TYLER POV — CHAPTER 36
They say when something is meant for you, it doesn’t force itself into your life.
That’s bullshit.
Some things don’t arrive gently. They invade. They slip under your skin, coil around your thoughts, and whisper until you’re no longer sure which ideas were yours to begin with.
Ophelia didn’t come back to me in flesh.
She didn’t need to.
She came in fragments.
In shadows.
In dreams that felt too real to ignore.
I stood at the edge of consciousness, caught somewhere between sleep and waking, when the cold crept in—not the kind that freezes your skin, but the kind that sinks into your bones. The air around me thickened, heavy with the scent of berries and iron.
“Still fighting it?” her voice murmured.
I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t need to.
“Get out of my he
