"Well—hypothetically speaking," Rajveer said slowly, fingers tightening against the armrest, "it is my blood that protects me. My blood is what allows me to cross dimensions."
The room stilled.
"If my blood were to run through your veins," he continued, voice low, analytical despite the storm behind his eyes, "even for a limited period of time, it might grant you enough protection. Enough to cross the rip."
Abarax's breath caught.
Orion straightened, already preparing to question him—to ask about quantities, methods, transfusions—but Rajveer raised a hand and continued before he could speak.
"There are complications," Rajveer said grimly. "Many of them."
He leaned forward now, elbows on his knees.
"Time does not flow uniformly across dimensions. Even if you manage to reach the correct reality, there is no guarantee you will land in the right timeline. You could arrive too early. Too late. Or in a moment that should not exist at all."
Janani frowned deeply, her mind already racing ahead. "And that is assuming they even survive the crossing."
"Yes," Rajveer agreed. "We don't know how long it takes to cross a rip. Minutes. Hours. Days. We also don't know how much blood would be required for sustained protection."
His jaw clenched.
"What if what I give them is not enough?" he said quietly. "What if the protection wears off while they are still inside the rip?"
The question hung in the air like a blade.
Janani inhaled sharply. "Then why not you go through it, Veer?" she asked softly. "It would be easier. Your blood already protects you."
Orion's eyes snapped to her.
"Sister-in-law," he said tightly, "you are forgetting the curse."
Janani stilled.
"Except for us," Orion continued, his voice hardening, "no one can interfere. If Rajveer physically crosses, the curse will activate. He will forget them. Completely."
Abarax looked up sharply.
"And once that happens," Orion added, "it becomes an entirely different problem. If you forget them too—"
"We lose them forever," Janani whispered.
Silence swallowed the room.
Rajveer rose slowly to his feet.
"Then we try," he said.
Both men looked at him.
"If this is the only plausible path we have found," Rajveer continued, his voice rising with restrained fury, "then we take it. I will not waste more time chasing safer theories while my sisters remain lost."
The air around them trembled.
"The children have grown, Orion," Rajveer said, his control finally cracking. "My sister has already missed most of her own children's lives."
His eyes burned.
"I will not wait any longer."
The lamps flickered.
The diyas flared, their flames stretching unnaturally tall.
"I will search the family library," Rajveer went on, his voice sharp and final. "Every record. Every forbidden text. Every mention of blood-binding and dimensional immunity. We will refine this method."
He turned to face Orion and Abarax fully now.
"And once we do," he said coldly, "I want you both to find my sisters and bring them back."
His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper.
"I do not care if you lose your lives in the process."
The magic in the room surged.
"I just want them back."
The flames leapt violently in response, shadows twisting along the walls as Rajveer turned and walked out—his back rigid, his grief and fury trailing behind him like a storm—never once looking back.
********
The Blacks…
Arcturus Black was well known within the Black family for one reason above all others—he had become Lord of the House despite not being the firstborn.
It had not been inheritance that placed the ring on his finger, but calculation.
He was a cut-throat politician when the situation demanded it, ruthless enough to outmaneuver his brothers without ever drawing open blood. And yet, for all that sharpness, perhaps that was where Orion Black inherited his infuriating lover-boy tendencies—because Arcturus Black was utterly, hopelessly devoted to his wife.
Melaina Black had never truly fit the House of Black.
Merlin help them, she had been a Hufflepuff.
She was everything the Blacks were not—warm, gentle, openly kind—and yet beneath that softness lay a quiet, unsettling madness that had drawn Arcturus to her from the very beginning. A madness that did not scream, but waited.
Their home reflected her influence.
It was a small, cottage-like house tucked into a magical village in England, far from the ancestral halls and screaming portraits of Grimmauld Place. Arcturus had built it himself with the very first money he had ever earned—money that was his alone. That was why they lived there. That was why it was safe.
Or safer than most things tied to the Blacks ever were.
"Something is terribly wrong with our boy," Melaina said softly.
Arcturus did not look up from the fire.
"I know, darling," he replied after a long moment. "I know."
At first, he had told himself it was the madness—something dormant in their blood finally catching up to Orion. Or perhaps the old family curse resurfacing, as it always did, generation after generation.
"But it's more than that," he continued quietly. "There's something he isn't telling us."
Melaina turned to look at him.
"I gave him time. Space," Arcturus said, his voice roughening. "I prayed to the old gods that whatever had hold of him would loosen its grip."
The fire crackled.
"And yet," he added, "nothing changes."
Melaina moved to the window, watching a group of children flying under the watchful eyes of their parents, laughter echoing faintly through the glass.
"Do you remember that day?" Arcturus asked suddenly.
She stiffened.
"The day he came to us drenched in blood," Arcturus continued, eyes unfocused, "looking as though he had lost his soul."
Silence stretched.
"And yet," he said slowly, "I don't remember it clearly. Not properly."
Melaina turned, her expression sharpening.
"It isn't forgotten," Arcturus went on. "But I only started remembering it recently. After he returned from his seclusion."
Melaina stared at her husband.
"What do you mean, husband?"
Arcturus finally met her eyes.
"It means," he said quietly, "that something has been happening around us."
Something old.
Something deliberate.
"And we," he finished, voice low and dangerous, "have been kept out of the loop."