At Nevermore Academy, Edrisse "Eddi" Leveret has everything Isaac Night can't stand: intelligence that rivals his own, popularity she doesn't even seem to notice, and an irritating way of excelling at everything from academic to Bloodrush, the brutal outcast sport he considers beneath him.
Their rivalry is legendary- sharp words, sharper glares, and the occasional explosion in class when one outdoes the other. But beneath Eddi's quick wit and easy smile lies a secret Isaac was never meant to see: a vow carved into her very skin, binding her life to her siblings. Every time her father punishes them, she suffers the scars. Breaking the vow means death- for all of them.
Isaac doesn't care. At least, that's what he tells himself. With a clockwork heart ticking in his chest and a reputation for cold detachment, he knows he's not built for softness. But when Eddi's fight becomes impossible to ignore, when her music haunts him as much as her laugh, when protecting her little sister looks too much like protecting his own- he finds himself standing beside the girl he swore to outdo.
Rivalry turns to alliance, alliance to something more dangerous. Because falling in love with Eddi Leveret might mean breaking not just her vow, but his own heart of brass and gears.
Major Themes: Rivals to Lovers, family trauma, magical abuse, sibling loyalty, slow burn romance.
Warnings: Magical abuse/parental abuse (psychological, emotional, implied physical), Self-harm (adjacent imagery- magical vow scar that splits/burns), Blood/Injury detail, Violence, Eventual Smut (added warnings for those chapters), Angst.
At Nevermore Academy, Edrisse "Eddi" Leveret has everything Isaac Night can't stand: intelligence that rivals his own, popularity she doesn't even seem to notice, and an irritating way of excelling at everything from academic to Bloodrush, the brutal outcast sport he considers beneath him.
Their rivalry is legendary- sharp words, sharper glares, and the occasional explosion in class when one outdoes the other. But beneath Eddi's quick wit and easy smile lies a secret Isaac was never meant to see: a vow carved into her very skin, binding her life to her siblings. Every time her father punishes them, she suffers the scars. Breaking the vow means death- for all of them.
Isaac doesn't care. At least, that's what he tells himself. With a clockwork heart ticking in his chest and a reputation for cold detachment, he knows he's not built for softness. But when Eddi's fight becomes impossible to ignore, when her music haunts him as much as her laugh, when protecting her little sister looks too much like protecting his own- he finds himself standing beside the girl he swore to outdo.
Rivalry turns to alliance, alliance to something more dangerous. Because falling in love with Eddi Leveret might mean breaking not just her vow, but his own heart of brass and gears.
Major Themes: Rivals to Lovers, family trauma, magical abuse, sibling loyalty, slow burn romance.
Warnings: Magical abuse/parental abuse (psychological, emotional, implied physical), Self-harm (adjacent imagery- magical vow scar that splits/burns), Blood/Injury detail, Violence, Eventual Smut (added warnings for those chapters), Angst.
Rating: Mature (+18)
Chapter Twenty Eight: All Out in the Open
They had been at it for days, neither sleeping properly, neither speaking of anything that wasnât blood curses, binding rituals, or the increasingly complicated equations scattered across every surface of Eddiâs dorm room.
The vow.
How to extract it. How to move it. How to force it to latch onto another living vessel.
Isaac and Eddi had torn through every book on blood-curse law allowed in the restricted archives, and more than a few that would have earned them expulsion if anyone knew they possessed them. Dark magic theory lay open in precarious stacks beside Eddiâs bed; Isaacâs notebooks were filled margin-to-margin with diagrams, energy-flow calculations, anatomical sketches, and half-finished formulae. Eddiâs handwriting threaded between his in sharp, elegant annotations.
They had started the work in Iago Tower, until Abraxus made that impossible.
Locked against the far wall, chains threaded through the gears of old machinery, Abraxus alternated between pleading and posturing. One hour he begged Eddi to âbe reasonable,â the next he spat half-formed threats at Isaac, promising retribution once he was free. The noise, the whining, the self-pity; it grated at Eddiâs nerves until she could feel her jaw clench whenever he even shifted in his restraints.
So theyâd changed locations.
Moving the research into her dorm had been an act of desperation rather than convenience. Books and scrolls lined the walls; pages of calculations were pinned above her desk; vials of powdered sigils and diluted binding agents cluttered the floor. Isaacâs coat lay draped over the back of her chair, he hadnât gone to his own dorm in two days.
And still, she could feel the pressure mounting behind her temples like a held-back storm.
The boys had been hovering again.
Austin and Oliver lingered in doorways, stalled at the ends of corridors, or pretended to be rifling through their bags whenever she passed them in the common rooms. They were trying to be subtle, neither of them ever was.
Eddi could see it in their faces: the guilt, the unspoken apologies, the hope that she might initiate a truce. Or perhaps they wanted one of their own. She didnât know. She didnât care. Not now.
Not when she was this close, so close she could almost taste it, to severing the chain that had shackled her life since she could remember.
Every hour of research strengthened her resolve. Every calculation that moved them closer to success felt like air filling her lungs for the first time in years.
And every thought of Abraxus; bound, whining, threatening, begging, only deepened the hard, cold truth settling into her bones:
She wanted him to take the vow.
She wanted him to carry the burden he handed her like it was nothing.
And she would make it happen.
Whatever it took.
They were both hunched over Eddiâs desk, the lamplight a pale amber ring around them, casting heavy shadows across the scattered parchment. The hour was late; deep, heavy late, and Eddi felt her eyes starting to blur the symbols in front of her.
Isaac had been silent for nearly fifteen minutes. Utterly still. Utterly focused.
Which was why the small sound that left him, a sharp inhale, almost a gasp, snapped through her like an electric wire.
Her head lifted. âIsaac? Whatâwhat is it?â
He didnât answer immediately. Instead he stared down at the notebook open beneath his hands, as if he were afraid the equations might vanish if he blinked. His fingers trembled just slightly.
Finally, very softly, he said, âI think⊠Iâve done it.â
Eddi felt her pulse climb painfully into her throat.
âWhat do you mean, done it?â she whispered. âDone what, exactly?â
Slowly, almost reverently, Isaac turned the notebook toward her.
The page was dense, dense even for him. Lines of energy-transfer calculations, diagrams of the human nervous system overlaid with sigil paths, a jagged graph tracking stability over time. But what froze her, what held her breath captive, was the illustration at the centre.
A figure representing herself. A figure representing Abraxus. And between them, the vow.
Illustrated not as a word or a symbol, but as the coiled, spined serpent of magic Eddi had always felt inside her body but never seen.
Her stomach tightened.
âIsaacâŠâ She swallowed, realizing her mouth had gone dry. âTell me what Iâm looking at.â
He straightened, pushing his hair back with graphite-dusted fingers, and when he met her eyes his expression was blazing; brilliant, fevered, terrified, triumphant.
âThis,â he said, touching the serpent with the tip of his pencil, âis the extraction pattern. The one we theorizedâthe surgical method. Not literal surgery, but magical dissection. A controlled separation of the vow from your nervous system.â He flipped to the next page; runic circles layered inside anatomical sketches. âI mapped the sympathetic binding points here, here, and here. They align with the vowâs anchor nodes. If I sever them in sequenceâprecisely in sequenceâI can remove it.â
Eddi stared. Her heart hammered. She could almost feel phantom pain along the lines of the scar on her arm.
âAnd then?â she managed.
Isaac drew a breath, steadying himself. Then he turned the notebook back to the original page.
âAnd then I use this.â He pointed to the diagram linking her to Abraxus. âThe blood-binding ritual. Combined with the curse-transfer schematic from the Atratus Codex. Using your blood as the origin spell and his as the receiving conduit.â
His voice softened, not in fear, but in awe.
âI can bind it to him, Eddi. Fully. Irreversibly. Heâll take the vow. Youâll be free.â
Eddi didnât realize she was trembling until Isaac reached out, fingertips grazing the back of her hand. She stared at the image of herself on the page, herself with the serpent finally peeled away. Herself empty of it.
Empty.
Free.
Her breath shuddered.
âIsaac,â she whispered, barely able to form the words, âare you certain?â
A muscle in his jaw twitched.
âYes.â His voice was low, sure, absolute. âIâm certain. I can do this.â
And for the first time, truly the first time, Eddi let herself imagine a life without the vow curling like barbed wire inside her.
She closed her eyes.
And she nodded.
Eddi didnât think, couldnât think. Something inside her just broke loose.
She surged forward, her hands curling into the front of Isaacâs shirt, dragging him toward her. Her mouth caught his with a fierce, breathless urgency, and Isaac froze, only for a heartbeat, before he kissed her back just as hard.
His arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight against him, lifting her slightly off the floor as though he needed every inch of her close. The kiss wasnât gentle; it wasnât soft. It was electric; months of tension, fear, anger, devotion and need crashing together at once.
Isaacâs fingers slid into her hair, cupping the back of her head, the notebook sliding forgotten from the desk to the floor. Eddi felt his breath mix with hers, felt the warm tremor in his chest, felt him hold her like she was something heâd been dying for.
When he finally pulled back, they were both panting, foreheads pressed together, breaths mingling in the narrow space between them.
Isaacâs voice came out low and rough, the words almost shaking:
âEddi⊠we need to go.â
She blinked, dazed, still holding onto his shirt.
âGo?â
He cupped her jaw, thumb brushing her cheekbone, still breathless.
âTo the tower,â he said. âSo I can free you.â
There was no fear in his voice. Only determination. Only devotion.
Eddiâs heart slammed against her ribs; once, hard.
She nodded. And Isaac took her hand, interlacing their fingers as if anchoring her to him.
Together, they left the dorm and slipped into the darkened hallways, toward Iago Tower, toward the bound brother waiting inside, and toward the ritual that would change everything.
The iron door of Iago Tower groaned on its hinges as Isaac pushed it open, Eddi right behind him. Abraxus lifted his head the moment the light spilled in.
He sneered.
âOh good,â he drawled. âI was wondering when my jailers would return. Did you come toââ
Eddi didnât give him the chance.
Her hand snapped up. Invisible force clamped around his mouth.
His head jerked back against the stone with a dull thud, eyes bulging in fury.
âYouâll be free from those bonds soon,â she said, her voice low, steady, shaking only with contempt. âAnd then Iâll be free from mine.â
Abraxus growled behind her telekinetic hold, the sound muffled and ugly.
Isaac, meanwhile, had already slipped past her, eyes narrowing with razor purpose. With a flick of his fingers, scraps of metal, wiring, and salvaged machinery shot into the air. Screws spun like silver insects, panels slammed into place with metallic cracks, and the skeleton of his operating apparatus began to take shape; suspended cables, gleaming blades, copper coils humming with unnatural energy.
Abraxus managed to break Eddiâs hold long enough to shout,
âYouâre both insaneâDO YOU HEAR ME? YOU THINK YOU CAN CUT A VOW OUT OFââ
But his voice was swallowed by the rising clang and shriek of Isaacâs construction. The tower vibrated with it, like the building itself understood something monstrous was being born between its walls.
Eddi kept her gaze fixed on Abraxus, jaw tight, but thenâ
A cluster of sharp gasps rang out behind her.
Everything stopped.
Isaacâs telekinetic grip faltered; metal clattered violently to the stone floor, the half-built machine collapsing into a mess of brass and iron. Eddi staggered as her balance tipped, a wave of dizziness hitting her from the sudden drop in psychic pressure.
Abraxus shut up mid-rant.
Eddi turned slowly toward the stairwell.
And there they were.
Lenny. Raff. Austin. Oliver.
Their faces were white, eyes wide, chests heaving as if theyâd sprinted up the stairs only to findâ
A nightmare.
A lab of twisted machinery. Eddi and Isaac surrounded by blueprints, strange runes, blood magic texts. And Abraxus; tall, furious, chained upright to the wall like some medieval prisoner.
Lennyâs mouth opened first, but no sound came out.
Oliver took a step back, as though unsure whether to run or draw some kind of imaginary weapon.
Austin blinked rapidly, shaking his head as if hoping the vision would dissolve.
Raff simply stared between Eddi and Abraxus, lips parting, his expression collapsing into disbelief.
The silence was suffocating.
Then Lenny swallowed hard and managed, barely:
ââŠWhat the hell is going on?â
Eddi didnât move.
Her limbs felt carved from stone as the reality of what the boys were seeing finally hit her; every jagged, shameful, violent piece of her past life laid bare in the middle of Iago Tower. The secrets sheâd buried in blood and silence had erupted into the open like a ruptured vein.
Her throat clicked as she swallowed.
The four of them; Lenny, Raff, Austin, Oliver, looked at her the way someone might look at a stranger wearing the face of someone they loved.
Isaac didnât speak. Abraxus didnât breathe. The towerâs silence was suffocating.
Eddi pushed herself upright with slow, deliberate movement, turning to face the boys who had adored her, defended her, followed her into academic war, and whose trust she had shattered in a single moment.
âIâŠâ she whispered, voice catching in her throat. âWâwhat are you doing here?â
Lenny blinked at her, his face twisted with hurt and confusion and something sharper.
âI asked first,â he said hoarsely.
Eddi nodded once, as if conceding a blow. âI can explain.â
Raff made a strangled noise and gestured wildly at the chained figure behind her.
âYou can explain?â he repeated. âOur physics sub is chained to a wall, Eddi! There's a whole⊠medieval torture situation going on behind you! Is this some kind ofââ he waved both hands at her and Isaac; âweird fetish thing Isaacâs got you into?!â
Isaac scoffed under his breath. âHonestlyââ
âNo,â Eddi snapped, shaking her head vehemently. âNo. Let me explain. Justâoutside. Not in here.â
Abraxus jerked against his restraints, shouting desperately,
âYOU CANâT LEAVE ME HEREâ DONâT LISTEN TO THEMâ HELP ME! FOR GODâS SAKE, HELPââ
âShut your mouth,â Isaac said sharply without even looking at him. A pulse of psychic pressure rippled through the room, just forceful enough to rattle the chains.
