The storm of pages stilled.
One by one, the floating leaves of the grimoire burned themselves clean—words vanishing, letters bleeding into ash, until only a single page remained between Lina and Theo.
It hovered in the air, glowing gold, etched with a command neither of them had written:
"One lives. One dies. Balance must be paid."
The creature—the curse, the memory, the myth—towered before them. Its stitched face split into a jagged smile.
"Choose," it hissed.
"Choose like you always do."
Theo stepped forward instinctively. "Take me."
"No," Lina growled, grabbing his arm. "That's what it wants. It's always wanted that."
"You think we can just… walk away?" he said, voice cracking. "We die or we destroy everyone else. That's the pattern."
Lina looked down at the single glowing page.
The final rule.
The demand for sacrifice.
She shook her head.
"No," she whispered. "The rule only exists because no one ever said no."
Theo blinked. "What?"
She stepped forward—into the circle, into the reach of the curse—and ripped the final page in half.
The world didn't shatter.
It paused.
Even the creature reeled, stunned. It looked down at its own hands—cracking now, smoke leaking from its joints like time itself was coming undone.
"You don't get to write our ending," Lina said. "You don't get to demand blood."
Theo joined her, standing side by side again as the storm howled louder, desperate.
"We're not choosing each other over the world," he said.
"We're choosing the world where we both live."
The curse screamed.
It wasn't words. It was history resisting its own death.
But it was dying.
Because for the first time in centuries, no one bowed.
No one begged.
No one paid the price the way they were told.
They made a new rule.
Together.
And with one final surge of light—the creature collapsed into ash.
The circle vanished.
The sigils dimmed.
The storm broke.
All that remained was silence.
And the two of them. Still alive. Still holding hands.
Still rewriting everything.
The house didn't collapse.
It breathed.
For the first time since either of them could remember, the Reyes estate stood still—no whispers in the walls, no shifting lights, no shadows that moved on their own. Just old wood, warm morning sun, and silence that didn't threaten to explode.
Lina sat on the steps of the library, her fingers tracing the faint scar where the sigil used to glow beneath her collarbone.
It was gone now.
Not just dimmed—gone.
She wasn't marked anymore.
Theo leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, eyes watching her with something close to peace. He still had the mark on his chest, but it didn't glow. It pulsed faintly—like a reminder, not a warning.
"Do you think that was it?" he asked quietly. "The end?"
Lina smiled without looking up. "Do you want it to be?"
"I want it to stay real," he said. "This. Us. Not because the curse forced it. Not because we were meant to save each other. Just… because we choose to stay."
She turned to him, expression soft.
"Then stay."
And he did.
He crossed the space between them and sat beside her, shoulder to shoulder. No magic. No prophecy. Just two people with too many scars and finally, finally, no more debt to pay.
They stayed there a long time.
Letting the silence be kind.
Letting the story end.
Until…
A knock.
Three short taps on the front door.
Lina stiffened.
Theo stood first.
When they opened it, no one was there.
But something had been left on the doorstep.
Wrapped in velvet, sealed with gold thread.
A book.
Smaller than the grimoire.
Older.
No title on the cover. No mark of any house. Just a single note tucked beneath it, handwritten in ink darker than night:
"If you can break a curse… you can wake one."
Lina looked at Theo.
Theo looked at the book.
And somewhere deep within the quiet, something old stirred.
Again.