For a moment, I think he’s about to cry. But when he looks back at me, his eyes nearly glow with rage. “How. Dare. You.”
“How dare I?” I blink, the world coming back into clarity.What didIdo that would upset him?
“What were you thinking, going off with them?” Lucan’s thumbs brush over my cheeks as he commands the space above me. Between the exhaustion in my body and the weight of his presence, I’d have to struggle to move away if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. “You knew whatever she had for you wasn’t going to be good.”
“You…were there?” The feeling of eyes on me the whole time I walked through the monastery with Cindel. It was him? “Why didn’t you say something?”
“And risk them doing something worse because they felt cornered?”
“Worse than knocking me off a ledge?”
“I didn’t think you were actually going to go out there!” His voice rises slightly. “If I hadn’t…” He scrapes his fingers through his hair, clearly frustrated.
“If you hadn’t what?” I probe.
“I was going to attack them, but it happened so fast. When I heard her triumph, I practically threw myself down the stairs to catch you from the window in time…” His voice softens, and he straightens away, looking across the shattered glass that shines like distant stars in the barely-there light.
Now that he’s not looming over me, I sit up as well. We’re in a study room of some kind with three tables with several chairs each. The window’s been ripped open, the iron twisted back, the panes completely gone.
“How did you do that?” I whisper. For a fraction of a second, hetenses, and suddenly, there’s an unease in the air.Something’s not right.
“As I raced down here, I was sorting out what to do,” he says calmly. “I combined our sigils. I drew the armor one you found and my healing one to make an aura that defended me enough to break the window and catch you without sustaining too much damage to my own body. I was just in time, too.”
Does that explanation make sense?Combining sigils is advanced magic. Doing it in the sundering pits nearly tore me apart. Can Lucan do that?
I touch my temple where Cindel got a direct hit on me, and my fingers come away damp, stained crimson. Or maybe it’s from when my head cracked against the outside of the building. His story doesn’t feel right…but my head hurts so badly, I’m not thinking straight.It’ll make more sense in the morning, I tell myself.
My cheeks feel warm as he leans away from me and I lace myself back up. My trembling fingers fumble with the cords as I struggle to pull them taut.
“Let me help you,” Lucan says softly, reaching forward slowly enough that I have plenty of time to object.
I don’t.
There’s something so entrancing about watching his fingers carefully, almost delicately, put my clothing back together that I nearly forget about the pain I’m in. I trace his outline with my eyes. The lines of focus etched around his brows. His strong jaw. Every strand of dark-blond hair.
“There,” he murmurs as his fingertips smooth over the leather by my collar. “Now, let’s finish healing you.” Etherlight swirls around him, rising like a gentle tide. It washes over me, enveloping me. Its warmth sinks into every cut and scrape. A soft golden glow illuminates us both.
A stretch of silence passes between us. I’m mesmerized by themovement of his hands as they hover over me, bathing me in magic. Especially when he brings them close to the side of my face where the thing that Cindel threw hit me. He meets my eyes, and my chest squeezes as my mind takes me back to the moment between the two of us in the window of our hideaway only an hour or so ago. He’s nearly done, and I feel like this might be my only chance…
“What did you mean earlier?” It’s the least important thing for me to ask right now, but it’s the only thing I want answered. “Why couldn’t you… Withme?” The question is half-formed because I’m not quite sure how to phrase it. I’m not quite sure what we were going to do, how far things would have gone. If I was right about what I saw in his eyes at all. I have suspicions, but the last thing I want to do is say it out loud and be wrong.
He doesn’t answer. For a second, I think he’s not going to—that he’s just going to ignore me again.
“You’re a difficult person,” he says slowly, as if the words themselves are hard to say.
I laugh. “Me? Difficult?”
“I can’t be the first person who’s told you as much.”
“I think you might be.”
“Liar.” He grins, and I realize the expression mirrors my own. “You areastoundinglydifficult.”
My grin only widens.Thisis the Lucan I’ve become familiar with in the Tribunal, even grown fond of. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“See? Difficult.” He pulls his hands away, and the Etherlight fades. I want to tell him to keep going, just so I can see the details of his face more clearly. “How do you feel?”
“Much better.” I tilt my head from side to side. There’s still some stiffness in my spine, but nothing major. “Thank you.”
