“I’ve been watching you,” she continues, leaning closer until I can smell her perfume—something clean and cold like a winter morning. “Your shadows move wrong. They respond to emotion rather than will.” Her voice drops even lower, becoming almost intimate in its menace. “Just like the historical accounts of Ascendants.”
Ice floods my veins, cold enough to make my teeth ache. “That’s ridiculous. Ascendants don’t exist anymore.”
“Don’t they?” Her light aura intensifies, pushing painfully against my shadows, which retreat closer to my body like animals seeking shelter. “Your shadows move like living things. You understand languages you shouldn’t. And you’re researching prophecies about crimson-winged harbingers.”
She reaches for the Compendium with predatory certainty. “I think the Hunters would be very interested in?—”
She never finishes her sentence. A deeper patch of darkness detaches from the shadows behind her, and suddenly Bael is there, his presence filling the space like a storm front. His hand closes gently but firmly around Elara’s wrist, and I can see the way her light dims slightly at the contact.
“I believe the library is closing, Miss Lightbringer,” he says, his deep voice deceptively calm despite the danger radiating from him like heat from a forge. “Curfew approaches.”
Elara yanks her hand away, her face flushing with anger and something else—fear. Up close, I can see the way her pupils dilate when she looks at him. “You,” she hisses. “The fallen guardian. I should have known you’d be involved.”
Bael smiles, a predator’s smile that doesn’t reach his eyes andshows just a hint of fang. “Just ensuring academy rules are followed. The restricted texts must remain in the library.”
“This isn’t over,” Elara says, gaze switching between us with the intensity of someone memorizing details for a report. “Your shadows betray you, Ashley Dawn. And I will discover what you’re hiding.”
She stalks away, light aura flaring dramatically before she disappears down the stairs, her footsteps echoing with finality.
The moment she’s gone, Bael turns to me, face tight with controlled anger that makes the air around him crackle with tension. “What part of ‘maintain a low profile’ was unclear to you?”
“I needed information,” I defend, though my voice trembles slightly from the adrenaline crash. “About what I am, about the crimson wings. About this harbinger prophecy.”
He glances at the open Compendium, something flashing in his green eyes that might be fear. With swift efficiency, he gathers the books scattered across the table, his movements precise and economical.
“These texts are restricted for a reason,” he says. “Knowledge is dangerous when you don’t have the context to understand it.”
“Then give me the fucking context,” I challenge, standing to face him despite the way his proximity makes my pulse skip. “You keep telling me what to hide, but not why. I deserve to know what’s happening to me.”
For a moment, I think he’ll shut me down again with another cryptic non-answer. Instead, he sighs, shadows curling around him like a restless cloak.
“Not here,” he says finally. “Elara will return with reinforcements, likely including Hunters. We need to leave.”
I quickly pack my notes into my bag while Bael returns the books to their proper places with surprising speed and silence. As we head for the exit, I glance back at the Compendium, still opento the crimson-winged figure that looks so much like me it’s unsettling.
“I need that book,” I say suddenly, turning back before I can think better of it.
“Ash, there’s no time?—”
But I’m already moving, my shadows extending to grab the ancient tome and slide it into my bag before Bael can stop me. The book is heavier than it looks, and I can feel its weight like a physical reminder of how badly I’m about to fuck up my life.
“Are you insane?” he hisses. “Stealing restricted texts is grounds for expulsion—or worse, when Hunters are involved.”
“I’ll return it,” I promise, though we both know I’m lying. “But I need more time with it. I need answers.”
He looks like he wants to argue but grabs my arm, his touch sending electricity up my spine. He pulls me toward a section of shadow-drenched shelving where the darkness seems thicker, more substantial.
“We need to shadow-walk. Now.”
“I don’t know how yet,” I remind him, panic making my voice higher than usual.
“Trust me,” he says, his shadows suddenly expanding to surround us both like a living cocoon. They merge with mine, creating a sensation that’s both intimate and disorienting—like our essences are temporarily blending together, becoming one unified darkness.
The physical contact of his hand on my arm combined with the shadow merger sends electricity coursing through me, making every nerve ending sing with awareness. His eyes lock with mine, and for a brief moment, everything else fades away—the danger, the stolen book, Elara’s accusations. There’s only Bael, his shadows intertwined with mine, creating a connection that feels ancient and inevitable and right in a way that terrifies me.
Then the world dissolves around us, and we’re falling throughdarkness that feels like coming home. His arms wrap around me to keep me steady as we travel through the shadow realm, and I can smell his scent—dark and masculine and utterly addictive.
We emerge in the Shadow Archive, where he first showed me how to release my wings. I stumble slightly, disoriented from my first shadow-walk experience that left me feeling like I’ve been turned inside out, and his hands steady me. They linger perhaps a moment longer than necessary, his fingers warm against my arms.
