“Regret.” The word tastes sour on my tongue. “If you thought I’d be something you’d regret,then why save my life?Twice?”
“Don’t.” The word is clipped and steady, despite the war playing out in his eyes.
“Don’twhat?”My body’s buzzing, electrical currents running through my veins, as if they want to protect me if he says one more hurtful thing that makes it feel like he’s ripping my heart out of my chest.
“Jade.” Something about the way he says my name—uncertain now, as if he’s having second thoughts—makes the magic rein itself back in slightly. “I’m sorry.”
There’s a surprising vulnerability in his tone. A pleading in his eyes. So many unsaid words trying to claw their way out of the steel walls he constructed around himself again.
But I’m not going to get through to him. Not now, and maybe not ever.
“I’m sorry, too.” I swallow down tears and leave his office on unsteady legs, the ghost of his touch lingering on my skin.
But as I walk back to Phoenix Hall, it’s the look on his face that haunts me. Not just exhaustion, but something rawer.
Like a man watching his last chance at salvation walk away.
JADE
I knowsomething’s wrong the moment I step into the dining hall.
The massive fire pit that usually blazes at the center has dimmed to barely more than embers. The floating chandeliers flicker erratically, casting unsettling shadows that make everyone look haunted. Even the usual morning chaos—overlapping conversations and bursts of laughter—has been muted.
“What’s going on?” Evie asks, her fingers tightening around her bag strap.
I scan the room, searching for one face in particular. The one who’s refused to meet my eyes since our whiplash of an encounter in his office three days ago.
But Logan’s usual spot at the fourth-year table, where he always holds court with that perfect posture and controlled expression, is vacant.
Worry tightens in my chest, as if the tension in the room has crawled its way into my body.
“Come on.” Evie tugs my arm, leading me to our all but officially assigned spots in social Siberia at the first-year table.
As we walk, I keep glancing at the fourth-year table, waiting for Logan to show up and take his seat.
He doesn’t. And I can’t get rid of the feeling that something is horribly wrong, and that somehow, it’s connected to him.
Soon after we sit down, a sharp ring of metal on crystal cuts through the murmuring. At the head table, the Headmistress rises, and the temperature in the room seems to plummet. Thad stares at his plate, Lydia Rousseau’s usual smirk is replaced by something hollow, and Kieran’s jaw works like he’s grinding glass between his teeth. Delia’s nowhere to be seen.
“Students.” Constance’s eyes sweep the room, and I swear they linger for a second or two longer on our table. “The academy has experienced a tragic loss.”
Aloss?
The world stops turning. Fear numbs my bones. Because Logan’s not here, and the way she said it, it sounds like?—
“A member of our community, Miles Deveraux, was found deceased in the Ember Archives early this morning.”
All the air exits my body at once.
Miles.Not Logan.
The relief is quickly followed by a wave of guilt at the fact that the announcement put me at ease. Because even though Logan’s okay—supposedly—another student is gone. Dead.
The word doesn’t feelreal.
Meanwhile, gasps are rippling through the hall. Someone at the second-year table starts crying, quickly muffled.
“The Ember Archives are a restricted section of our library,” Constance continues, her tone sharpening. “It’s authorized for professors and fourth-year students only. Effective immediately, fourth-year access is revoked indefinitely.”
