside depict his knowledge of the stolen horn pieces.

"I was under the impression that you'd seen enough," Dr. Vael says sharply to the empty chair in front of him, "I know you took the horn.  I'm rather surprised Soren hasn't reclaimed his magic from you yet," he laughs, though unamused.

"You think I haven't, Vael?" Dr. Vael stiffens.  His head lifts to scan the room, but there's nothing.  He rises from his chair as his breaths shallow.

"Let me guess," Soren's voice cuts through Vael's mind like a velvet-wrapped knife, "You believe she acted alone, that you were outwitted by an amateur with a fondness for science and no clearance beyond Lab 3, Sublevel 2.  Disappointing.  You didn't lose your leverage, you handed it to me." Dr. Vael stays silent.

"It's been what, eight weeks?" Soren muses now, letting the coldness sharpen, "Plenty of time to theorize, to rewrite the story in your head, to convince yourself I wasn't in control the entire time.  Because you know what?  The poor thing genuinely believed you meant well. You actually made her empathize with you and your cause when you told her she could be part of something bigger, and that what you were doing mattered."

There's no audible laughter, but it curls beneath Soren's words like the condescending, pitiless amusement of someone who's known the ending from the very first move.  "You really should be proud, Vael.  You turned her into the perfect infiltration vessel without ever realizing it.  I couldn't have orchestrated it better myself.  Because Celine?  She was never the target.  She was my pawn, my door into the Accord, and you opened it willingly."

A concussive force of invisible power blasts through Dr. Vael's magic-touched hand, and the desk in front of him explodes into flinging splinters of wooden shrapnel.  The glassy-eyed owl once atop it flies for the first time in probably decades, shattering the glass display case across the room.  The room is destroyed.  Vael stumbles back in shock. 

"I could turn this power back on you too, you know," Soren says, almost kindly, "The fact that your right palm is touching your chest and you're still standing is just... restraint." Dr. Vael whips his hand back down and away from himself.

"You humans spent centuries taking our blood, cataloging our magic, running your fingers across forces older than your species, and you thought it would simply behave like a child?  Even when you and Celine connected... you foolishly believed nothing else could come of it, just because nothing had before?"

"What do you want?" Vael finally demands, though his voice is hoarse from the tightness of everything inside of him compressing.

Soren lets Dr. Vael's unease sit.  "You've made yourself the perfect little lab rat, so here's the test.  Safely release the Velkeros you've captured, and return my power.  You may survive the transfer, or you may not, but one thing is certain: you will not survive the next time I decide to use that power you've taken from me against you.  You'll be coming with the Velkeros, and no one else."

"You think I'd walk into a meeting with you unprotected?" Vael manages to ask, straightening slightly.

Soren laughs.  "Do you think a bodyguard can protect you from what happened in your office today?  Just a reminder, that was only a taste of my power.  Telling you to come alone is for your staff's sake, not mine.  Don't test me." A sinking feeling hits Dr. Vael.

"Where will this transfer occur?" he asks.

"Well," Soren replies smoothly, "I spent the entire summer bored out of my mind watching your facilities through the girl's eyes.  I'm not particularly keen on returning.  I'll generously give you two months to make whatever preparations you need.  Then, you'll meet me at Portland International Airport with the other Velkeros.  But keep in mind, I'll continue checking in. If I catch so much as a word of anything foolish..." He doesn't finish the sentence, and he doesn't have to.  Dr. Vael tenses in anger. 

"Until then."  Soren says simply, pulling out of Vael's mind.

Returning both of our consciousnesses to his study, Soren is already standing when I blink back into my body again.  As his eyes drop to where I'm curled up on the sofa, I can see the tension in his shoulders slowly unwind. 

"Okay," I say after a moment, arching an eyebrow up, "I genuinely can't decide if that was objectively insane, or one of the most unreasonably attractive things I've ever witnessed."  A wicked grin slowly breaks across his face. He sinks down onto the sofa beside me, eyes still dark with power.

"You just watched me dismantle a man's mind from the inside out," he murmurs, "and your takeaway is that I sounded good doing it?"

I smile shamelessly and drape my legs across his. "I guess sometimes I forget I'm dating a magical prince."

"Don't forget," he says, pulling me in with zero effort and settling me against him.  "I'd hate to destroy my own office just to remind you."

His lips ghost mine for only a split second before they close the distance in a way that's far bolder than the ones before, in a way that says we're a team in more ways than one, and we're still not done, not by a long shot.

*  *  * 

Since we've gotten back, Soren's eyes have been brighter than usual, and he's been much more relaxed. It's like he's finally allowing himself to picture the end of a fight that he originally thought would take centuries more to win.

