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Water steamed around her like ghosts.

Evelyn sank deeper into the bath, letting the heat seep into her bones. Her chambers were finally empty. The maids had drawn the water, laid out fresh clothing, and departed at her insistence. Alone at last, she could drop the mask that had become a second skin.

Her hands shook beneath the surface. Delayed reaction from the encounter with Ian. Her body releasing the terror it had held through sheer force of will.

She had survived. Barely. But she had survived.

Now came the harder part. The test she had been dreading since the moment she woke in this impossible present.

Evelyn closed her eyes and reached inward, searching for the warmth that should have lived in her chest. The Lumin magic, the birthright of House Langston. Sun magic, they called it. The power to channel light itself, to bend it and shape it and make it burn.

She had been weak in her first life, barely trained. But she had felt it. The constant hum of power beneath her skin, warm and present and alive.

Now she felt nothing.

Evelyn's breath caught. She pushed harder, diving deeper into the space where her magic should have resided. Still nothing. Just a terrible hollow feeling, like reaching for a limb that had been severed.

Panic clawed at her throat. No. This was wrong. She had come back to change things, to save herself. What was the point if she returned powerless? How could she fight Asher without her magic? How could she do anything but die again, slower this time, trapped in a younger body with no way to defend herself?

The bath water rippled with her shaking. Evelyn forced her eyes open, staring down at her hands. They looked the same as always. Pale skin, delicate fingers, unmarked by scars or age. But they felt empty. Useless.

She lifted one hand from the water and focused every ounce of will she possessed into her palm. In training, this had been the first lesson. The simplest manifestation. A spark of golden light, warm and harmless.

Nothing happened.

Not even a flicker. Not even the faintest warmth.

Evelyn bit down on her lip hard enough to taste copper. The pain helped. It gave her something to focus on besides the growing certainty that she had traded one death for another. At least before, she had died quickly. This time she would fade slowly, helpless and broken, while Asher crushed her underfoot.

No. She refused to accept that.

There had to be an explanation. Magic did not simply vanish. It could be blocked, suppressed, bound. But not erased. Not completely.

Evelyn forced herself to think past the panic. To remember. In her first life, when had her magic started to fade? Not immediately. She had been eighteen when it began, the slow drain that she had attributed to stress and her delicate constitution.

Eighteen. The same age she was now.

What had changed at eighteen? What had Asher done?

The choker. He had given her the obsidian choker shortly after her eighteenth birthday. A gift, he had said. Protection against those who might use her magic against her. She had worn it gratefully, never questioning why the warmth in her chest dimmed to nothing within weeks.

But she did not have the choker yet. Her neck was bare. She had checked in the mirror that morning, running her fingers over smooth skin and feeling relief that the cursed thing had not come with her through time.

So why could she not access her magic now?

Evelyn sank lower in the bath, letting the water rise to her chin. Think. Remember. There had been something else, something she had forgotten in the chaos of dying and waking and trying to survive breakfast with her murderer.

The rumors. Years ago, before the suppression, before everything fell apart. There had been whispers in the court about Lumin magic going dormant. Bloodline members who lost access to their power during times of extreme stress or trauma.

Trauma. Like dying and coming back through time.

Hope flickered in her chest, fragile and dangerous. If the magic was dormant rather than gone, it could be awakened. She just needed to find the key.

Evelyn sat up abruptly, water sloshing over the sides of the tub. She pressed her hand against her sternum, feeling for something, anything beneath the terrible emptiness.

There. So faint she almost missed it. A warmth. Distant and buried, but present. Like an ember hidden beneath ash, waiting for air to reignite.

Her magic was still there. Dormant, suppressed by the shock of temporal displacement, but not destroyed.

Relief flooded through her so intensely it felt like pain. She could work with dormant. She could research, practice, coax the power back to life. It would take time, but time was the one thing she had gained by coming back.

Evelyn leaned back against the tub, closing her eyes. The bath had gone lukewarm, but she did not move. She needed this moment, this small victory, before facing the next impossible challenge.

Her hand drifted to her throat, tracing the bare skin there. Strange. The flesh felt overly sensitive, almost tender. As if something had touched it recently.

Her eyes snapped open.

That made no sense. Nothing had touched her throat. She had worn no jewelry, no scarves. The skin should feel normal.

Unless it was not normal. Unless something had already begun.

Evelyn's fingers explored the sensitive area more carefully. There, just at the hollow of her throat. A faint warmth. Not the warmth of magic, but something else. Something external.

Her blood turned to ice.

No. It was too early. Asher had not given her the choker yet. She had days, maybe weeks before that happened.

But the sensitivity was there. Real and undeniable.

Either her memory was wrong about the timeline, or Asher had already begun his assault on her power through some means she did not remember. Some preparation she had not noticed in her first life because she had not known to look.

The suppression was external. It had to be. Her magic was dormant from the time displacement, yes, but something else was already working to keep it that way. Some enchantment or curse she could not yet identify.

Evelyn stood abruptly, water streaming down her body. She needed to know. Needed to understand what was happening before it was too late.

The Royal Archives. If she could find texts on magical suppression, on artifacts and curses, she might discover what Asher had planned. Might find a way to counter it before it fully took hold.

But the Archives were restricted. Guarded. She would need a reason to be there, or else she would need to sneak in.

And if she got caught, Asher would know something had changed. He would see through her mask of dutiful obedience.

The risk was enormous. But the alternative was worse. She could not fight blind. Could not protect herself without understanding the weapon being used against her.

Evelyn stepped from the bath and reached for a towel. Her hands had stopped shaking. Good. She would need steady hands for what came next

The void where her magic should have lived was not empty after all. It was simply waiting. And she would fill it again, no matter what it cost.