Luca winced but obeyed, climbing onto the nearest medbed with Riven’s help. He gave a strangled grunt when he rolled to his side, baring the cauterized wound. Aeris muttered something about “battle-happy idiots” and reached for their equipment tray.
“You’re a real ray of sunshine,” Luca grumbled.
“I’d be shinier if you stopped getting holes blown through you every other month.” Aeris’s fingers were already working, probing the flesh around the wound, checking for deeper damage. Their touch was surprisingly gentle despite the clipped tone. “You’re lucky it burned clean. Another inch up and you’d be pissing blood.”
The wound wasn’t just scorched—it looked angry, magic-burned, singed edges mottled with red and the faint shimmer of residual spellwork. Aeris murmured a diagnostic spell, light flickering under their palm.
Riven stood back, arms crossed, trying not to show how shaken he still was. The twins were always so composed. But here was Luca, injured, chastened, and being scolded by someone who clearly cared, even if it was buried under sarcasm and irritation.
He leaned toward Cassian and whispered, “Is he blushing?”
Cassian snorted. “It’s this whole thing.”
Riven blinked. “Wait, are they—?”
“It’s complicated. Shut up.”
Aeris turned without missing a beat. “I can hear you.”
Riven held up his hands. “Not judging. Just observing.”
“Observing gets you a reflex check. You want to be my next patient?”
Riven grinned in spite of himself. “Kinda like you, Doc.”
“I grow on people. Like mold.”
They turned back to Luca and began sealing the edges of the wound with a wand that emitted soft pulses of restorative magic. Riven watched the slow, careful work and the faint glow it left in its wake. His throat tightened again. This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of this was.
He should’ve stayed put. Shouldn’t have dragged them out into the city like that, even if they’d agreed. He’d thought it was harmless, that the danger was contained to House politics andsanctioned violence. He hadn’t counted on mages in the dark, on Luca bleeding in the backseat of a car.
And if the spell had hit him instead of Luca?
Would Cassian have carried his body back like that?
Would anyone have cared?
No. That wasn’t fair. He knew the twins cared in their own way—dry and subtle and buried under ten layers of training and duty, but still. The echo of that alley, the way Luca had gasped and folded, the stench of burning flesh—it was still in his throat.
“Don’t worry,” Aeris said, not unkindly, catching his expression. “He’ll be fine. Bruised and a little less cocky, but fine.”
Riven nodded, not trusting his voice.
Luca gave him a tired smirk from the bed. “Don’t look so tragic, Riven. I’ve had worse.”
Before Riven could respond, the door burst open.
The tension in the room snapped like a live wire.
Thane stood in the threshold, jaw tight, eyes blazing with something colder than fury. His black coat flared behind him. He looked like he hadn’t slept, or like maybe he didn’t need sleep, only rage.
His gaze zeroed in on Cassian like a dagger thrown.
“What,” Thane said, voice a low growl, “thefuck. Iswrongwith you?”
Chapter 22
Thane’s voice cracked across the infirmary, silencing even the low hum of the medical equipment. His eyes were twin storms locked on Cassian, whose face remained impassive, posture straight even as the air thickened with menace.