Lenny flinched, eyes darting between Isaac and Abraxus. He took a step forward, toward Abraxus, muscle memory kicking in, the instinct to help before thinking.
âNo.â Eddi stepped into his path, hand pressed flat against his chest, stopping him cold.
He looked down at her hand, then up at her face, his expression cracking with betrayal.
âEddi,â he whispered. âWhat is this? What are youâwhat are you doing?â
âWe need to go outside,â Eddi said again, her voice steadying, gaining a trembling resolve. âAll of us. Iâll tell you everything you want to know. But not in front of him.â
Her eyes stayed on Lenny, on the hurt in his gaze, on the confusion swimming in Oliverâs, on the shock stiffening Austinâs shoulders, on Raffâs raised brows poised somewhere between outrage and disbelief.
âPlease,â she said softly. âCome with me. Iâll tell you everything.â
And for the first time, Eddi wasnât sure if her friends would follow her.
Lenny stood frozen for a long, brittle second. Eddi held her breath without meaning to, afraid of what she might see on his face: fear, disgust, mistrust.
But finally, slowly, he gave her a single, heavy nod.
âCome on,â he murmured to the others, voice stripped of its usual playfulness. âLetâs⊠go.â
He ushered Raff, Austin, and Oliver out of the tower. None of them looked back at the chained figure or the half-built operating theatre, though their eyes darted around as if trying to make sense of everything all at once.
âEddi,â Isaac called after her, voice clipped, tight.
She turned, hand already on the stairwell door. âI need to explain,â she told him quietly. âIâll be back soon.â
Isaacâs eyes slid toward Lenny; sharp, suspicious, almost instinctively possessive, but he swallowed whatever emotion surged up, forcing himself back into composure. He turned away, telekinetically lifting the metal rods and surgical frame again, jaw tight with focus.
Eddi slipped out.
The tower door clicked shut behind her, plunging the stairwell into a thick, echoing quiet.
She sank onto the cold stone steps, elbows braced against her knees, burying her face in her hands. The weight of everything; weeks of secrecy, terror, rage, pressed down on her ribcage like a stone slab.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Raff, ever the one to break tension like cracking ice, cleared his throat.
âSo⊠the physics sub chained to the wall?â
Eddi didnât look up. Her voice came muffled through her fingers. âHeâs my brother.â
Austin blinked. âI thought Jago was your only brother.â
âHeâs my only good one,â she answered, and there was a bitterness in her voice that none of them had ever heard before. âAbraxus and I⊠weâre estranged.â
Raff snorted softly. âEstranged is one thing. Chaining him to a wall is another level, Eddi.â
Oliver elbowed him, but he wasnât wrong.
Eddi let out a breath; shaky, fragile, as she finally lifted her head. âHeâs chained because I need him there. Because I need to keep him in that tower.â She swallowed hard. âSo that I can be free.â
Lenny took a step closer, brows furrowing. âFree from what?â
He lowered himself beside her on the stairs, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers. The familiar warmth of him radiated through her thin shirt. Eddi fought every instinct telling her to lean into him, to take the comfort he always offered so easily.
Instead, she stiffened, inhaled through her nose, and tugged her sleeve up to her elbow.
The boys leaned in.
Oliver reacted first, his voice high and unfiltered. âWHAT THEâ Eddi, what happened to your arm?!â
Despite everything, a small, humourless laugh escaped her. âThank you, Oliver. Very subtle.â
The scar caught the dim stairwell light; the jagged, pale branching of it sprawled across her forearm and down over the back of her hand like lightning trapped beneath skin.
âAn unbreakable vow,â she said flatly. âYes.â
He let out a low whistle. âMy mom told me about those. Old magic. Ancient. Binding someone to a promise so deeply that breaking it kills them.â
âShe wasnât lying,â Eddi said quietly. Her voice began to tremble, but she pushed on. âMy father bound me to my siblings. Their lives are tied to mine. He hurts them to hurt me.â
Austin went still.
Oliverâs jaw clenched.
Raffâs face dropped, all sarcasm wiped clean.
But LennyâŠLenny inhaled sharply, something feral flickering behind his eyes.
âEddi,â he whispered. âHe hurts Jago and Vittorie⊠because of you?â
She nodded once; tiny, brittle. âTo control me.â
Lenny closed his eyes, jaw working, breath shaking with a violence he was barely containing.
But he didnât roar. He didnât curse. He didnât break anything.
He simply reached out; slowly, carefully, and placed his hand over hers on her lap.
Warm. Solid. Steady.
âOkay,â he murmured, voice trembling with the effort it took to stay calm. âStart from the beginning. Weâre listening.â
And for the first time in weeks, Eddi felt something like hope; fragile, flickering, curl inside her chest.
Eddi spoke for a long time.
She didnât rush. She didnât gloss over anything. She let every memory unravel in front of them; her fatherâs cruelty, the vow, the way pain echoed between siblings like some sick mirror, the years of fear, the nights of pretending she was fine, the months of Isaacâs research, the plan they were only now close to finishing.
The boys said nothing.
Raffâs eyebrows shot up more than once. Austin let out a low, involuntary whistle at one point before clapping a hand over his mouth. Oliver whispered âholy hellâ under his breath when she described the first time the vow snapped inside her. And Lenny growled, barely audible, every time her fatherâs name left her lips.
But none of them interrupted.
They just listened.
When she finally reached the end, explaining how she and Isaac believed they could force the vow to transfer into Abraxus, freeing her from it entirely, she let out a trembling breath, drained.
Silence settled thickly around them.
Lenny broke it first.
âThatâs⊠a lot,â he said softly. âA lot to take in.â He rubbed his palms together, staring at the stone floor between his boots before looking up at her, his eyes unbearably gentle. âBut we understand. You did what you had to.â
He hesitated.
Then his voice dropped, raw around the edges.
âI just want to know why you felt like you couldnât tell us sooner. Why you kept all of this from us. From me.â
Eddiâs shoulders slumped. She hadnât wanted this confrontation, but she owed him the truth.
âIt was my burden to bear,â she murmured. âIt always has been.â
Lennyâs jaw clenched; not in anger, but in something like hurt. âYou told Isaac,â he said, the name slipping out sharper than he intended. âA boy you couldnât stand until a few months ago.â
Eddi opened her mouth, closed it again, swallowing. âI⊠I donât know why I trusted him the way I did. I canât explain it.â
Lenny let out a humourless laugh, shaking his head as though the answer was obvious. âItâs because you love him.â
Her breath caught.
âEddi Leveret,â he said with a faint, sad smile, âthe smartest person I know, the one who sees through everything⊠didnât realise she was in love.â
Eddi stared at him.
The words didnât sting, they hit like a soft, startling truth she hadnât been ready to face. And then, like a blade slipping through the fog, she remembered:
Lenny in the common room. His voice cracking. âIâm in love with you!â
Guilt washed over her, hot and immediate.
âLennyâŠâ Her voice quivered. âIâm so sorry.â
But he raised a hand; gentle, steady, and shook his head.
âDonât apologise,â he said quietly. âDonât you dare apologise.â He forced a crooked smile. âAll I ever wanted was for you to be happy. Safe.â His breath trembled. âAnd if thatâs with Isaac⊠thenââ he laughed weakly, ââitâs weird. Yeah. Really weird. But itâs okay.â
Eddi blinked hard, trying not to cry.
Because even now, even hurting, Lenny was choosing kindness.
And that made her chest ache more than anything Abraxus ever had.
Lenny exhaled slowly, bracing his elbows on his knees as he looked at her.
âSo⊠what are you going to do with Abraxus?â
Eddi lifted her head, wiping a faint tremor from her breath before she spoke. âIâm going to transfer the vow. The bond my father forced on meâitâll go into him. Once itâs out of me, Jago and Vittorie will be free too. Father only ever wanted to punish me. If the vow between us breaks, then he has nothing left to use against me, or them.â
Austin looked horrified. Oliver looked confused. But RaffâRaff leaned forward, brows furrowed.
âExplain it again,â he said gently. âWhat exactly will the vow do once itâs in him?â
Eddi inhaled sharply. âIt will bind Abraxus to Jago and Vittorie. Their pain becomes his. Their safety⊠his responsibility.â
Raff blinked slowly. âAnd⊠Abraxus cares about them?â
The silence stretched.
Eddi shrugged, voice flat and unbothered. âNo. Not remotely.â
Something in Raffâs expression shifted; shock, concern, and then something far sharper.
âEddi,â he said carefully, âif Abraxus doesnât care what happens to Jago or Vittorie⊠then youâre putting them directly in harmâs way.â He waited for her eyes to lift to his. âHe wonât protect them. He wonât take the hits for them. He wonât feel any obligation. And if the vow reacts poorly, if he lashes out, if he tries to runââ Raff swallowed, ââthose two kids could be caught in whatever backlash comes from a vow-holder who doesnât give a damn.â
The words hit her like cold water.
Hard. Immediate. Undeniable.
Eddi froze, breath snagging in her throat as the truth clicked brutally into place.
She had been so focused on freedom, on revenge, on the idea of finally being rid of the chain inside her body, that she hadnât stopped to consider the fallout.
A vow-bearer who didnât careâ
Who would treat the bond like an inconvenienceâ
Who could put Jago and Vittorie in danger simply by not caring enough to keep himself aliveâ
She realised she would be handing her siblingsâ lives over to someone who saw them as strangers.
Her heartbeat stuttered. Her stomach dropped. Her hands trembled in her lap.
âOh,â she whispered, breath barely audible.
Lennyâs hand hovered near her back, unsure whether to touch. Austin and Oliver exchanged a worried glance.
Raff held her gaze, trying to soften the blow, but not denying her the truth.
âEddi,â he said quietly, âyouâd be freeing yourself⊠but chaining them to someone who wouldnât lift a finger to help them. Someone who might resent them for it. Someone who already left them once.â
Eddiâs vision blurred.
Because suddenly, painfully, Raff was right.
She wasnât freeing her family.
She would only be trading one danger⊠for another.
Can you do one where the kids witness their mother having a vision for the first time and they're not sure what to do so they call Isaac for help
Maybe add how her vision are becoming to where she's feels the pain she witness and how Isaac reacts.
đ€ Isaac Night x Raven-Sighted Reader â âMamaâs Seeing Somethingâ
(Little Prodigies series â the children witness your vision for the first time)
Your children had grown up knowing you were special. They knew Mama sometimes went still, sometimes quiet, sometimes strange.
But they had never seen a vision. Not a true one. Not a ravensight. Not until that day.
It happens in the living room, sunlight drifting through the windows: all soft, warm, harmless. You are sitting at the table with Jago practicing basic arithmetic, Nuala reading quietly nearby, baby Ivor wobbling around on unsteady legs.
And thenâ
You freeze. Your breath snaps. Your spine locks. Your eyes go distant: too wide, too dark, too empty. Black tears streak instantly, heavily, like ink pouring from beneath your lashes.
Your children stare. Jago speaks first. â...Mama?â His voice is small. Scared.
You let out a broken sound: somewhere between a gasp and choke, as the vision wracks you. Images so violent and vicious tear through your mind: blood, a scream that sounds like one of your children, Isaac falling to his knees, shadows closing inâ
Your fingers spasm against the edge of the table. Ivor starts crying. Jago scrambles to your side, placing his warm little hand over yours.
âNuala!â he shouts, voice shaking. âSomethingâs wrong with Mama!â
Nuala, always the practical one, snaps her book shut and rushes forward. She sees the tears. The tremors. Your head thrown back, lips trembling with pain. It terrifies her. But she remembers what Isaac has taught them.
âMama gets visions,â she whispers to herself. âVisions need Daddy.â
She scoops up Ivor, who is shrieking now, reaching his tiny arms toward you, and thrusts him into the crib to keep him safe. She turns to Jago, who is trying to wipe your tears with his sleeve, his own eyes brimming.
âStay with her,â she orders. âIâll get Daddy.â
Jago nods earnestly, swallowing his fear. âIâll keep her warm,â he whispers to himself, climbing into your lap and leaning his tiny body against yours like a sunbeam trying to burn the darkness away.
Nuala runs. Down the cottage stairs. Across the courtyard. Into Isaacâs workshop. She slams the door open so hard it rattles his tools. Isaac turns sharply, irritation flashing: until he sees her face. She is pale. Shaking.
âDaddyâŠâ she whispers. âItâs Mama.
Everything drops out of Isaac at once. His tools fall from his hands.
He doesnât even close the door behind him.
He bursts into the cottage like a storm: eyes searching, breaths sharp and fast. When he sees youâ
Your body trembling. Black tears streaming. Jago clinging to you with terrified devotion. Ivor crying in the crib. Nuala right behind him, breathless and paleâ
Isaacâs world narrows to a single point: You.
He kneels in front of you instantly, cupping your face with trembling hands. âDoveâdove, look at me,â he whispers, voice breaking.
You donât hear him. Your body arches with another wave of psychic agony.
âDaddy,â Jago cries, gripping your sleeve. âMake Mama stop hurting.â
âI am,â Isaac breathes. âI will. Nualaâtake Ivor. Go to the hall. Jagoâstay behind me.â
Isaac lifts you off the chair and pulls you against his chest, holding your convulsing body as gently as he can. You choke out a fragmented sob: half in the vision, half in the world.
âItâs okay,â Isaac murmurs urgently, brushing your tears away though they keep coming. âIâve got you. Youâre here. Iâm here.â His voice shakes. He presses his forehead to yours. âCome back to me, dove.â
It takes minutes: long, terrifying minutes, for the vision to release you. Your breath finally returns in rough, broken gulps. Your body goes limp against him.
When your eyes finally flutter open, you see Isaac. You always see him first. He exhales: the most fragile, desperate sound, and pulls you tighter into his chest, stroking your hair.
âYouâre safe,â he whispers. âYouâre safe with me.â
The children hover at the doorway, peeking around the corner. Nuala clenches her hands in her dress. Jago sniffles loudly. Ivor hiccups, confused and frightened.
Isaac lifts his head and looks at them with soft, exhausted eyes.âItâs alright,â he tells them gently. âMamaâs back.â
The three of them rush you at once: piling into your lap, climbing over Isaacâs arms, hugging whatever part of you they can reach.
