I didn’t bother responding, just pushed away from the desk and headed out. The halls were mostly empty this late, just a few students giving me a wide berth when they saw my expression. I must have looked unhinged, my hair disheveled, eyes wild, magic still crackling at my fingertips.
Percy was waiting near the ancient texts section, pacing between the stacks. When he looked up, I was shocked by what I saw. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin beneath them puffy and red. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’d been crying. I wouldn’t call him on it. Not now. Not when I was barely holding myself together.
“Did you see?” he asked without preamble, his voice rough.
“Yeah. Draco sent it to all of us.”
“Why are we in the library?” I asked, irritated.
Percy glared down the empty stacks. “I was meeting Melissa here, but she’s a no-show, not that I give a fuck.”
“She’s a nasty whore,” I spat.
“What do we do about Jupiter, Aiden? That kind of pain can’t be faked,” Percy said, running a hand through his hair. “Even with Ophis magic.”
“So what are you saying?” I croaked, though I already knew. I had been thinking it myself in the darkest hours of the night when doubt crept in despite my best efforts. “That someone set her up? That those emails were fake?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, sounding more uncertain than I’d ever heard him. “But something isn’t adding up.”
“If she didn’t write those emails—” I couldn’t finish the thought. If she was innocent, then what we’d done to her... Christ, we’d destroyed her. “Percy, can she feel what we’ve been doing through the bond? When she shut us out I thought it went both ways.”
His eyes met mine and I saw the answer. “Draco told me she can feel everything on her end. The block is only one way.”
Every atom in my body went ice cold, horror washing over me.
“We need to talk to her,” Percy said. “Tonight. Get the others and?—”
He fell silent suddenly, head tilted toward the end of the row. I heard it too, a familiar voice coming from the restricted section at the back of the library.
“No, it’s working,” Melissa hissed, her tone hushed but unmistakably her. “They’re completely broken. You should see them, they can’t even function anymore.”
Percy and I exchanged a look before silently moving closer, edging along the shelves until we could peer around the corner. Melissa stood with her back to us, a tablet propped against a stack of books, the screen illuminated with a video call.
“And the Ophis?” asked a deep, older male voice I couldn’t place. “Has she left Dominion yet?”
“No, but she might as well have. She’s a fucking wreck. Barely leaves her room. No one will even talk to her.”
“Good,” the man said, sounding satisfied. “The Nightfall Shield believes the emails were real?”
“Completely,” Melissa replied, a smug smile in her voice. “They didn’t question it for a second.”
My blood turned to ice in my veins.
“Excellent work,” the man continued. “With her out of the way and the bond severed, you can petition to become their new axis. Our family will gain access to Charles Whitlock. TheAssembly won’t be able to resist our influence once we control both the Nightfall Shield and then Stormwatch when your sister gets to Dominion next year.”
Percy’s hand closed around my arm with bruising force. I glanced at him and saw the exact moment everything clicked into place for him.
Melissa had set Jupiter up. Had somehow fabricated those emails, planted them for us to find. And we, the fucking idiots that we were, had done exactly what they wanted. We’d destroyed our bond with Jupiter without a single question, without actually looking deeper into it.
“How soon can you make your move?” the man asked.
“I’ve already started,” Melissa replied. “I was with Percy a few hours ago, and Aiden the other night, but they’re resistant, pushing me away before things go far enough. I’ll keep on them though, but we have a few bitches who keep sniffing around them. I’ll dispose of them the same way I did the Ophis.”
I felt sick, remembering how I’d stood there pathetically while she tried to get me hard the other night in her bedroom. How I’d been willing to use her to burn Jupiter’s memory from my mind. But no matter what she did, my cock wouldn’t work for her. I’d spent the next few hours dry heaving into the sink.
“And the other two?”
“Draco’s harder to reach, but Eris is a drunk mess. He’ll be easy once I get Lyssa Martin out of the way. But if I can convince Percy, the rest will fall in line.”
