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Heat crept across my face. “I did.”

“Why?”

The question hung in the chamber.

I looked at Carolina. She stood beside me with her hand in mine, her red hair glowing in the candlelight.

I remembered every stumble, every laugh, and every lonely night spent believing I deserved both. Then I remembered the way Carolina had looked at me in that alley as though I was more than Arrhythmia’s favorite joke.

“Because she’s worth it,” I said. “Love isn’t about pride, power, or perfection. It’s about showing up. You show up when it’s difficult. You show up when it hurts. You even show up when doing so requires kneeling in front of a terrifying woman with an unhealthy attachment to dramatic hats.”

Carolina made a suspicious choking sound beside me.

Jacqueline’s expression remained composed, but something warmer flickered in her eyes.

“Approach,” she commanded.

I released Carolina’s hand and walked toward her.

Three careful steps.

The curse still clung to me like a living weight, forcing me to calculate every movement. It seemed to recognize what this ritual meant. I felt it tighten around my bones and resist the power preparing to tear it free.

“Kneel,” Jacqueline said.

I hesitated.

The last time I had knelt before her, I had been begging for Carolina’s future. Now I was trusting the woman who had tormented me to keep her word.

“Trust her,” Carolina whispered.

I lowered myself to my knees.

Jacqueline placed one hand on my head. Her fingers were warm, and the power humming beneath them made my skin prickle.

“The Graceless Hex was cast in anger,” she intoned. Her voice settled into the measured cadence of ritual. “It was born of pride and the belief that respect must be demanded rather than earned.”

Her hand trembled slightly.

“I was wrong.”

The admission struck harder than any spell.

Jacqueline Fortman had said the words aloud.

I was wrong.

“I told myself the hex served a purpose,” she continued. “I believed humiliation would teach humility. It taught only fear, and fear is not respect.”

Her hand pressed more firmly against my head. Power gathered around us, ancient and vast.

“By my authority as High Priestess and before the old gods, I dissolve every remaining claim of the Graceless Hex. No echo of it may answer my anger. No remnant may cling to your blood. I release you from my magic, Logan Richards.”

She spoke a final word in the ancient language.

The sound tasted like an ending and a beginning.

The world exploded inside me.