Your voice is weak and trembling. âIâm sorryâ I didnât want you to see thatââ
Jago shakes his head fiercely. âYouâre Mama,â he whispers. âAnd we stay with Mama.â
Isaac presses a kiss to your temple. âAnd I,â he murmurs darkly, fiercely, âam never letting you go through one of these alone again.â
Isaac x reader(platonic or romantic) where reader gets really drunk at a party and feels unsafe, so they try to find him among the crowd because he makes them feel safe đ„ș
Maybe he ends up having to get them home or to their dorm because their ride left without them. He ends up just taking them to his dorm because they're are being too problematic for him to take them all the way to their dorm while trying to not get caught. They get taken to his dorm, basically throwing themselves onto his bed and passing out, leaving Isaac to sigh in amused disapproval before moving them fully onto the bed and carefully pulling the covers over them.
If you do romantic you can have it where he changes reader into one of his shirts before he climbs into the bed with them.
If you do platonic, you could have him give them a very stern big brother talk about going out drinking without someone they know they can trust/someone they know they can rely on.
Maybe have some fluffy fluff after because they think he's mad at them, so he comforts them while ensuring they know he's not mad, just worried that they get themselves into bad situations so easily
I chose romantic, just because I preferred the vibe once I started writing this, but still tried to include both of what you were asking for the platonic and romantic vibe.
đ€ Isaac Night x Reader â âYouâre Drunk, Dove.â
You didnât mean to get drunk. You really didnât.
But the Nevermore party had gotten loud and sweaty and chaotic, and someone kept refilling your cup, and the room started tilting sideways; and suddenly everything felt wrong.
Too many hands brushing against you. Too many voices. Too much noise.
You just needed one person. Your person. So you started looking for him.
You murmured his name to every tall dark-haired figure you passed. None of them were him.
Then you saw a familiar shape leaning against the wall; long black coat, hunched posture, fed-up-with-everyone expression. He looked up just as you nearly tripped over a step. His face shifted instantly from boredom to alarm.
âDove?â
You practically fell into him, your forehead hitting his chest with a soft thump. âFound you,â you sighed, gripping his shirt like a lifeline. âYouâre safe. I meanâ Iâm safe. With you.â
His jaw clenched. He smelled the alcohol instantly. âWho let you get like this?â It came out like a growl.
You blinked at him with watery eyes. âMy ride left. I⊠Isaac, I didnât want to stay.â
That was the moment you felt his arm wrap: firm and possessive, around your waist. âCome here,â he murmured, pulling you close.âYouâre done.â
He tried to take you to your dorm first. He really did.
But between you tripping over your own shoes, stopping to pet a statue, whispering secrets to yourself, and nearly falling down the stairsâ
âAbsolutely not,â he muttered, catching you by your elbow. âIâm not dragging you across campus like this.â You pouted. âBut Issaacccââ âYes.â He cut you off. âWeâre going to my dorm. Now.â
You didnât argue. You just clung to him. Every time you stumbled, he steadied you. Every time you whimpered, he murmured, âIâve got you,â under his breath.
As soon as he opened the door to his room, you made a beeline for his bed. More accurately: you launched yourself onto it, face-first, limbs sprawled everywhere.
Isaac stood in the doorway, stared for a long moment, then sighed. ââŠOf course.â He approached, moving you gently, adjusting your limbs so you wouldnât wake up with a twisted spine. He pulled the blanket over you with precise, almost scientific care. You were asleep before he finished.
You were snoring: very unceremoniously, when he whispered, âYou canât sleep in this.â He changed you into one of his shirts with the delicacy of a man defusing a bomb, eyes tightly averted, jaw tight.
When he finally crawled into bed beside you: fully clothed, he stayed stiff for a long moment. Then you curled instinctively toward him. Fist balled in his shirt. Head on his chest. He froze. Then very slowly, very softly, exhaled.
ââŠFine. Just this once.â Except he held you all night.
When you woke, you were warm. Comfortable. Wrapped in Isaacâs shirt and his blankets and his smell. You blinked up at him.
He was sitting at the edge of the bed, looking down at you with a sternness so sharp it made your stomach drop. âIâm sorry,â you blurted. âI know youâre madââ
His expression softened immediately. âIâm not mad at you, dove.â
He reached out, brushing his knuckles down your cheek. âIâm worried about you.â
Your throat tightened. âYou⊠you are?â
He sighed: the heavy, defeated kind. âYes. You get yourself into trouble without realizing it. I need you to be careful. I need you to go out with someone you trust. Not alone. Not⊠like that.â
You curled into yourself, embarrassed. He cupped your chin and made you look at him. âIâm not angry,â he repeated gently. âI justââ His voice broke. âI hate thinking about something happening to you.â
Your heart melted. âSo⊠youâre not going to stop talking to me?âHe huffed: the closest Isaac ever came to a laugh.
âIf anything,â he murmured, leaning in and pressing his forehead to yours, âIâm going to keep you even closer.â You blushed. He smirked.
At Nevermore Academy, Edrisse "Eddi" Leveret has everything Isaac Night can't stand: intelligence that rivals his own, popularity she doesn't even seem to notice, and an irritating way of excelling at everything from academic to Bloodrush, the brutal outcast sport he considers beneath him.
Their rivalry is legendary- sharp words, sharper glares, and the occasional explosion in class when one outdoes the other. But beneath Eddi's quick wit and easy smile lies a secret Isaac was never meant to see: a vow carved into her very skin, binding her life to her siblings. Every time her father punishes them, she suffers the scars. Breaking the vow means death- for all of them.
Isaac doesn't care. At least, that's what he tells himself. With a clockwork heart ticking in his chest and a reputation for cold detachment, he knows he's not built for softness. But when Eddi's fight becomes impossible to ignore, when her music haunts him as much as her laugh, when protecting her little sister looks too much like protecting his own- he finds himself standing beside the girl he swore to outdo.
Rivalry turns to alliance, alliance to something more dangerous. Because falling in love with Eddi Leveret might mean breaking not just her vow, but his own heart of brass and gears.
Major Themes: Rivals to Lovers, family trauma, magical abuse, sibling loyalty, slow burn romance.
Warnings: Magical abuse/parental abuse (psychological, emotional, implied physical), Self-harm (adjacent imagery- magical vow scar that splits/burns), Blood/Injury detail, Violence, Eventual Smut (added warnings for those chapters), Angst.
Rating: Mature (+18)
Chapter Twenty Seven: The Sins of the Brother
The Skull Tree loomed like a fossilised sentinel; branches twisting upward like ancient bones clawing at the moon. Midnight soaked the clearing in silver, stark and merciless.
Abraxus stood alone beneath its gnarled canopy.
The note he held was small, folded twice, written in Eddiâs unmistakable hand.
We need to talk.
A simple, gentle request on its face.
Yet unease prickled the back of his neck.
He scanned the darkness, waiting for the sound of footsteps he knew as well as his own breathing. Instead, a different sound stirred; the low snap of a twig far off between the trees.
âEddi?â he called, brow furrowing.
But the voice that answered wasnât hers.
It drifted from the shadows like a cold breath.
âYou left her to rot.â
Abraxus stiffened.
Another pause. Then the voice again: quiet, burning, furious:
âYou ran away and left her to suffer. You left her in that house with him.â
Abraxusâs jaw clenched.
Isaac stepped out from between the twisted trunks, emerging slowly into the moonlight. His expression was a study in restrained hatred; eyes darkened, features sharpened, shoulders tight with tension he wasnât even trying to hide.
âWhat the hell is this?â Abraxus snapped. âWhere is Eddi?â
Isaac didnât answer him. He only took another step forward.
âYou abandoned her,â Isaac said, each syllable like a blade. âYou knew what your father was. You knew what he did to her. You knew exactly what she was chained to.â
Abraxus scoffed; short, bitter, defensive.
âYou donât know anything about our family,â he shot back. âYou should keep your nose out of matters that donât concern you, Night.â
Isaacâs lip curled into something cold.
âShe's not your family anymore.â
The words hit harder than any spell.
Abraxusâs face twisted; anger, guilt, defensiveness, something else flickering too fast to name. He spun sharply on his heel, intent on leaving.
âConversationâs over.â
Isaac didnât move.
âYeah,â he said softly. âIt is.â
A branch; thick, heavy, already fallen from the tree, suddenly snapped up from the ground behind Abraxus, yanked by a brutal unseen force.
Before he could turnâ
CRACK.
The wood slammed into the back of his skull.
Abraxus dropped instantly, crumpling into the dead leaves with a dull, final thud. His limbs twitched once before going still.
Isaac stood in the moonlight, chest rising and falling with each controlled breath. The branch rolled away from Abraxusâs limp form.
He didnât look remorseful.
He didnât look conflicted.
He only stared at the unconscious man; the brother whoâd abandoned her, with an expression carved out of ice.
âI told you,â Isaac muttered under his breath, voice low, almost clinical.
âSheâs not yours anymore.â
>
When Abraxus woke, the first thing he tasted was metal; sharp, cold, sour at the back of his tongue.
Then pain bloomed behind his skull.
He groaned, lifting his head, only to feel iron bite into his wrists. His arms were stretched above him, chained to a heavy mechanism bolted into the curved stone wall. His feet were on the ground, but barely; just enough that he could stand, not enough for comfort. Every tiny shift made the chains click, echoing hollowly through the high chamber.
His vision swam at first, but as it sharpened, he recognised where he was.
A clock tower. Old. One of the ones cordoned off on the east side of the school grounds. A place no student shouldâve had access to; unless they were willing to break a dozen rules or more.
The air was cold enough to sting, dust motes floating in the thin moonlight slanting through the great round clock face above.
Across the room, two figures sat at a makeshift workstation; scraps of diagrams, metal parts, scattered cogs and gears illuminated by the flickering lantern light. They were silhouettes at first, still and silent.
âEddi?â Abraxus rasped.
One of the figures straightened.
âWhat the hell is going on?â he demanded, chains rattling as he shifted forward. Pain shot through his shoulders.
A breath, then a voice he hadnât heard in years; soft, sharp, impossible to mistake.
âYou said you wanted to talk, Abraxus.â
Eddi.
She stepped slightly into the lantern glow, her expression unreadable.
Abraxus let out a humourless laugh, lifting his shackled wrists as far as they would go.
âCouldnât we have done that in⊠literally any other way?â he muttered. âPreferably one that didnât involveââ He gestured at the restraints. ââthis?â
Eddi didnât smile.
âI wanted you to know what it feels like,â she said evenly. âTo be bound against your will.â
Abraxus scoffed under his breath. âPoetic.â
âNo,â she said. âFury.â
The other figure: Isaac, Abraxus realised only now, remained silent, leaning forward with elbows on the desk, watching the exchange with a predatorâs stillness.
Abraxus exhaled sharply, annoyed, uneasy.
âAll right,â he said. âWhat do you want from me?â
Eddi took a slow step forward.
âI want you to understand,â she said quietly, âwhat it was like for me. When you left. When you ran away. When you abandoned everything. When you left me to be responsible for two younger siblings. When you left me alone with him.â
Abraxusâs eyes flickered.
He straightened as much as the chains allowed.
âYou think it wouldâve been fairer for me?â he shot back. âThat I shouldâve taken that all on? You think I wouldnât have been crushed under the same weight? You think I wouldnât have beenââ
Eddiâs voice cracked like a whip.
âBut you didnât!â
The shout filled the tower, ricocheting off stone and metal. Isaacâs fingers twitched, as if ready to intervene; though whether to protect Eddi or prevent her from tearing the tower apart, it wasnât clear.
Eddi advanced another step.
âThatâs the point,â she said, breath sharp, trembling with fury. âYou didnât have that responsibility. I did. I had it every day, every night, every moment. And I was alone. Completely, utterly alone.â
Abraxus opened his mouth; maybe to defend himself, maybe to apologise, maybe to lie. He didnât get the chance.
Eddiâs voice lowered, but the anger didnât dim; it sharpened into something colder.
âYou ran,â she said. âI stayed. You had freedom. I had a vow. You got to save yourself. I had to survive for them.â
She paused.
âAnd you want to talk about fairness?â
Silence swallowed the room.
The great gears of the clock ticked overhead: slow, rhythmic, ominous.
Isaac finally rose from the desk, stepping into the lantern light beside Eddi, his presence wordless but unmistakably aligned with her.
Abraxus hung against the chains, breath harsh, eyes darting between them as the weight of what heâd avoided, and what heâd left behind, pressed down harder than the iron cuffs around his wrists.
Abraxus let out a cracked breath. His bravado was thinning, leaking out between the clatter of his restraints and the pale exhaustion settling beneath his eyes.
âWhat do you want from me, Eddi?â he asked again; this time not angry, not defensive. Just⊠tired.
Eddi didnât hesitate.
She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out two small photographs; crinkled at the edges, clearly carried for years. She stepped closer, holding them up where the lantern light caught them.
âLook,â she said.
He blinked, confused. She pressed the photos closer.
One: Vittorie at seven, holding a stolen pastry with a defiant grin.
The other: Jago as a toddler, bundled in a knitted blanket, smiling so wide his eyes were half-closed.
âThese,â Eddi said, voice tightening, âare the two most important things in my entire life.â
Abraxus looked. Barely.
His eyes skimmed over them: as if they were strangersâ children in a newspaper clipping, and then drifted back to her face.
Eddiâs fingers curled around the edges of the photos, knuckles whitening.
âI want you to look at them,â she said, each word clipped, âand then I want you to think about every harrowing thing theyâve been put through. Every bruise Jago hides when he sleeps on his side. Every time Vittorie tries to swallow her fear because she thinks it makes her weak.â
Her jaw shook.
âAnd then,â she whispered, âI want you to remember that all of it happened because you were a coward.â
Abraxus flinched: not at the insult, but at her voice. It carried a history he had never asked about, never wanted to know.
But he still didnât reach for the photos.
He still didnât care.
Eddi felt something in her chest twist until it nearly snapped.
