Page 79 of Echoes From the Void

“I didn’t. I’m just old enough to recognize when someone’s being a dramatic little shit.” He collects his ball, tucking it away. “Also, you’re not the first twenty-something to have an identity crisis in my library. Though you are the first to literally freeze the rare books section.”

A laugh escapes, surprising us both. “Sorry about that.”

“No, you’re not. But you will be when I make you defrost everything by hand.” He heads for the door, then pauses. “You know what’s actually special about you, kid?”

“My perfect organizational systems?”

“The fact that you’re young enough to help them change everything.” His smile turns knowing. “Now go be heroic or whatever it is you kids do these days. And Dorian?”

“Yeah?”

“If you freeze my first editions again, I’m making you catalog the entire demonology section. By hand. In Latin.” He starts to leave, then adds softly, “Being young isn’t a weakness, you know. Sometimes it’s exactly what the world needs.”

Through the pack bonds, I feel their continued worry. Feel Frankie’s shadows searching. Feel time itself waiting for my choice.

Maybe being twenty-two and terrified is exactly what I need to be.

Ice melts beneath my feet as I let the truth settle. Not just about my age or the curse, but about what the twins’ power really means. Through our pack bonds, I feel Frankie’s shadows still searching, growing more urgent with each passing moment.

Time fractures around me one last time, showing all my possible selves:

The scholar I pretend to be, weighted with artificial wisdom.

The student I really am, terrified but brilliant in his own right.

The person I could become—young enough to change everything, old enough to understand why we must.

My frost patterns shift, forming one final equation across the library walls. The same one Helena Vale wrote when she first discovered how corruption spreads through time:

Truth breaks curses.

Love breaks barriers.

Choice breaks destiny.

“Well, that’s unnecessarily dramatic,” I mutter, watching the frost begin to thaw. “Though I suppose hiding in the library having an existential crisis while reality collapses isn’t exactly subtle either.”

Through our bonds, I feel the exact moment Frankie fully wakes. Feel her shadows reach for mine with that instinctive need to fix what’s broken. Feel her power—pure and untainted—brush against my curse.

Time shivers.

Reality holds its breath.

The void pulses at the edges of everything.

And I...

I stop running.

“Alright,” I say to the empty library, to time itself, to the terrified twenty-two-year-old I’ve been hiding. “Let’s go save reality. After I defrost these books.”

Because maybe being young and scared and real is exactly what the pack needs. Maybe stopping the void doesn’t require ancient wisdom—just the courage to be authentically ourselves.

Even if “ourselves” means being a slightly neurotic grad student with too many books and not enough answers.

Besides, I think as I head back toward the medical wing, someone needs to explain the temporal mechanics of what the twins just did. Preferably before they accidentally break time worse than my curse ever could.

Though first, I should probably apologize for freezing half the library.

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