During the day, I go to class like any other student.  My friends think I'm commuting from just outside the city, but I've stopped trying to keep the lie neat.  It's easier to nod than explain that my boyfriend is a centuries-old magical royal who teleports me to campus every morning.

Soren never says it, but I think he likes dropping me off.  He stands at the edge of the parking lot and always makes sure I'm safely wrapped in the cocoon of illusion he's kept draped over me since the day I came back.  It's not a heavy one, just a light veil of magic distortion that's subtle enough that no one else would ever notice anything more than a slight windy resistance if they tried to reach for me. 

Inside the illusion, I'm visibly visible, but magically invisible like I am in the stronghold.  Sure, the Accord knows which school I attend, but at the very least they won't be able to pinpoint my exact location, not that they've tried.  I've never seen Accord agents on campus.  There are no black SUVs, and no suspiciously polite strangers asking "Have you seen this girl?"  Maybe they've backed off, or maybe they're hiding in plain sight.  Either way, no one has made themselves known to me yet.

It's been a couple months since I stole the horn.  I still wish I could see them try to puzzle together how and when it happened.  Either way, whatever future I might have had with the Accord is off the table now. 

Back at the stronghold on evenings like tonight, Soren and I test what else he can use his power in me for, and he tests the limits of the power he already has.  Because of our little heist, he has his entire physical horn back; now it's only the magic that's in me, Ella, and Dr. Vael that he's missing.  Thanks to our discovery that he can now talk to me in my mind, we were able to come up with that plan to get Ella, Jeten, and Tanna out, and give Soren a chance to take his magic back from Dr. Vael.

We discovered this new use of his power a few days after my return:

"Let's test something for fun," I had said, pushing him into his chair and taking my old seat across from him.  "It's time for me to show off the skills I've gained this summer."

"Are you asking for a training session?" he grumbled at the space between us.

"Yes.  Humor me.  Try to come in and I'll tell you when you do.  Don't make it easy." 

"Very well," Within seconds I felt him and smiled, then he was gone. 

"You made it easy," I scolded.

"I went in significantly lighter than I ever had during any of our previous sessions."

"I still felt a couple layers that could have been peeled back.  This time do it again and fade out as slowly as you can.  I'll tell you when you're completely gone."

"All right," he smirked, and began again, at the same strength as before, but pulling back slowly.  I closed my eyes to keep out any other distractions.  At what I thought was the last layer, I could still feel him wait just ever so lightly for almost a minute, as though he was trying to trip me up.  I didn't fall for it.

"Damn, not bad," he said, and I could almost hear the smile in his voice.  He raised an eyebrow when my eyes shot open.  "I wasn't out yet."

"I know, I've just never heard the polished prince say a swear word before," I said, amused.  "Did I impress you that much?"  He looked confused, but I waited for his response.

"I didn't say anything." 

I blinked.  "Yes, you did."

"What did I say, exactly?"

"You said, 'Damn, not bad.'  I heard your voice clear as day before I opened my eyes."

"I didn't say that.  I thought it... though very pointedly at you."

"I heard it," I said slowly.  "You know, if Ella could let me control her, you speaking through my mind doesn't seem like that outrageous of a possibility.  Maybe now that you have most of your power back, you're able to do a lot more with our connection too." 

That's when our idea began taking shape. 

"If you can talk to me while you're in my head... you theoretically should be able to talk to Dr. Vael too," I realized.

"We could negotiate terms to get the Velkeros in his confinement out, and recover my magic."

"But how would we get him to agree?"

A shadowy smile crossed Soren's face, "I was able to use my magic in you to get my horn out of the Accord.  That means I could use my magic in Vael to give him a bit of a fright.  He'll have no choice but to agree."

And now, step one is complete.  It's a new use of his magic Dr. Vael never would have anticipated, and that's the fun part.  Soren played the villain so well that even I might have questioned his motives myself if I weren't the one who helped him come up with the plan.

In the end though, Soren doesn't want to kill Dr. Vael.  We need to see if he can keep him alive through the transfer before I decide whether or not I want him to try taking his magic back from me.  Though, it's not really my decision.  Soren already made up his mind. 

"If there's even the slightest bit of strain on Vael's body, I won't do it to you," he tells me, not that I need the assurance.

"Still, it's good to know if it's even possible," I say, but he narrows his eyes.

"I've already accepted that you'll always hold that piece of me within you."

I huff out a laugh, "That sounds way more romantic than you look right now."

"Because I'm serious.  Besides," he says, taking my hand and absentmindedly running his fingers along where the silver vines begin, "Silver suits you beautifully."