âWhy are you here?â she demanded. âWhy now?â
Abraxus swallowed hard.
âIâve come for you,â he said. âTo get you out.â
Eddi froze. Isaac snapped his head toward Abraxus, eyes narrowing.
âYou know I canât leave,â Eddi spat. âThe vow binds me. If I runâif I so much as tryâthen I die. And they die with me.â
âI know,â Abraxus said quietly. âBut Iâve found someone. A medicine man.â
He lifted his chin a fraction, as if expecting this to impress her.
Isaac stepped forward, coming to stand by Eddiâs side so their shoulders aligned, a silent wall of suspicion.
âWhere?â Isaac asked, voice low, controlled.
âOn my travels,â Abraxus replied. âIn the South Americas. He knew of old cursesâblood magic, things older than our fatherâs line. He said he could move the vow.â
Eddi blinked at him.
âMove it?â she repeated.
âTo the next child,â Abraxus said simply. âIf the original vow-bearer âdies,â even temporarily. The medicine man can induce a death-sleep. Long enough for the vow to pass. Then we go. We leave. You and me.â
Eddi stared.
For a heartbeat, the world went quiet except for the creaking gears above them.
âSo your plan,â she said slowly, dangerously, âis to pass the vow onto another of our siblings so you donât have to deal with it?â
Abraxus exhaled through his nose.
âSomeone has to take it,â he said. âBetter them than you.â
Isaac made a sound; half scoff, half warning, but Eddi raised a hand to silence him.
âAnd youâd leave them again?â she asked. âVittorie. Jago. Youâd just⊠walk away. Because itâs convenient for you.â
Abraxus shrugged. Actually shrugged.
âI donât know them,â he said. âThey might as well be strangers.â
Eddiâs heart went cold.
Isaac didnât speak: he didnât need to. She could feel his energy spike, dark and seething, as if the atmosphere itself dipped around him.
Eddiâs voice, when it came, was ice.
âYou left me once,â she said. âYou left them. And all this time I thought you were dead.â
He opened his mouth, but she cut him off with a venomous laugh.
âAnd now you come back just to abandon them again?â
Abraxusâs expression faltered: not with guilt, but irritation, as if she were refusing a perfectly reasonable offer.
âYou donât understandââ
âNo,â Eddi said, stepping closer, photos trembling in her hand, fury burning bright in her eyes.
âYou donât understand. You never did. And you never will.â
Abraxus took a breath as though he meant to steady himself, but the sound came out thin and shaky, a boy pretending to be a man.
âYou donât⊠you donât know what it was like,â he said, head drooping forward, chains clinking softly as his weight shifted. âBeing him. Being Fatherâs prodigy since I could stand upright. Everything was a test. Everything was a demand. I wasnât a child, I wasââ He tossed his head in a bitter little laugh. ââa blueprint. A project. A weapon he wanted to sharpen before anyone else.â
Eddi stared at him without blinking, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Isaac felt her stillness beside him, the way she didnât even breathe when Abraxus spoke; as though she was trying to listen for something that might redeem him, and finding only noise.
Abraxus went on, encouraged by their silence.
âEvery mistake I made was a catastrophe. Every success wasnât enough. I had to get out. I had to. You think I abandoned you out of cruelty? No. I was suffocating. I was dying. I had to be free of him, of all of it.â
Eddiâs expression didnât change, but something inside her seemed to collapse inward. She had expected many things from this confrontation: anger, denial, even defiance. She hadnât expected this⊠this pathetic, whimpering justification. Every word he spoke peeled away another layer of the brother she once admired.
âYou were suffering,â she repeated quietly, tasting the word with a bitterness she didnât try to hide. âAnd that meant we could suffer too? That was the logic? Because you couldnât live with Father breathing down your neck, you left us to feel the whole weight of him alone?â
Abraxus lifted his head, indignation flaring. âWould you have preferred I stayed and broke under him? Then where would you be? Where would any of us be?â
âThatâs the problem,â Eddi said, voice low. âYou think it was always about you. Even now. After everything.â
Abraxus stiffened, frustration curdling into something petulant and raw. âYou donât understand what that house did to me. I was a boy, Eddi. A boy forced intoââ
âWe were children too,â she cut in sharply. âAll three of us. Only difference is, you ran. We didnât.â
He scoffed, actually scoffed, like a child being scolded. âYou think staying makes you noble? You think taking on Fatherâs expectations makes you a martyr? I left because I needed to survive.â
Eddiâs eyes flashed, but she didnât shout; the quietness of her voice was far more dangerous than her earlier rage. âAnd we didnât deserve to?â
Abraxus rolled his eyes upward, exasperated, as if she were deliberately missing his point. âI came back for you, didnât I? That first time. When I realised what you were becoming. What you could be. I saw the potential in you from the time you were small. The intelligence. The raw instinct. You were always meant for more than that place. Iââ
Isaac took a step forward before he could stop himself.
âOh,â he said, every syllable edged like a blade. âSo thatâs what this is. You didnât come back for her; you came back because you realised you could use her.â
Abraxus turned sharply toward him, irritation warping into a sneer. âI wouldnât expect you to understand, Night. This is family business.â
Isaac didnât blink. âYou forfeited the right to call Eddi family, when you walked away.â
Eddi didnât lift a hand to stop him. She didnât even glance at him. She just kept staring at Abraxus; her brother, her ghost, her disappointment, and realised she no longer recognised anything familiar in the man chained to the wall.
Everything noble she once imagined in him had been replaced with a whining echo of their father: the same self-pity, the same justification, the same insistence that the whole world should rearrange itself around his discomfort.
And Eddi felt, with a quiet aching clarity, her admiration finally die.
They stepped away from Abraxus without a word, leaving him muttering to himself in the dim light of the clockwork lamps. The clink of his chains followed them like a metallic heartbeat, fading only when Isaac guided Eddi into the farthest corner of Iago Tower, a narrow alcove tucked between two stacks of old schematics and half-finished inventions.
The moment they stopped moving, the silence around them felt too large, too hollow. Eddiâs shoulders were trembling, though she wasnât crying. She just stared at her hands as if they belonged to someone else.
Isaac kept his voice low, gentle. âWhat do you want to do, Eddi? Whatever it is⊠say it. Iâll make it happen.â He paused. âI mean that.â
Eddi didnât answer right away. She pressed her palms to her temples, pacing a small, tight circle. âI canât believe him,â she whispered. âI canâtâhe doesnât love them. He doesnât even know them. Jago, Vittorie⊠he spoke about them like they were burdens, footnotes in his story. And he thinks Iâd leave them?â Her breath hitched. âHe thinks Iâd abandon them the way he abandoned us?â
Isaac reached out, not touching her yet, just waiting.
âHe doesnât care about them,â Eddi murmured. âBut I do. Iâd die for them. I would die for them.â She closed her eyes. âAnd he came back only because Iâm useful to him. Because he thinks he can use my mind. My gift.â
Isaac nodded slowly, drawing a little closer. âEddi,â he said softly, âtell me what you want from me.â
âI wantâŠâ Her voice faded. She swallowed. âI want Abraxus to pay for what he did.â
Isaac didnât react, didnât flinch, didnât try to talk her down. He just waited.
Eddi lifted her head and finally looked at him, really looked at him, her eyes sharpened with something that wasnât anger, wasnât grief, but a terrible, crystalline resolve.
âI want to transfer the vow to him,â she said.
Isaac inhaled, a long controlled breath that didnât betray the storm behind his eyes. âYouâre sure.â
âYes.â
âYou want him bound to this place⊠bound to their lives⊠bound to the risk of dying if he leaves.â
âYes.â
Isaac stepped nearer, close enough that she could feel the warmth from him, steady and unwavering. âThen thatâs what weâll do,â he said. âIâll make it happen.â
Hey, I've been reading all your stuff for a little while now and noticed your posting less. I hope your doing okay and didn't burn yourself out with how much you wrote before! I absolutely love the little one shots with issac and the little prodigys, always to nervous to send an ask tho ahah but also, I'm so hooked on the weight series with him and eddi. It's so good and their characterisation and everything is just so amazing and i wanted to let you know! I hope your okay and sending lots of good vibes your way!
Hey!! Thanks so much for the support!
Iâve been posting a little less recently, just because Iâve been suuuuper busy đđ work and personal life is kicking my asssssss!
But Iâm trying to keep up with my inbox and my chapter updates. Please never feel too nervous to send me an ask, thatâs what anonymous is for! Iâm always happy to look at your ideas and see where I can take them.
At Nevermore Academy, Edrisse "Eddi" Leveret has everything Isaac Night can't stand: intelligence that rivals his own, popularity she doesn't even seem to notice, and an irritating way of excelling at everything from academic to Bloodrush, the brutal outcast sport he considers beneath him.
Their rivalry is legendary- sharp words, sharper glares, and the occasional explosion in class when one outdoes the other. But beneath Eddi's quick wit and easy smile lies a secret Isaac was never meant to see: a vow carved into her very skin, binding her life to her siblings. Every time her father punishes them, she suffers the scars. Breaking the vow means death- for all of them.
Isaac doesn't care. At least, that's what he tells himself. With a clockwork heart ticking in his chest and a reputation for cold detachment, he knows he's not built for softness. But when Eddi's fight becomes impossible to ignore, when her music haunts him as much as her laugh, when protecting her little sister looks too much like protecting his own- he finds himself standing beside the girl he swore to outdo.
Rivalry turns to alliance, alliance to something more dangerous. Because falling in love with Eddi Leveret might mean breaking not just her vow, but his own heart of brass and gears.
Major Themes: Rivals to Lovers, family trauma, magical abuse, sibling loyalty, slow burn romance.
Warnings: Magical abuse/parental abuse (psychological, emotional, implied physical), Self-harm (adjacent imagery- magical vow scar that splits/burns), Blood/Injury detail, Violence, Eventual Smut (added warnings for those chapters), Angst.
Rating: Mature (+18)
Chapter Twenty-Six: Silent Fury
Normality wasnât something Eddi Leveret believed in anymore, but she and Isaac managed to build something that resembled it: threadbare and strange, stitched together with sleepless nights, whispered plans, and the sharp metallic promise of a machine that had no right to exist.
They returned to their classes because they had to. They ate breakfast because Vittorie insisted. They pretended to sleep because Francoise worried.
But most nights, every night, they climbed the spiral staircase of Iago Tower, sealed the warded door behind them, and submerged themselves in work.
The tower had changed since theyâd begun.
The long stone tables were buried beneath diagrams, open spellbooks, and half-forged metal parts that glimmered silver-blue under lanternlight. A faint tang of spellfire hung in the air, mingling with the smell of graphite, warm oil, and the sharper scent of Isaacâs alchemical tools. The walls, once bare, were now pinned with ink-heavy blueprints and meticulous sketches of human anatomy- Eddiâs anatomy- cross-sections of her arm and chest, diagrams of nerve pathways, notations describing where the vow curled and knotted around bone.
To anyone else, the room would have looked like a surgeonâs nightmare.
To Eddi, it was hope.
To Isaac, it was necessity.
To both, it was a race against time.
Tonight the lanterns flickered low, bathing the room in gold and shadow. Eddi stood hunched over a broad parchment sheet, her curls falling forward as she pencilled thin, sharp lines across the blueprint of her own forearm. She muttered to herself under her breath, making calculations, erasing them, redrawing, annotating.
âYouâve placed the anchoring sigils too close to the median nerve,â she said, nudging Isaacâs elbow with enough force to be affectionate and mildly annoyed at the same time. âIf the device clamps there, youâll sever it, and I quite like being able to feel my hand.â
Isaac didnât look up from the coil of conductive runewire cradled in his long fingers. âIâm aware,â he said, clipped but not unkind. âThe margin of error isââ
âStill my arm.â
His jaw tightened. âEddiââ
âNo, I mean it.â She spun the parchment so he had to look at her diagrams. âIf weâre dissecting my body on paper, the very least you can do is let me have some input on where things get cut.â
Isaacâs head snapped up, eyes narrowing with a scientistâs offended precision. âIt isnât dissection. Itâs controlled magical extractionââ
ââof something wrapped around my nerves,â she finished. âI get a vote.â
He inhaled sharply through his nose. The beginnings of an argument.
She raised one eyebrow. He raised one back.
âEddi,â he said in that slow, maddeningly rational cadence, âthe runic architecture requires exactitude, and I canâtââ
âItâs my body youâre taking apart.â
A beat. His shoulders tensed.
She held his gaze. He held hers.
Finally, Isaac exhaled through his teeth in a way that sounded dangerously like surrender.
ââŠFine.â
âFine?â she echoed, suspicious.
âYou can assist with the biomechanical calculations.â
âAssist?â She scoffed. âIsaac, darling, I already redrew half your maths.â
His mouth flattened. âIt was not half.â
âThirty percent, minimum.â
âTwenty at most.â
âYou labelled the ulna wrong.â
âI was tired.â
âYou called it âthe long one.ââ
âThat is functionally accurateââ
âItâs embarrassing.â
âEddi,â he said gravely, âI am performing theoretical surgery on a living curse. I am allowed to be functional rather than poetic.â
She grinned at him. He glared back, but the edge of his mouth twitched.
They worked like that, bickering, correcting, collaborating, for hours.
Eddiâs handwriting got sloppier. Isaacâs hair got messier. The towerâs lanterns burned lower. The air thickened with exhaustion.
And then, sometime around half past three, Eddiâs pencil slowed. Her posture dipped. A few strands of hair fell across her face, and she pushed them back absently: once, twice, three times, before her hand stilled altogether.
Her head tipped sideways onto the blueprint.
Isaac paused mid-solder, waiting for her to straighten. She didnât.
He waited another second. Another. Nothing.
He set his tools down with a sigh that was far too soft for the reputation of Isaac Night.
She had fallen asleep in the middle of her own anatomical diagram.
Again.
He rose from his stool and crossed to her with the quiet, controlled grace that was uniquely his: the measured tread of someone who rarely touched anything without intention.
