**Interlude — Dixie’s POV

  “The Archivist Smells Like Trouble (and Ink)”**

  I do not like seams.

  I do not like cracks. I do not like void?pressure. I do not like the Archivist, his coat, his shoes, his braid, or his smirk that thinks it is allowed to exist in my vicinity.

  Mostly, I do not like when the world decides to tear and put my witch on the wrong side of the tear.

  The room is quiet now. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that is thinking.

  Trixie leans on the chalkboard rail breathing like she forgot how lungs work. Nolan holds her elbow with the same care someone might use on a glass teapot full of gunpowder. My fur is still standing straight up, which is very undignified, but I refuse to fix it until I am convinced the danger has passed. (It has not. It never has. Have you met Salem? Exactly.)

  Nolan turns to her. “You sure you’re okay?”

  She lies immediately. “Yes.”

  He does not believe her. “Try again.”

  She wilts. “No.”

  Good. Honesty saves lives.

  I jump to her shoulder and press my forehead into her jaw. Grounding. Witches need grounding. If I had thumbs, I would shake her by the face and tell her to stop letting extradimensional void entities rent apartments in her head without paying emotional support deposits.

  But I do not have thumbs.

  I have claws.

  Which brings me to the Archivist.

  That ink?smelling, page?turning, chapter?stealing nuisance.

  He walked out of that seam like he was stepping into a poetry reading. Who does that? Who enters a room during an active emergency with the posture of someone about to ask if we’ve tried chamomile tea?

  He looked at Trixie the way librarians look at overdue books: fond, exhausted, and ready to rewrite your spine.

  I hate him.

  “I’m sorry,” Trixie whispers. She is apologizing for shaking. For being exhausted. For existing.

  I bite her lightly on the shoulder. “Absolutely not. No apologizing.”

  “She’s right,” Nolan says. Look at him. Learning. “None of this is your fault, Trix.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  She shakes her head. “He heard our rhythm.”

  Of course he did. He hears everything. He’s a walking thesaurus with boundary issues.

  But there was something else.

  Something he said that made my tail stand up even higher:

  A door is built from its keys. Choose wisely which one you become.

  I do not like implications. They imply things.

  Trixie wraps her arms around herself. Nolan steps closer like he knows instinctively how much space to give and how much to take. Good boy.

  But I am the one who climbs into her lap and curls up, planting my tail across both their knees like a ceremonial sash.

  “Listen to me,” I tell them.

  They do. They always do when I use that tone.

  “That creature did not come through because he needed to. He came through because you—” I jab Trixie in the sternum with my paw, “—are learning faster than he expected, and you—” I jab Nolan’s wrist, “—are breaking rules he didn’t plan for.”

  Nolan snorts softly. “That makes three of us.”

  “Quiet, I am speaking.”

  He shuts up. Good.

  “You are building something new. He does not like new. He likes predictable. Catalogued. Indexed.”

  Trixie murmurs, “He said he wanted to help.”

  I hack an offended little cough. “He said a lie. That is what he did.”

  “Dix…” she starts.

  “No.” I stand fully on her lap, tail whipping like a battle flag. “Witches get targeted by void kings. Idiots get targeted by council bureaucracy. Cats get targeted by toddlers. But the Archivist—he targets potential.”

  Trixie goes still.

  Nolan’s jaw tightens.

  I continue.

  “He wants to make you useful. Not safe. Not strong. Not whole. Useful. And he is very patient in carving his usefulness out of people.”

  Trixie closes her eyes. “I know.”

  “No, you don’t,” I whisper. “But you will. And when you do, you won’t face it alone.”

  Nolan squeezes her hand at the same moment she squeezes his.

  The tether between them hums like a quiet warning and a quiet promise all at once.

  I settle against her ribs and allow myself a single, begrudging thought:

  He chose her. She chose him. That is dangerous for everyone who isn’t them.

  Especially the Archivist.

  Especially the Hollow King.

  Especially whatever door thinks it gets to claim my witch without going through me first.

  Trixie strokes my back with shaky fingers. “Thank you, Dix.”

  “For what?” I sniff. “Stating the obvious? I am an expert at that.”

  “You’re… keeping us together.”

  “Someone has to,” I mutter. “Left alone, you two would form a tragic ballad and I’d be stuck haunting a lamppost in the rain.”

  Nolan laughs softly.

  Trixie breathes easier.

  The room feels… less hungry.

  And I, Dixie Bell — familiar, guardian, chaos on paws — curl tighter around my witch and the man she’s illogically tethered to, and give the walls a hiss just in case the Academy decides to get ideas.

  Let the Archivist look. Let the Hollow King whisper. Let the door wait.

  I am here.

  And everything on the other side can deal with it.