He mutters something under his breath and before I can decipher it, a subtle pressure gathers at our backs, guiding us down the hall. It’s a directional charm, one powerful enough to shove us into an alcove where the professors’ voices fade to a distant roar. Liam’s wand gleams at his waistband, the answer to how he managed to move the three of us without a word.
He steps in front of us the moment we stop moving, his voice breaking from its usual composed register.
“You told me he would keep students out of it.”
Harper’s hands bunch the loose thread of her robe, twisting it between her fingers until it cuts into her skin. Shame burns across her features, but beneath it lies something else, fear, confusion, doubt she refuses to name.
“I didn’t know he would do this-” she starts, but I cut her off before the apology forms.
“Why would you think he had any redeemable traits?”
The words come out sharper than intended, edged with something deeper than anger. She meets my stare with an equal, simmering intensity.
“I don’t think he has redeemable traits,” she snaps, leaves no room for misunderstanding, but the sting doesn’t fade from my chest.
Liam’s gaze flicks between us, expecting, what? That I’ll soften? Back down? Offer her the benefit of the doubt? Not now. Not after seeing her crest burned into someone’s skin like a death warrant.
My arms fold tightly across my chest, pressure building between my ribs until it hurts to inhale. “Then explain why you made a deal with him. Explain why you thought anything involving him could end differently.”
Her shoulders rise and fall with a trembling breath. When she looks at me, there is no defensiveness left, only an exhausted defiance.
“He might have answers we need.”
The words settle heavily, like dust drifting over fresh blood. Liam’s jaw works, chewing down whatever argument is forming, and something cold settles in my stomach. Because she believes it. She truly believes Ares Parker holds keys we don’t.
“You really can still say that after this?” The words leave me before I can soften them, sharp and brittle. Theo shifts closer, his presence growing heavier with each breath we exchange. The faint scuff of his shoe on stone is the only sound he makes, but it’s enough, he’s listening, weighing, already bracing for where this is going.
Harper looks between us, her eyes bright with disbelief. “Are you seriously defending Liam right now? You don’t even know that this was Ares.” Her voice wavers at the edges, not with fear, but with something slower and far more dangerous, hurt. The accusation hits harder than she intends, and I feel the familiar coil of frustration pull tight inside me. It’s the kind of frustration born from wanting to protect her, only to watch her step directly into the mouth of something she can’t control.
“Maybe if you didn’t make that deal, that student would still be alive,” Liam snaps, his voice cutting through the corridor like a blade. There’s no hesitation, no attempt to rein himself in. His grief and guilt have fused into something pointed, and he’s aiming it right at her.
Harper’s breath catches. She looks at Liam, at Theo, then at me. Hope flickers through her expression, thin, trembling, desperate. “Do you all agree with him?” Silence answers her, thicker than any spoken betrayal. She turns fully toward me, the last bit of hope gathering in her eyes like the final glow of a dying ember.
“Even you?”
The question lands in my chest like a blow. Liam’s stare pierces sideways, waiting for me to contradict him. Waiting for me to lie. Waiting for me to do anything other than what I know will break something irreparably.
I reach for her, instinct overriding reason. “I told you...you can’t trust him, Harper.”
She flinches away from my hand as if my touch burns. The anger rising in her eyes isn’t wild or explosive, it’s quiet, razor-edged, the kind of anger forged in a lifetime of betrayal. It’s the anger she reserves for people she expected better from.
“Fine,” she breathes, the word barely shaped before Liam steps forward.
“Harper, don’t-”
“Go to hell, Liam.” The venom in her voice turns the air volatile. She looks back at me then, and the flicker of hurt in her gaze is worse than any scream. “I’ll be meeting Poppy alone. Wouldn’t want to drag any more of my family’s twisted affairs onto you.”
Her words land like iron. She steps past Liam, shoulder knocking lightly into him, rejecting even the smallest brush of contact from me. When she reaches Theo, her anger softens for a brief breath. Her hand comes to rest on his shoulder, a gesture so fragile it nearly cracks me open.
“I’m sorry you had to hear all of that,” she murmurs.
Theo’s hand rises, finding hers with unerring accuracy. He doesn’t speak; he doesn’t need to. His silence says more than comfort, it says even he can’t defend her choices right now. The realization dims her expression, something inside her going glassy, fragile.
She pulls away and turns down the corridor, spine rigid, steps quickening with every heartbeat. She doesn’t look back. Not once.
My legs move on instinct, ready to chase her, to say anything to stop her from spiraling into danger alone, but Theo’s hand catches my arm, gentle yet immovable.
“Nothing we say right now will make it better.” His voice is quiet, but final.