He lifted his coat: black wool, velvet-lined, faintly smelling of warm smoke and something clean and chemical, and draped it around her shoulders, tucking it under her chin so she wouldnât slip free of it when she inevitably curled up.
A streak of graphite marked her cheekbone, a thin grey crescent across her skin. Isaac stared at it with a faint frown, as if the smudge had personally insulted him.
He fetched a fresh cloth, dipped it in a bowl of warm water, wrung it until it dripped once⊠twice⊠and then, with an impossibly gentle hand, he wiped the smear away. The tension in his shoulders eased as he worked, something quiet and reverent in the care he took.
When the cloth had done its job, he didnât move his hand away.
Instead, his fingers driftedâhesitant at firstâbrushing the curve of her temple, smoothing the wild curl at her ear, then tracing the soft, pale line of her brow. He swallowed hard, as though the act itself hurt.
Eddi murmured in her sleep and leaned faintly toward the warmth of his hand.
Isaac froze.
His breath stopped. His heart didnât.
For a momentâan unguarded, terrifying momentâthe weight of everything crashed over him. The cursed scar coiled under her skin. The vow tightening day by day. The threat of Rudolphus. The machine that might kill her. The possibility he might lose her before heâd even earned the right to call her his.
His jaw clenched. His stomach twisted.
No. He wouldnât allow it. He couldnât.
He bent slightly, close enough that his breath stirred her hair, and whispered- barely audible, more prayer than sound-
âStay alive.â A beat. âIâm building this for you.â
His fingers slid slowly through her hair once more, committing every texture to memory, before he reluctantly let her go and returned to the workbench.
The tower was silent except for the soft hum of their half-built machine and the steady, fragile sound of Eddi Leveret breathing.
Hope, he thought, was a dangerous thing. But he wasnât giving it back.
>
They were arguing again.
Not with raised voices, neither of them ever needed those, but in those low, quick, irritable murmurs that hinted at the sheer intensity simmering beneath every exchanged breath. Their fights had become almost tender in their inevitability, as though conflict were simply another form of intimacy between them.
âIsaac, you have to go to class,â Eddi said, blocking the workbench with her whole body. Her hair was a mess of midnight tangles, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, ink smeared across the back of her hand like war paint. She looked feral with exhaustion. âWe both do.â
Isaac didnât look up from the delicate copper filaments he was soldering. His eyes were sharp, devoutly focused, unreceptive. âWe are on the verge of finishing the internal stabiliser. If I can finalise the anchoring system, I can test the magneticââ
âNo,â she cut in, and her tone had the finality of a slammed book. âIf we miss Stonehearstâs class again, heâs going to report it. If he reports it, the Principal gets wind. If the Principal gets windââ
âRudolphus follows the scent,â Isaac muttered, letting the soldering iron clatter onto the counter with a harsh metallic ring.
âYes.â Eddi stepped closer, forcing him to see the logic rather than the fear. âAnd heâs alreadyâŠunsettled. If he thinks somethingâs happening hereââ
Isaacâs jaw flexed. His eyes flicked to the towering skeleton of the half-built machine behind her. His machine. The thing that might save her. âEvery hour we wasteââ
âWeâre not wasting,â she said, softer but firmer. âWeâre blending.â
He finally looked at her then- really looked, and she saw the fatigue carved into him, the unslept hours, the jittering adrenaline of a genius running on the fumes of obsession and devotion. Something in him pushed back, the part that feared letting her out of his sight for even a moment. But he exhaled through his nose and leaned back against the table.
âYou win,â he said, with that brittle resignation that tried and failed to disguise fondness.
âI always do.â
He narrowed his eyes at her. âOnly because I let you.â
She gave a thin smirk. He didnât return it.
But when she gathered her satchel and turned, she felt his hand slide around her waist, pulling her gently against him as if anchoring her to the ground. A silent vow. A shield. A warning to any eyes watching.
She leaned into him just enough that he knew sheâd felt it.
Nevermoreâs corridors buzzed with their usual cacophony, flung laughter, whispered gossip, the rustle of coats, bags and shoes, the thrum of half-tamed powers flickering in corners. It all sounded unbearably normalâŠwhich only made Eddi feel more alien in her own skin.
Isaac walked half a step behind her, his presence taut and hyper-alert, like he expected Rudolphus to step out from behind every column.
They reached advanced physics, and the moment Eddi crossed the threshold, she felt Isaac tense.
Austin Gold and Oliver Squabs sat side by side at their usual table, the same one Eddi had occupied every day for nearly four years. Their books were open, pens poised⊠but neither of them were reading. They were staring at her. As though she had walked in wearing someone elseâs skin.
Eddi froze. Austinâs jaw tightened. Oliverâs expression flickeredâ hurt, confusion, the ghost of betrayal, before he forced it blank.
And then Isaac stepped forward.
He didnât break eye contact with the boys. He didnât release Eddiâs waist. If anything, he drew her closer, guiding her, deliberately, confidently, to the single desk on the opposite side of the room.
Their desk now.
Austinâs nostrils flared. Oliver swallowed hard.
Eddi felt tears threaten the backs of her eyes: shame, grief, a sudden longing for the uncomplicated loyalty she once had. She blinked rapidly, forcing them back.
Isaac pulled out her chair with a quiet, unmistakable gentleness and murmured, âIt wonât be forever.â
âI know,â she whispered, her voice splintering even as she tried to steady it.
âThey arenât intelligent enough to maintain a sustained grudge,â he added dryly, with the faintest brush of his hand against hers under the desk.
She huffed something halfway between a laugh and a sob.
But before she could respond, the classroom door clicked shut.
A voice, unfamiliar and confident, drifted from the back of the room.
âGood morning, class.â
Eddi stiffened.
Footsteps echoed up the center aisle, slow and deliberate. The figure was tall, lean, shoulders straight as a blade. He walked like he owned the room; not with arrogance, but with a kind of dreadful ease.
Eddi felt something cold crawl up her spine.
The man stepped to the front, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote a name on the board in bold, slanted strokes:
Professor. M. Gray
He dusted his hands, turned-
And Eddiâs stomach dropped through the floorboards.
Abraxus Leveret looked out over the room.
Alive. Unsmiling. Beautiful in the most haunted, terrible way.
Eddi didnât breathe. Isaacâs hand clamped around hers under the desk.
Abraxusâs gaze swept the classroom like a bladeâŠand stopped on her.
His eyes widened, only a fraction, but enough for Eddi to feel her pulse detonate behind her ribs.
He wasnât supposed to be here. He wasnât supposed to be alive. He wasnât supposed to be looking at her like that.
The chalk cracked between his fingers.
âLetâs begin,â he said softly.
And the room felt suddenly, impossibly small.
For the first ten minutes, Eddi did not blink.
She sat rigid in her seat, spine welded to the back of her chair, eyes fixed on the man at the front of the room as though he might disappear the moment she looked away. Her heart battered her ribs in frantic, uneven beats, and every muscle in her body trembled with cold shock.
Abraxus â or Professor Gray now, apparently â was coolly, effortlessly commandeering Stonehearstâs lesson plan.
âAs Professor Stonehearst is currently⊠indisposed,â he said, his eyes never once drifting toward her though she felt them like hands on the back of her neck, âIâll be handling your coursework until further notice.â
The chalk whispered across the board as he sketched out the equations for momentum transfer: velocity, mass ratios, collision trajectories. Things Eddi normally wouldâve been scribbling down with feverish enthusiasm. Things Isaac wouldâve already been calculating three steps ahead.
But not today.
Today, both of them were stone-still. Both staring at Abraxus with a mixture of suspicion, disbeliefâŠand in Eddiâs case, a growing, suffocating dread.
Isaac kept his hand on her knee under the desk, the contact grounding her, though she could feel the tension in his fingers- a perfectly controlled tremor of rage.
Then Abraxus asked the question.
It was a simple one- insultingly simple for advanced physics- something any second-year could answer. The class waited, glancing automatically toward the two people who always fought to respond first.
Isaac did not move. Eddi did not breathe.
A soft hush swept through the room.
Abraxus let the silence stretch.
Then, with academic politeness so pristine it felt mocking, he turned, slowly, toward Eddi.
âYou,â he said, voice smooth as silk, âin the back. Whatâs your name?â
Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.
She felt the blood drain from her face as though it were being siphoned by a vacuum. Her tongue felt thick, useless. The vow scar on her arm pulsed once- hard- like it recognised him even though she could barely reconcile his existence.
Say something, she thought. Say anything.
But all she could manage was a faint sound, half gasp, half choke.
Abraxus raised an eyebrow with a faint tilt of disappointment. âI see. No nothing?â
Across the room, Austin frowned. Oliver glanced between the three of them, confusion tightening his brow.
Still silence.
Abraxus sighed quietly, the picture of a patient educator. âVery well. The relationship between momentum and mass under constant velocityââ
âIs linear,â Isaac snapped.
Everyone turned.
Isaac still held Eddiâs knee under the desk, but now the tendons in his hand had gone white with pressure. His jaw clenched so tightly the muscle twitched near his ear.
âMomentum equals mass multiplied by velocity,â he said, each word clipped, precise, forced through teeth that barely parted. âIf velocity remains constant, momentum increases proportionally with mass.â
A few students blinked, startled- theyâd never heard Isaac Night speak like that. Never heard the venom threaded beneath perfect academic control.
Abraxus regarded him for a moment: long, thoughtful, unreadable.
Then he nodded.
âCorrect.â
He turned back to the board, continuing the lesson as though nothing had happened.
But Eddi knew better. She could feel Isaacâs pulse ticking through his hand. Feel the tremor of something terrible awakening behind her ribs. Feel Abraxus watching her in the reflective glass of the windows: subtle, disguised, but unmistakable.
She had imagined this moment so many times: what sheâd say if she ever saw him again.
But now, sitting frozen under the weight of his presence, all she could think was:
Heâs alive. Heâs here. And heâs hiding.
Isaac leaned the slightest fraction closer, voice low enough only she could hear.
âDonât look at him,â he murmured. âDonât give him anything.â
But Eddi couldnât look away.
She was trapped in a room with the ghost sheâd spent years grieving.
And the ghost was teaching her physics.
The bell rang. Chairs scraped. Pens clattered shut. Bodies moved.
Eddi didnât.
She sat as if turned to marble, hands clasped so tightly in her lap her knuckles looked carved from bone. The rest of the class packed their bags slowly, uncertainly, glancing between her and the man at the front of the room.
Because Abraxus hadnât moved either.
He stood with one hand resting on the desk, posture relaxed, eyes fixed on her; not openly, not dramatically, but with a quiet, terrible familiarity that made the air feel too thin to breathe.
Students drifted around her, forming a hesitant little ring of concern.
âEddi? You okay?â someone whispered.
She didnât respond.
Isaac didnât even pretend to answer for her; he stayed at her side, one hand flat on the desk beside hers, an unspoken warning pulsing through the tension in his arm.
A few feet away, Austin and Oliver lingered, clearly caught between worry and confusion. They watched Eddiâs locked stare, then Abraxusâs unreadable expression⊠the atmosphere between them so charged it felt like standing next to a downed electrical line.
Austin took a step forward. âEddiââ
Isaac turned. Just his eyes.
The look he gave them wasnât angry; but it was lethal and unmistakably clear.
Both boys froze.
Oliver swallowed hard, grabbed Austinâs sleeve, and muttered, âLetâs go.â
The door shut behind them.
Silence dropped like a blade.
Only three remained.
Isaac stayed beside Eddi, not touching her now, just ready, alert. But the real standoff was the invisible line stretched taut between brother and sister across the room.
Abraxus broke it first.
He took one step toward her, expression softening into something unbearably nostalgic.
âYouâve grown,â he said quietly, voice warm in a way that made her stomach twist. âEdrisse, youâreââ
He didnât finish.
Eddi didnât let him.
She didnât stand, didnât raise a hand, didnât blink; she simply unleashed it. A violent shove of energy erupted from her chest like a detonated star, invisible but devastating.
Abraxus flew backward.
His body hit the blackboard with a thunderous crack that rattled the chalk trays. Dust exploded around him. The blackboard quivered on its mount.
Before he could drop to the floor, Eddi snapped her fingers into a fist, and that invisible force coiled around his throat, pinning him hard against the board.
His boots kicked once against the wall. Then stilled.
Eddi rose from her chair in one smooth, shaking motion, her hair lifting slightly around her as if stirred by some phantom wind.
âYou donât get to do this,â she said, voice trembling; but not from fear. From fury years in the making. âYou donât get to stroll in like youâve been watching over me from the shadows like some-some doting older brother.â
Abraxus tried to speak. He couldnât. Her grip tightened, a perfect telekinetic vise.
âYou knew what he was,â she hissed, stepping closer. âYou knew what he was doing. What he was capable of. You knew, and you left me there anyway.â
Abraxusâs eyes widened; not in denial, but in something worse. Recognition.
Her voice cracked as she screamed, âI thought you were dead! I thought heâd murdered you! Do you understand that? Do you understand what that did to me?!â
The blackboard behind him creaked under the force of her hold. His hands clawed uselessly at his throat, unable to break the unseen pressure.
Isaac moved now, stepping carefully behind her.
âEddi,â he said gently, âyou need toââ
She spun toward him for a half-second, wild-eyed, and the look in her eyes was enough to make him stop dead.
There was grief there, and rage, but also something cold, sharpened, like the vow itself was burning through her veins, amplifying every wound Abraxus had ever left behind.
She turned back to her brother.
âI wish youâd stayed dead.â
The words landed like a physical blow.
Abraxusâs eyes closed; not from pain of the grip, but the pain of that.
Isaac didnât try to soothe her again. Didnât try to tell her she didnât mean it. Didnât reach for her arm.
He simply stepped closer and stood at her side, ready to hold the line with her, ready to follow wherever this fury led; because he knew this wasnât madness.
This was truth.
And after everything Abraxus had done, everything heâd allowed to happen, everything heâd abandoned her to face aloneâ
Isaac wasnât sure she was wrong.
Eddi didnât walk to Iago Tower.
