The sentence collapses. I can’t finish it. Not yet.
Sebastian steps closer, his voice low, trying not to push too hard. “Harper. Look at me.”
I do, eventually. His face is drawn tight, not with anger, but with fear he’s trying to hide. For me. For Anne. For whatever the hell he just witnessed.
I breathe through the pounding in my skull and hear myself say something I haven’t said aloud in years:
“Our father.”
The words tear out of me raw, a scrape of something half-feral and half-familiar.
“He will hear of this.”
Liam’s grip tightens around my arm, steadying me as my legs wobble. Theo braces my other side with a hand pressedfirmly into my sleeve. Even Sebastian moves in, close enough that his shadow spills across my knees.
But none of their concern, none of their questions, can drown out the truth I feel sinking claws into my ribs:
My father’s scouts were never supposed to feel my magic.
Shadeborne magic was never supposed to react to mine.
And yet, the blue-eyed scout had.
Which means the one person I’ve feared most, the one who hunted us, who carved the truth into our skin, who would burn the world to reclaim what he thinks is his, knows I’mhere.
19
HARPER
By the time we cross Vireldan’s threshold, my body feels like it’s been carved from stone, heavy and aching. Liam and Theo split off toward Locke’s tower almost immediately, both determined to report what happened before rumors twist it into something worse. Sebastian lingers only a moment longer, shadowed and unreadable, before disappearing down the corridor without a word.
I make my way to my room, the walk blurring into a series of dimly lit hallways and quiet staircases. The moment the door clicks shut behind me, the silence settles thickly across my shoulders, a weight I didn’t realize I’d been carrying all day.
I peel off my robe and toss it onto the chair in the corner, wincing when the fabric brushes a tender bruise along my ribs. The basin water is cold, the chilled surface biting at my fingertips as I soak a cloth and bring it up to wash away the grime. Dirt smudges, dried blood, the faint scorch marks from where raw magic lashed outward, all of it begins to fade beneath slow, deliberate strokes.
My reflection in the mirror looks ghostlike, damp hair falling around my shoulders, the serpent tattoo curling up my spine like it’s waking from a long sleep. The bruises along my waist darken a little more with each breath. I drag the cloth across another scrape, the sting clearing my head just enough to register the dull ringing still lingering in the back of myskull.
Then, a knock.
My heartbeat stumbles.
Before I can speak, the door creaks open just enough for Sebastian to slip inside. He shuts it quietly, the latch catching with a soft click that reverberates far louder in my chest than in the room. He steps fully into the lantern glow, exhaustion written in the bruised shadows beneath his eyes, his shirt rumpled, his knuckles raw.
His gaze drop, quick and instinctive, taking in the fact that I’m standing there in nothing but my Vespera skirt and the thin wrap across my chest. Heat crawls up the back of my neck, but he doesn’t gawk. His expression shifts, almost imperceptibly, into something far more complicated than desire. Something that looks too close to worry.
He closes the door completely and rests his hand briefly on the wood, as if collecting whatever thoughts brought him here.
When he finally speaks, his voice is low and rough at the edges.
“Do you need help?”
The cloth slips slightly in my grip. The lantern flickers. The room suddenly feels smaller... warmer.
“I can manage,” I tell him, though the words come out softer than I intend.
He doesn’t move at first. He just stands there, watching me the way he watches spell work, eyes sharp, slow, careful. Not afraid. Not hesitant. Intentional. As if he’s reading the way magic lingers in the air, searching for the spot it might unravel. Like I’m the danger, and he’s studying the lines of me to see how close he can get without getting burned.
Then, without a word, he steps forward. Not enough to touch. Just enough to close the space. The warmth of him bleeds into the inches between us, subtle but overwhelming. The scent of him wraps around me, rain-damp clothes,woodsmoke, iron. Myrindale still clings to him. And somehow, despite everything it took from us, it feels grounding. Familiar. A warning and a comfort at once.
