“We didn’t need to know that,” Finn muttered.
Cassia seconded his opinion.
With her free hand, Bridget shoved the blond Warlock. Laughing, Archer wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. Cassia watched him whisper something in her ear. Seconds later, Bridget elbowed him hard in the stomach.
Magic pinched her temple.
You’re unusually quiet.
Cassia tried to shove away her brother’s presence. He was the last person she wanted to know about her sudden, lonely spiraling thoughts.Since when do you care?
She barely registered Cade’s surprise before he was gone.
“Where’s Nylah?” Bridget asked, a hint of panic in her voice.
“She’s with Delphine watching over our favorite person,” Archer said. “Can you believe she asked to stay with her instead of me?”
“I can,” Castor whispered to Cassia, holding open the loose shelf so she could climb through easily. She couldn’t stop herself from releasing a giggle.
Cassia slipped into the study and claimed an empty seat by the window. Sunlight streamed through the glass, warming her back and casting lazy golden beams across the wooden floor. To her surprise, Castor came to stand beside her. Without a word, he leaned against the slanted roof, his shoulder brushing the stone wall. The sunlight slanted across his features, highlighting the angles of his face and casting his deep brown skin in a soft, golden glow.
Cassia balled her fists. She really needed to stop staring.
At the other end of the long wooden table, Cade was murmuring something to Bridget. Whatever he said, it made her laugh. Cade grinned back, a little crooked and helpless. Whatever secret passed between made both of their faces soften. She wasn’t the only one who noticed.
Stellan strode over and slammed a thick pile of papers onto the table, scattering a few of them across the polished surface. Cassia tilted her head, taking in the sight of their old tutor — relative, apparently, next to Cade. Now that she was really looking, she couldn't believe she’d missed just how similar their jawlines were and how the slope of their noses matched like mirrored edges.
But for all their resemblance, their differences were louder. Cade, all shadows, with unruly dark hair and a storm behind his eyes. Stellan,composed and bright, his every move calculated and smooth as silk. One dark, one light. Two sides of a very complicated coin.
A muscle in Cade’s jaw twitched. “How’s Marin?”
Busy unwrapping a map, Stellan didn’t look up. “Better. But I told her to stay away today. She needs more rest.” Whatever he found on the map, he must have not liked, because he suddenly shoved it to the side. “We don’t have much time. And there’s only so much I know.”
Finn raised a brow.
“The cost of the curse,” Bridget said. “He’s lost some vital memories. Mostly about Vega.”
“Convenient,” Castor muttered, messing with a loose string on his coat. “Why don’t we start with how you appeared in the Elder Woods? There’s no gate there.”
Leaning over, Stellan drummed his fingers on the table. “Okay, the Tuathan artifacts I can do… For the most part. They’re riddled throughout history enough that most of the legends surrounding them don’t specifically apply to Vega or what happened at Cavamyne.”
Castor pinched the bridge of his nose. “Aren’t those a myth?”
Bridget shook her head. “Apparently they’re very real… not that I know anything about them. Nylah had one.” She glanced at Cade. “That you gave to her.”
“The stone?” Cade frowned. When everyone waited for an answer, he lightly stuttered, “I swear I just thought it was a regular rune. Right after I’d made the decision to go to the human realm, I went to the vault. I wasn’t sure how magic would work there… so I knew I would need more than just my pendant if someone ever came looking for me.”
Finn barked a laugh. “And you just happened to choose the one rune in that entire mountain that is actually the stuff of legend? Only you, man.”
Cassia tried not to glare at him. The reminder of her brother’s actions almost four years ago andwhyit had happened left her chest stinging.
“There was something about it,” Cade murmured, suddenly looking lost in a memory. “Something familiar. Like I’d seen it before. The moment I saw it, I knew it was the one I had to take... I tried to use it once. Right after the Shaman found us at the Halloween party. Nothing I tried worked.” After a long pause, he cemented his gaze on Bridget. “I gave it to Nylah in case something happened to us. I knew if a Shaman or another Fae saw her with a rune, they would hesitate long enough for her to get away. I never expected…”
Head spinning, Cassia cut him off. “Okay, we get it. You didn’t pay attention to anything in this library while we were growing up. If you had, you wouldn’t have recklessly taken an unknown rune from the vault across the gate.”
Cade glowered at her. “Like you ever—”
“Can we get back to the main reason we’re all stuck in this stuffy excuse of a room?” Cassia snapped. “Every history book I’ve ever read theorizes that the Tuathan stone can open and create gates.”