She stormed; a blistering, trembling force of grief and rage wrapped in a girlâs skin. Every student she passed flattened themselves against walls, sensing something feral and volcanic simmering under her surface. Isaac followed at her heels, not daring to touch her yet, afraid one wrong gesture might ignite her entirely.
By the time she reached the door of the tower, her breaths were sharp, clipped, jagged things. She shoved the door open so violently the hinges shrieked in protest.
The moment she crossed the threshold, it broke.
A raw, terrible scream tore out of her; shaking, electrified, ripped from a place so deep in her chest it echoed against the stone. Her power exploded outward like a shockwave.
Desks slammed into walls. Chairs ricocheted like thrown daggers. Blueprints tore from their pins and spiraled into the air like horrified birds. Scrap metal rattled, lifted, then blasted across the room in a violent scatter of clanging impacts.
Isaac didnât have time to think. Instinct moved faster than logic ever could.
He grabbed her.
His arms wrapped around her from behind, locking across her ribs, pulling her tight to him as she thrashed and screamed again; this time into his chest. Her fingers fisted in his shirt. Her knees buckled. She shook with every ragged breath, every broken cry.
He just held her.
Tight. Steady. Unyielding.
She hurled everything she had into his chest; the sobs, the fury, the betrayal, the years of abandonment condensed into wild, wrenching sounds. She cursed Abraxusâs name so viciously the stones themselves seemed to recoil. She screamed until her voice broke, until her nails tore into Isaacâs coat, until her energy was nothing but aftershocks trembling against his arms.
Slowly; agonisingly slowly, her body began to collapse rather than fight.
Her forehead pressed into his sternum. Her sobs softened into uneven gasps. Her hands unclenched, fingers trembling as they slid weakly down his sleeves.
Isaac lowered his chin, letting his cheek rest on the top of her head. His breath warmed her temple. He didnât speak yet. Words didnât belong here. Only presence.
Only staying.
Only not leaving.
When her breathing finally steadied against him, when her fists had become open palms against his chest, when the storm had shrunk to a trembling ache, thatâs when he spoke.
Very quietly. Very calmly. Like he were stating a theorem heâd already solved.
âYou can get your revenge.â
Eddi froze.
He tightened his hold just slightly, enough to remind her he was there; not restraining her, never restraining her, only anchoring her.
âWeâll make him pay,â he whispered into her hair. âFor what he did. For what he let you suffer. For every second he left you alone in that house.â
His lips brushed her temple as he murmured, softer but fiercer:
âIâll help you. Whatever you want to do- Iâm with you.â
Her breath shuddered.
âI wonât abandon you like he did,â Isaac added, and his voice broke, not with tears, but with certainty so sharp it almost cut. âNot now. Not ever.â
Eddi didnât lift her head.
But her hands curled into his shirt again, differently this time.
Not in fury.
But in need.
And Isaac held her as if he could shield her from the whole past, from every ghost sheâd ever carried, from every vow etched into her bones.
He held her like he meant it. Like heâd chosen her.
Had a thought. Dangerous activity I know. Reader being so down bad for Isaac, but makes absolutely zero effort to hide it. I'm kinda vibing with reader making borderline unhinged comments and just leaving him to process them. Or however else you feel that he'd react to it.
Whatever format you want to write it in, is in your hands queen.
yes yes yes yes yes i love this idea so much!!!
Compliments - Isaac Night x Reader
The first time you told Isaac Night he was hot, he dropped his fork.
It clattered off the table and hit the floor with enough force to make a banshee at the next table scream.
Isaac stared at you like you'd just told him you were a spy.
"...What?"
He asked it like the word personally offended him.
"You heard me," you said with a smile. "Your jawline is so sharp it could cut glass."
He blinked.
Then he muttered something unintelligible under his breath and retreated to his lab.
That should've been your sign to dial it back.
But it didn't stop you.
It became your new favourite hobby.
-----
Isaac walks into the library like he always does, quiet and radiating annoyance.
You're seated by the window, pretending to read but mostly waiting for him.
"Hey, Night," you say.
He hums in response, which is his way of saying hello.
"You look nice today."
He deadpans. "I only just walked in."
"Exactly," he smirks.
He freezes and squints at you in confusion.
You rest your chin on your hand.
"Don't stop on my account. You can keep glaring at me, I like it."
Twenty seconds of silence passes.
Then he quietly mutters, "...I don't understand you," and goes to get his book and leave.
As soon as he turns away from you, it's obvious he's blushing.
-----
Nevermore's dorms are usually quiet after curfew.
Except tonight, you hear metal clinking and as you go to explore you find a sight for sore eyes.
Isaac's standing on a chair fixing the door to his dorm with a screwdriver between his teeth and his shirt sleeves pushed past his elbows.
It's an angelic sight.
A danger to your sanity.
You stop and lean against the wall beside him. "Isaac."
He doesn't look down. "What?"
"Have you ever considered being in a calendar photoshoot? You could be Mr. April."
The screwdriver slips out his mouth.
"Come again?"
"I just think you look great holding tools," you say. "Especially without a shirt on. But I'm flexible if you want to keep your shirt on."
He grips the doorframe. "Why are you like this?"
"Genetics. And also because you look how you do."
The chair wobbles and he grabs your shoulder for balance.
Big mistake on his part.
His hand stays on your shoulder for another moment and his breath catches.
You grin. "Wow, first base already?"
"Shut up."
-----
You're assigned as partners in fencing class.
Isaac looks at the teacher like he ruined his life.
"You're joking," he says.
"Calm down," you whisper. "I'm not going to hurt you."
He rolls his eyes. "You hurt Gomez last week."
"He asked me too!"
Isaac groans.
You raise your foil, then lower your voice so only he could hear:
"Just so you know if this were an enemies to lovers story, this would be the part where we almost kiss."
He drops his weapon and it hits the mat so loud the entire class stares.
You wink at him with a barely concealed smirk.
-----
Curfew patrol is where things get dangerous.
Not emotionally or physically.
You're alone with him in a dark hallway as you make sure no students are out past curfew.
Isaac's ranting about the curfew as it had interfered with his plans to go to his lab later.
You're not listening.
You're looking at his mouth.
And then-
"If you wanted to kiss me," you say casually, "this would be the perfect spot."
His entire body goes still.
"What did you just say?"
"You heard me,"
He runs his hand down his face. "You can't- you can't just say things like that."
"I can," you say, stepping closer, "and I do. Frequently."
Isaac's chokes on breath.
"You're messing with me," he says quietly.
You shake your head. "No. I want you."
His eyes widen.
You've never seen Isaac Night so startled before.
"I don't understand you," he murmurs.
"You don't have to," you whisper. "You just have to kiss me."
"Stop," he breathes.
"Why?"
"Because if you don't stop..." He takes a step toward you. "I'm actually going to."
You exhale shakily. "Then don't stop yourself."
His jaw clenches.
His hands curl at his sides.
And then-
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Isaac backs you against the wall.
Not touching you, not yet.
Just staring at you like he's trying to memorise every inch of your face.
His voice drops to a whisper.
"Tell me again."
Your heart stutters. "Tell you what?"
"That you want me."
His forehead touches yours lightly.
"I want you," you breathe.
His hand comes up and hovers by your jaw, not quite touching, like he's scared you'll disappear if he does.
His voice is rough and raw:
"...Good. Because I want you too."
The world melts away.
Isaac leans in - slow enough that you have time to pull away if you want - and then he kisses you.
It's soft or hesitant.
It's months of tension and flustering and whispered threats finally snapping.
You grab his shirt.
He finally puts his hand on you, pulling you closer like he's been resisting this for months.
He breaks away just enough to breathe.
"Everything you say," he pants," drives me insane."
"Good," you whisper. "I like you insane."
Isaac laughs, quiet and breathless.
Then he kisses you again.
Harder.
Like all your months of compliments and passion are being poured into the kiss.
Okay I absolutely love the stuff youâve written about Isaac defending you when someone was hurting you, but it has me wondering what would happen should he unintentionally/accidentally harm you? Would he isolate himself away? Try to break things off?
đ€ Isaac Night x Reader â When He Accidentally Hurts You (Nevermore Era)
(angsty, gothic, possessive, self-exiling Isaac)
It started in Iago Tower, as most catastrophes with Isaac did.
You knew the moment he ignored Professor Stonehearstâs guidelines that something would go wrong, you could feel it.
You told him, gently, âIsaac⊠I donât think mixing those two is a good idea.â He didnât even look up from the bubbling glassware. âI know what Iâm doing, dove.â
He usually did. But not this time.
The flash was blinding. The explosion small, but sharp, enough to knock you off your feet and send you skidding across the stone floor.
Your wrist hit first. You whimpered. Isaac froze. For one full second, he didnât breathe.
Then he was at your side so fast he nearly slipped on the shattered glass, hands hovering over you without daring to touch. âDoveâ? No, no⊠no, noâdid Iâ? Are youâ?â His voice fractured.
You tried to tell him you were fine. He didnât believe you. He didnât trust himself enough to.
He cleaned the cuts on your arm with trembling hands, refusing to meet your eyes; his touch feather-light, cowardly, terrified. When you winced at the pressure on your wrist, he recoiled like heâd been burned.
But he insisted on walking you to your dorm anyway. And when you said softly, âStay with me tonight, Issy, please,â he stared like the words physically hurt him.
Then he walked away. Didnât speak. Didnât look back. Just disappeared down the corridor like a ghost.
Isaac locked himself away like a cursed prince in a tower. Iago Towerâs door was suddenly barred. Your knocks echoed off the stone, unanswered. Your pleading voice filtered through the cracks in the door he had sealed with metal and telekinetic bolts.
His dorm was no better. Gomez would answer with weary sympathy: âHeâs not here.â But you could see him. Always half-hidden in the shadows behind Gomez; thin, pale, and silent.
He wouldnât even look at you.
Days became a week. A week became two. Your wrist healed faster than Isaac did. The rumor around Nevermore was that you had broken up. That heâd replaced you. That Isaac Night had simply become bored.
You knew the truth. He was running from himself, not you.
Desperation breeds creativity.
You wrote a note. Not signed with your name. But Neatly forged in Francoiseâs handwriting: Isaac, I need you. Skull Tree. Now.
You felt terrible. But he left you no choice.
Isaac stalked into the clearing in a rush, dark coat fluttering behind him, only to stop dead when he saw you. His face twisted, not angry⊠but wounded. âThat is low, dove,â he said quietly. âTo drag my sister into your schemes.â
You stepped toward him. He stepped back. He couldnât look at you. Especially not at the wrist he had wrapped and splinted with his own hands. Every time his gaze flickered toward it, he looked sick.
âIt doesnât matter,â you whispered, stepping closer again. âIt doesnât matter, Isaac. Iâm not afraid of youââ âYou should be.â
The words were sharp, ugly, self-hating.
âI hurt you,â he hissed, backing away until the skull tree bark pressed against his spine. âI hurt you because I was arrogant. Because I thought I was right. You could have beenââ His breath hitched. âI could have killed you.â
âIsaac, stopââ âNo!â He snapped, voice cracking. âI would rather carve out my own tin heart than lay a hand on you again. I donât deserve to be near you.â
You slowly reached out your uninjured hand. He flinched. But didnât move away. You touched his cheek. He finally let you. Barely.
âIsaac Night,â you whispered, âlook at me.â He did, reluctantly, eyes glassy and red-rimmed. âYou didnât hurt me on purpose. It was an accident. Those happen. You donât scare me.â
âIÂ should,â he whispered again, but softer this time, smaller. âYouâre all I need to make me feel better,â you told him. âItâs only you. Itâs always been you.â
His breath collapsed out of him. And then he leaned into your hand, just barely, like he was afraid his weight would bruise you.
He didnât fling himself at you. Isaac never did anything so sloppy. He folded. Quietly. Carefully. Like a man surrendering to gravity. His forehead pressed to yours. His hands hovered at your waist, shaking violently.
âPlease,â he whispered, âtell me what to do. Tell me how to make this right.â âYou already have,â you murmured. And at that, Isaac broke, silently, but completely, pulling you into the first embrace heâd allowed himself in weeks.
He held you like a lifeline. Like redemption. Like penance. He whispered, âIâll never let an accident steal me from you again.â
I just finished binging the weight of a metal heart and its such an amazing and compelling story, there were several times that brought me to tears and feel such deep emotions for your characters. I love your writing and always get so excited when you pop up on my feed! I hope you're doing well! đ„°đ„°đ„°
-Copper đ§Ą
Omg! Thank you so much, this honestly means the world to me, to hear that people are connecting and enjoying my story so much, is way more than I could have ever expected.
I'm so glad that the story can mean so much to you, I just hope I can keep the momentum up, and finish this story strong!
OMG youre fics are AMAZING I was wondering if you could write an isaac smut where hes the bf and doesnt like affection and the gf is extremely clingy
This is what I got! The emotional thread ran away with me and overshadowed the smut in this instance 0_0 Tysm for the prompt <3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Too Close
Story Warnings: Suggestive themes, brief smut! Fairly tame, actually <3
"Hey, for the last time... I need to finish this!" Isaac snapped.
You moped, but gave him the space he demanded. The topmost spire of Iago tower always got you excited. You associated it with good times, with raunchy exploits, with Isaac's hands on your body and his lips tangled with yours.
Not today, apparently.
"It's not fair," you pout sullenly.
Isaac was stooped over his desk, peering through a magnifying glass at a delicate clockwork mechanism that just looked like a pile of gears to you. To him, it was the most important thing in the world in that moment.
You preferred it when you were the most important thing on his mind.
"I'm always available when you want a romp," you went on, pacing behind him. If you stayed by his side, you knew you wouldn't be able to stop yourself from putting your hands on him. "But when I ask for a little, teeny, tiny, itty-bitty fraction of your attention in return, you're too busy all of a sudden!"
"All of a- I'm always busy," he chided you without looking up from his work. "And your analysis of the situation is completely wrong. You're always the one tracking me down, bothering me until I cave and give you what you want."
"My analysis, my an-yan-ya-ya," you mocked him playfully. "It's bad form to treat a relationship like some kind of experiment, Isaac!"
"If I could just get an hour of peace," he groaned.
"Well, if it's peace you want so bad, I can just leave," you huff.
"That would be splendid," Isaac sighed. "And then I'll see you later for-"
"Oh, no, you won't see me later," you tsked him. You took a few steps toward the stairs, finally garnering his undivided focus as you threatened egress.
"Don't joke like that," he scowled.
"I'm serious, Isaac!" you assured him. "If getting your way all the time is more important to you than spending time with me, I don't see why I should bother burdening you with my presence at all!"
Despite the sharpness of your words, you didn't mean any of them seriously. As if you could ever willingly rip yourself from his side.
"You're not a burden," Isaac all but growled. He got up from his seat finally, strode over to put himself between you and the stairs as a physical barrier. He crossed his arms over his chest, taking his turn to pout.
"Well you make me feel like one when you act like you don't want me around," you admitted. The playful tone evaporated from your words. They felt more like a confession than a jab.
"I do want you around," Isaac tutted. He reached for you, but you turned your back to him obstinately, hands on your hips. "Hey..."
You permitted his hands when they slid around your waist from behind. His chin dug sharply into your shoulder, but you didn't let yourself wince at the pain. Instead, you sighed and tilted your head, leaning against him for comfort.
"I like having you around," he murmured at your ear. "Like a bratty little cat, always swatting at my coattails and mewling for attention."
"Hey!" you cried with indignation, unflattered by the description.
"Hang on, hang on, let me finish," he urged. You grumbled, but held your tongue. "You never let me finish anything. That's the only problem with you, you know? I need you to let me finish what I'm doing. And then... I can give you my full, undivided attention."
You swallowed hard when he pressed his hips to the small of your back, let you feel the hardness there as his lips nipped at your jawline.
"How much longer til you finish your project?" you demanded grouchily.
"Give me thirty more minutes," he purred. "Please?"
You heaved a groan of displeasure, but caved to his request.
"Fine!"
Isaac released you and settled back into his seat. You flitted around his lab like a leaf in the wind, restless, impatient, barely appeased. Isaac worked in silence and it was the longest thirty minutes of your life. When it elapsed, you slid up behind him like the devil come to collect your due.
"Isaac... your time is up," you hummed happily.
"It's giving me more trouble than I anticipated," Isaac sighed. "Ten more minutes."
You buried your face in his collar and screamed your frustration, muffling the sound in fabric and the flesh of his shoulder. He twitched from the vibration.
"Hey, that tickles, stop!" he chuckled.
"Ten minutes, ten minutes," you complained. "I'll give you ten minutes now and then you'll ask for fifteen. I'll give you fifteen and you'll say you need twenty more. If you don't stop wasting my time-"
"Ugh, god, you're so fucking clingy!" Isaac groaned, rising sharply from his chair. He seized you by your arms, silenced you with his lips while he backed you against the table in the center of the room. You wanted to make him pay for jerking your chain down the road, but he pushed your legs apart and forced his way between them and your mind went treacherously blank.
"Waste your time," he scoffed. His hands flew over your body as if to placate you with his touch. "Waste your... you want more than any man could realistically give you, you know that?!"
"I know," you admitted, a smug edge to the words.
"You're suffocating," he accused. The word stung enough to evoke a sharp retort.
"Only because you're afraid of letting anyone get too close!" you snapped, the observation cutting a little deeper than you meant for it to. Isaac flinched back like you'd slapped him across the face. Your expression fell dramatically, heart sinking as you realized too late what you'd done, what you'd really just said to him.
"Oh, Isaac, you made me mad," you whined. "I didn't mean to say that. Don't shut me out over it. Hey!"
He was way too quiet as you caressed his cheeks, worked your hands through his tousled curls, tried to make him meet your gaze.
"Am I really?" he finally asked.
"Isaac..."
You didn't want to upset him, but you felt it would be doing him a disservice to take back such an astute analysis of his distant tendencies.
"I love you even when you're distant," you told him instead. "Even when you're cold. Even when you won't let me get as close as I want."
"If I let you get as close as I want, you would crawl inside me and wear me like a jacket," Isaac remarked snidely. You stifled a giggle at the absurd imagery his comeback inspired in your mind.
"I'd rather have you crawl inside me," you murmured at his ear. "The jacket part... I could take or leave."
"You're such a brat," Isaac sighed without a trace of real resentment in his voice. "Lean back. And I'll give you what you want so I can get back to work."
"Yes sir," you told him in jest.
What you wanted was to run your hands over every inch of his bare body while he made exquisite love to you at the top of his tower. After everything he'd put you through today, you were content to settle for lacing his fingers through yours while you made out and he fucked you the absolute bare minimum it took to make you cum on his operating table. The brief, bright moment of physical revelry was worth the wait, worth the contention, worth all the conflict.
Isaac Night would never let you get too close. But you were willing to meet him somewhere in the middle.
At Nevermore Academy, Edrisse "Eddi" Leveret has everything Isaac Night can't stand: intelligence that rivals his own, popularity she doesn't even seem to notice, and an irritating way of excelling at everything from academic to Bloodrush, the brutal outcast sport he considers beneath him.
Their rivalry is legendary- sharp words, sharper glares, and the occasional explosion in class when one outdoes the other. But beneath Eddi's quick wit and easy smile lies a secret Isaac was never meant to see: a vow carved into her very skin, binding her life to her siblings. Every time her father punishes them, she suffers the scars. Breaking the vow means death- for all of them.
Isaac doesn't care. At least, that's what he tells himself. With a clockwork heart ticking in his chest and a reputation for cold detachment, he knows he's not built for softness. But when Eddi's fight becomes impossible to ignore, when her music haunts him as much as her laugh, when protecting her little sister looks too much like protecting his own- he finds himself standing beside the girl he swore to outdo.
Rivalry turns to alliance, alliance to something more dangerous. Because falling in love with Eddi Leveret might mean breaking not just her vow, but his own heart of brass and gears.
Major Themes: Rivals to Lovers, family trauma, magical abuse, sibling loyalty, slow burn romance.
Warnings: Magical abuse/parental abuse (psychological, emotional, implied physical), Self-harm (adjacent imagery- magical vow scar that splits/burns), Blood/Injury detail, Violence, Eventual Smut (added warnings for those chapters), Angst.
Rating: Mature (+18)
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Nerve
They hadnât left Iago Tower in days.
Not for meals.
Not for sleep- at least not real sleep.
Not for sunlight.
The place had become their bunker, their laboratory, their cage. Books lay open across every surface, loose parchment scattered like fallen feathers. Candle stubs crowded the floor, dripping wax into teardrop puddles. The air was stale with ink and anxiety.
It was on the first night, when the door had been bolted and the storm outside drowned out the rest of Nevermore, that Eddi finally broke.
With her knees drawn to her chest on the cold stone floor, she told Isaac everything.
Not the edited version. Not the child-friendly one. Not the pieces she had used to keep the world from touching the rot inside her family.
Everything.
Her voice was quiet. But quiet like a blade.
She told him about the first time Abraxus ran away; how he had written her only once, begging her to leave with him, promising freedom and a future and a life beyond their fatherâs shadow. She told him how she couldnât go, not with a vow binding her life to Jagoâs and Vittorieâs. She told him how Abraxus returned years later, wild-eyed and thin, trying again to make her choose him over them.
And how when she told him about the vow, he didnât stay. He fled a second time; this time without looking back.
Eddiâs voice trembled only once, and it wasnât at the memory of Abraxus leaving.
It was when she spoke about what came after.
The night Rudolphus came to her room.
She didnât look at Isaac as she said it. She stared at the candle flame instead, watching it warp and shiver as though it too knew her fatherâs name.
âHe brought me a chain,â she whispered. âAbraxusâs. He⊠always wore it. Even when we were kids.â
Isaacâs hands tightened around his knees.
Eddi swallowed, breath stuttering. âIt was covered in blood.â
The tower seemed to breathe with her, slow, painful.
âHe put it in my hand,â she continued. âTold me that if I ever tried to run⊠if I ever tried to take Jago and Vittorie away⊠if I ever tried to break the vowââ Her jaw clenched. âHe said heâd end me the same way. And that my siblings would die with me.â
Isaacâs voice cracked for the first time since sheâd begun speaking.
âEd⊠Eddiââ
âHe told me children are easily made,â she said, eyes gone hollow, âand replaced.â
The words landed between them like a corpse.
Isaac lurched forward: instinct, reflex, desperation, wanting to touch her, to hold her, to do something to make up for years he hadnât been there. But he stopped just short of reaching her face, hovering like his hand was afraid it might break her further.
When he finally spoke, it was rough, trembling, furious. âYou should never have faced that alone.â
Eddiâs breath wavered. âWho else was there?â
Isaac didnât try to argue. He only moved closer, until their knees touched, until her shaking breath brushed his chin. He pressed his forehead to hers, a tiny, trembling point of contact, and whispered with a steadiness he didnât feel: âYouâre not alone now.â
And for the next several days, neither of them left the tower.
They devoured spellbooks. They tore apart blood magic theory. They deciphered long-dead DaVinci treatises. Every waking hour, and they hardly slept, they hunted for a loophole, a crack, anything that could free her from the vow without killing the people she loved.
Eddi was relentless. Isaac was worse.
Because now he knew exactly what she had endured. Exactly what she was still trapped under. Exactly what breaking the vow meant.
And he was determined, obsessed, to be the one who freed her. Even if it meant tearing the vow apart thread by thread. Even if it meant tearing Rudolphus apart along with it.
It happened on the fourth night.
The tower was silent, save for the constant turning of pages and the scratch-scratch of Eddiâs penâŠuntil the scratching stopped. Isaacâs voice broke the quiet instead: low, sharp, breathless in the way someone sounds when the truth theyâve found is worse than the ignorance they escaped.
âEddi,â he said. âCome here.â
She looked up, expecting another dead end. Another footnote. Another maddening almost. But when she saw Isaacâs face; drained of colour, eyes dark, jaw clenched so tight it couldâve been carved from stone, her stomach turned cold.
âWhat is it?â she asked.
He didnât answer. He just slid the old leather tome across the table, open to a page inked in dark red script. Ancient. Violent.
Not Unbreakable Vows by name. But the cousin of it. A blood tether older than the DaVinci bloodline itself.
Eddi skimmed the passage. Her breath caught. She forced herself to read it again. And again.
A willing sacrificial exchange. Blood for blood. Life for life. Someone had to take the curse into themselves so the original bearer could go free.
Someone had to die slowly so she didnât. Her heart sank like a stone thrown into deep water.
âSo thatâs it,â she whispered. âThatâs...the only way?â
Isaacâs throat bobbed. âItâs the only thing in here that has even the structure to match your vow.â His hands were shaking. âIt could kill the vow. It could free you.â
Eddi swallowed. âAnd kill whoever takes it.â
Isaac didnât deny it. He didnât have to. Because she saw it in his eyes a second before he opened his mouth: Heâd already weighed it up in his own mind.
âNo,â she said sharply, preemptively, already stepping back. âIsaacâdonât.â
He took a step toward her anyway, fists clenched. âEddiââ
âIsaac, I said no.â
âYou can't keep living like this,â he snapped, voice cracking from the pressure finally spilling out. âYour father will destroy you. And that vow will finish the job. I canât just, stand here, knowing thereâs a way and do nothing.â
âYou think I would let you die?â she barked. âThatâs not your decision to make.â
That hit something primal inside her, and before she could respond  the chair behind Isaac flew, launched by his telekinesis, crashing against the far wall so hard the wood splintered into dust.
Eddi didnât even flinch. She just stared at him. His chest was heaving. His face flushed with fury and fear.
âI have a sister too,â he said through gritted teeth. âI know exactly what it means to be responsible for someone. And I know exactly what it means to lose them. So if you think Iâd just stand back and let you be erased by a curse your father chained to you like an animalââ
âIsaac.â Her voice was soft but firm. âYou couldnât do that to Francoise.â
He froze.
The anger in him flickered, collapsed, left him hollow and exposed.
Eddi didnât stop.
âYou take that curse, she loses you. She falls apart. Sheâs strong, but she loves you too much to survive losing you. You know that.â
Isaac closed his eyes. His breathing steadied, then faltered. He looked suddenly very young. Very tired.
âI know,â he murmured.
Silence folded around them: heavy, suffocating. Eddi waited for him to sit, to think, to back down. But Isaac didnât sit. He looked at her.
Really looked at her.
And something in him broke clean open.
âI know it doesnât make sense,â he said quietly. âI know weâve spent years avoiding each other, snapping at each other, arguing about everything down to the angle a pen should sit.â
He swallowed. Hard. âAnd I know itâs only been weeks since we stopped pretending to hate each other.â
Eddiâs heart thudded painfully.
âBut the truth isâŠâ His voice grew soft, painfully sincere, painfully Isaac. âI think I might be falling in love with you.â
The words hung in the air like a spell neither of them knew how to break.
Eddi stared at him.
Of all the things Isaac Night could have said: another obscure citation, a calculation, a warning, anything, that was the last thing sheâd been prepared for.
Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Shock washed through her so thoroughly it made her sit down without realising she had. She blinked at him, trying to steady herself.
âWell,â she said at last, grasping for something, anything, to diffuse the weight in the room, âif this is because Lenny said he was jealous, and in love with me, you really didnât have to one-up him.â
Isaac didnât laugh.
Not even a twitch.
Instead, he stepped closer, gaze unwavering and more intense than sheâd ever seen it.
âYou can mock me if you want,â he said, voice low and serious in that maddening Isaac way. âBut you should know...itâll probably just turn me on more.â
Eddi barked out a laugh before she could stop herself. A real one. Sharp. Warm. Too honest.
And then she realised she was smiling.
Her chin ended up propped in her hand, elbow on her knee as she regarded him, head tilted, eyes trailing over him with a new, unsettling fondness.
Isaac Night, brilliant, brooding, infuriating Isaac, stood in front of her with his guard down. For her. Only her.
His eyes were still storm-dark from the fight and the revelation, but now they were locked onto her alone, like she was the only fixed point in the room.
âWell,â she said softly, feeling her chest tighten, âif it helpsâŠI think I might be falling in love with you too.â
Isaacâs breath hitched.
A tiny, involuntary sound. One she mightâve missed if she wasnât watching him so closely. He moved toward her, slowly, deliberately, until his shadow fell over her. Eddi lifted her chin, expecting a kiss.
She even leaned in.
But instead Isaac slid an arm around the back of her head, drawing her forward, not to his lips, but to his chest.
Her nose brushed the fabric of his shirt. His mechanical heartbeat thudded against her cheek: fast, wild, unguarded.
And then she felt it. His lips press into her hair. Not hurried. Not desperate. JustâŠfirm.
A promise sealed in breath.
âIâll never stop looking,â he murmured into her curls, voice rough and certain. âNot for you.â
Eddi closed her eyes. For the first time since the vow had poisoned her life, she felt the world shift under her feet, not into fear, but into something terrifyingly gentle.
Something like hope.
Their kiss unravelled slowly.
Not frantic, not desperate: nothing like the collision under the Skull Tree or the heat that sparked between them when the world fell away. This kiss was deliberate. Weighted. The kind you only give someone once youâve peeled back the armour you didnât even know you wore.
Isaacâs fingers stayed curled at the back of her neck, anchoring her as though he was afraid she might dissolve into smoke. Eddi threaded a hand into his hair, feeling the soft, dark curl of it, the faint warmth rising from his skin despite the cold stone walls around them.
When they finally separated, there was a gentle sound between them: the kind made by two people who hadnât realised theyâd stopped breathing.
Eddi sat back first, exhaling shakily, dragging her hair away from her face. But her gaze dropped; inevitably, helplessly, to her arm. The fabric of her jumper had crawled up with their sultry movements, and the gnarled skin underneath was visible between them.
The scar was an ugly, snarled thing under the dim tower lights. It twisted like a vine that had rooted itself deep beneath her skin, pulsing faintly as if aware of her attention. Some nights, she swore she felt it move. Others, she wished she could dig it out with her teeth and nails.
Tonight, she didnât feel like keeping anything to herself.
âI swear,â she muttered, staring at it with a bitter edge to her voice, âif I could just peel my skin off and reach down into my own bones- Iâd tear this damn vow out with my bare hands.â
Her voice cracked on the last word.
The sound bounced off stone and metal, sharp in the circular chamber, and when the echo died she realised how violently quiet Isaac had gone.
She lifted her head.
Isaac had moved, not far, but far enough that she felt the loss of his warmth. He stood facing the enormous circular window, the one that overlooked the red morning haze. His posture was precise, too precise: shoulders tight, spine straight, hands clasped behind him like he was bracing himself against an invisible force.
âIsaac?â Eddi said softly.
He didnât answer.
She pushed herself up a little, studying him, noticing the subtle tremor beneath the rigid set of his shoulders.
âAre you⊠alright?â
A long moment. Then, a single, measured nod.
But everything in his body contradicted it.
When he finally turned, there was a look in his eyes she had never seen before. Not anger. Not coldness. Not calculation.
Purpose.
A frightening, beautiful, impossible purpose.
âIâm going to build a machine,â Isaac said, voice unnervingly calm. It was the voice he used when he was already ten steps into a theory. âNot rudimentary. Not experimental. A device engineered for biological precision.â
He stepped toward her slowly, his gaze dropping to her scar with a kind of analytical fury.
âTo extract it,â Isaac said simply. âThe vow. The curse. Whatever form itâs taken in your body. Iâm going to design something capable of operating beneath the dermal layer without damaging your tissues.â
Her heart thudded once, painfully.
âYou want toââ she swallowed, ââperform surgery on a curse?â
âYes.â No hesitation. Not even a second of doubt.
He came closer, kneeling in front of her without ceremony, his fingers hovering just over her scar, close enough to feel its warmth but not touching.
âI can see where itâs threaded now,â he murmured, eyes scanning her arm. âHow it follows your nerve pathways. How it anchors to intuitive magic. If I can map it- if I can understand the structure- I can cut it out.â
Cut it out. Like it was a tumour. Like she wasnât terrified of dying before he even opened her skin.
âIsaacâŠâ Her voice was small, almost breaking.
But he shook his head sharply, lifting his gaze to hers, and she saw it then. Not recklessness. Not desperation.
Conviction.
âIâm not losing you,â he said. Quiet. Unshakeable. âNot to your father. Not to the vow. Not to some ancient magic that thinks it can claim you.â He straightened, still kneeling, still impossibly close. âIâll build something to take it from you. Piece by piece. Before it kills you.â
Eddi felt something inside her collapse; not in fear, but in awe. In absolute, bewildered, painful love.
She opened her mouth to argue, to tell him how impossible this was, to tell him he was madâ
But then he held her gaze with that fierce, analytical devotion, and for a terrifying moment she believed him.
Really believed him.
âYou think you can just reach inside me with some clockwork monstrosity and pull out a curse thatâs been killing me since I was twelve?â Eddi whispered, voice shaking.
Isaacâs expression didnât soften. It sharpened.
âYes,â he said simply. âBecause I refuse to let you die.â
Something hot burned up her throat: anger, grief, hope, something too big for her bones. Her voice cracked on a laugh.
âYouâre insane.â
âI know.â
âYouâre going to get yourself killed.â
âI know that too.â
âAnd you still want to do it.â
His eyes flickered downward, to her arm, then back up to her face.
âIâd dismantle my entire body if it kept you breathing.â
Her breath stuttered. She hated him. She loved him. She couldnât tell the difference anymore.
Eddi reached out, her fingertips brushing the line of his jaw.
âIsaacâŠâ
But he had already made his decision.
And she could feel it in the charged air between them, the way his hands trembled with the need to reach for her again.
He was going to build the machine. Even if it broke him. Even if it broke them both.
And for the first time since her father tethered her life to her siblingsâ, Eddi felt something like hope. Dangerous, impossible hope. Isaac Night would tear the vow out of her personally.
How do you think isaac would react to the reader having a panic attack/crying and how he would comfort her? Thanks :)
đ Isaac Night x Reader â âEven the Sun Can Burnâ
Isaac Night has always thought of you as his constant: your warmth, your softness, your steady presence anchoring his sharp, analytical mind.
So when it finally happensâŠ
When you are the one unravelingâŠ
Youâd been pushing yourself for weeks/ Assignments. Deadlines. Essays. Barely sleeping.
Isaac had been keeping track of your workload as usual, intending to help you balance it. So when he casually reminded you, âDove⊠youâve another paper due tomorrow,â he wasnât expecting the sound that came next.
The weak, strangled little sob.
Your breath hitched, your chest tightened, and you clutched at your sternum like something was tearing inside.
Isaac froze.
For a terrifying moment he truly thought you were dying. You gasped, âIt hurtsâIsaac, I canâtâI think Iâm dyingââ
And his world stopped.
His hands hovered uselessly for a second; his greatest fear was always losing you, and your pain hit him like a spear to the heart.
Then it clicked. The dizziness. The shaking. The tight chest. The spiraling words. Your wild, unfocused eyes.
âYouâre having a panic attack.â
His voice softened instantly, taking that low, firm tone he only used when he wanted to pull you back from the brink.
He knew his touch was an anchor. So it was the first thing he gave you. He took your hands gently but firmly. When your fingers trembled out of his grasp, he caught your waist instead. Then he pulled you flush against his chest, wrapping you in the cage of his arms.
Your forehead pressed to the hollow of his throat where he knew you liked to hide. He held you tight, but not trapping: grounding.
âDove. Breathe with me. Right here. Match me.â
His voice became your metronome: Low. Slow. Calm. The exact opposite of the chaos in your chest. You wheezed that you couldnât. That it hurt. That you were scared. So he shifted tactics.
âHold your breath,â he murmured. You shook your head, panic threatening to spike again.
So Isaac cupped your jaw: carefully, tenderly, and kissed you.
Not urgently. Not passionately. But purposefully. You startled just enough to inhale. Your lungs finally expanded. Your mind snapped back into your body.
And just like that, the sharp edge of the panic dulled. When you slumped against him, exhausted and shaking, Isaac didnât move you.
He just held you: his chin resting on your crown, his hand stroking your back in slow, even lines.
âYouâre not dying,â he whispered. âYouâre overwhelmed. Youâre exhausted. And you donât have to carry all of this alone.â
He kissed your temple, your cheek, your browbone: soft, reassuring touches.
Then, barely above a whisper: âYou are allowed to fall apart with me. I will always know how to put you back together.â
He made you tea. He cleared your desk. He rearranged your deadlines. He sat beside you the rest of the night, refusing to let you out of his sight.
Because even if you were the calm in his stormâŠEven the sun needs clouds to shelter in sometimes.
And Isaac Night would burn the world to keep you safe.
How do Isaac and Reader handle growing older with each other? They obviously have the little prodigies and are good parents to them, but all of that is time. Years pass and they wonât be young forever. How do you think they handle that?
đ Isaac Night x Reader â Growing Old Together (Forever, But Not Immortal)
HC Warning: Angst, Mentions of Dying
Isaac never thought much about age when he was young. He was too busy building, creating, experimenting, obsessing.
But then you came into his life, and suddenly time was something he measured differently. Not in gears. Not in ticks. But in moments spent with you.
You were the first to notice its signs. The morning aches. The stiffness in your knees when you bent to pick up a fallen toy. The slight pause you took before getting out of bed.
And one nightâŠIsaac was sprawled across your lap after putting the kids to bed, his head pillowed comfortably against your thighs while you combed your fingers through his thick black hair.
Then you saw it. A single silver thread.
You froze.
He didnât even notice; he was rambling about some new innovation he wanted to test. You smiled. Because to you, it wasnât frightening. It was beautiful.
And more silver strands followed. You adored every single one.
You? You accepted aging with a quiet grace.
Isaac? Isaac reacted like time itself had personally wronged him.
He tried to hide the silver hair. Tried to pull overtime at Nevermore. Tried new dietary changes, sleep patterns, calculation models.
But it wasnât until you found the papersâhis equations for prolonging life, buried under disorganised stacks of sketches and notes in his studyâthat the truth hit you:
He wasnât worried about himself. He was terrified of losing you.
You didnât even hesitate. You threw the pages into the bin. Youâd never destroyed his work before. Never.
And when Isaac discovered it?
He looked betrayed in a way you had never seen before; all sharp edges, wide eyes, and trembling fury under the surface.
âHow could you? Youâof all peopleâyou threw away my work." âBecause I wonât let you erase our life,â you shot back.
He thought you meant you didnât want forever with him. It broke him. His voice cracked when he whispered, âYou donât want more time with me?â
And that was when you realized the depth of itâhis fear, his desperation, his love.
You cupped his face. âI want to grow old with you.â He blinked, confused and raw. âI want to live with you, Isaac. Not just exist forever. Life is supposed to have an ending. Thatâs what makes it ours.â
He shook his head, voice tight. âMy heart⊠it may run longer than yours. I donât want to wake one day and have youâgone.â
You pressed your forehead to his. âI found you in this life,â you whispered. âAnd Iâll find you in the nextâŠand the nextâŠand the next. Youâre not losing me. Ever.â
Isaacâs breath shuddered. He closed his eyes, hands gripping your wrists like you were his only anchor.
And slowlyâvery slowlyâhe let the idea sink in. Not immortality. Not endless life.
But a life fully lived beside you.
In the years that followed: Your hair silvered completely, first; Isaac adored it. Isaacâs silver only made him look more broodingly handsome, and you teased him mercilessly for it.
The children grew, moved, built lives of their ownâand Isaac learned to let them go, because heâd practiced letting go of control with you.
You walked slower. He steadied you. He grew more tired. You tucked him into bed with a kiss.
You were aging. He was aging. Together.
And Isaac eventually came to love it. Because growing old with you meant heâd had the privilege of loving you for a lifetime.
He still fears your final moment. He always will.
But you remind him, often, with a smile soft enough to stop the turning of his gears: âDonât worry, Issy. Weâre not done. Not in this life. Not in the next. Not ever.â
Eventually, Isaac stops mourning the idea of eternityâŠBecause he realizes: He already has it. In you.
In your life together. In your legacy. In every silver hair and laugh line carved into your shared existence.
And when he tells you, in a whisper one night: âYou were my greatest experimentâŠand my greatest success,â you kiss his hands and promise, âWeâll run out of time together, my love. And start again.â
Isaac Night had a contemptuous relationship with Christmas. Francoise loved it, often desperate to attend every normie festive market or carol event that croped up in Jehericho. He went with her, of course, but as little more than her unsought chaperone.
Isaac, on the other hand, always found it more difficult to shake off the habit of looking over his shoulder for his father's bad mood, or the memories of spending several Christmases in dingey hospital beds, often alone and feeling like crap.
That was until he met, and inexplicably fell in love with, you.
You didn't notice it for a long while, but there was a sudden attentiveness in the manner in which Isaac regarded you, be it at breakfast, in class, or in town across the heads of the overly-excited crowds at mulled wine stalls. Cataloguing your excitement, gauging your interest in small knick-knacks picked up and put back down with wool-gloved fingers, committing each to memory.
But the day you packed your bags to return home to family for the holidays, a new box had made its way into your case. Inside, a metal, far more detailed replica of the small, inconsequential thing you had considered but left behind at that small market stall, money saved for hot chocolate and mince pies.
And as you pressed a quick, far more significant kiss to his cheek as you passed him to find your family's car â a smile on your face, a murmered thank you â his cheeks warmed, and Isaac realised that maybe Christmas didn't have to be so bad, after all.
đđđđ, đđ đđđđđ„, đŁđđđđ đ | âđđŁđđ€đ„đđđ€ đđđ đđđđŠ | đđđđ đđđ€đ„đđŁđđđ€đ„
[ Christmas banner by my beloved, @pepsipoet ]
The Mighty Jellybean @the-mighty-jellybean - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
