He doesn't answer. Just looks at me for a moment with something unguarded on his face before he steps back and disappears down the corridor.
I stand in the alcove listening to library sounds. Pages turning. The distant hum of study wards. An academy that's been carrying on all day without caring about any of this.
The bond is quiet now. Just its usual presence, distant enough to be manageable.
I go find Sage.
She's in our study corner with Malik, who's building something shadowy in his hands. She looks up when I drop into the chair across from them.
"I heard about the commons," she says.
"Which part?"
"All of it. Eveline's entrance. You leaving. The hex attempt on the east path."
"News travels fast."
"Faster when Malik has people watching." She glances at him. He doesn't look up from his work but his mouth twitches. "Are you okay?"
"The bond is manageable. Eveline's going to use it as long as she thinks it works. So I need to make sure she can't tell if it's working."
"And Ryder?"
I'm quiet for a moment.
"He said the bond makes it impossible to forget me. Then Eveline walked in and he put his wall back up and I left." I pull a book toward me. "Now I'm here."
Sage doesn't push it.
Malik finishes whatever he's making and slides it across the table. A small disc woven with dark threads.
"For your pocket," he says. "Disrupts location tracking. Eveline's people have been running a finder spell since she arrived."
I pick it up. "Thank you."
He nods and starts on another one.
The study corner is quiet and warm. Smells like old books and Malik's cedar-smoke magic. The bond hums its steady note in my chest.
I think about Ryder's voice dropping, his wall coming down piece by piece. If you do, I'm going to—
I think about Eveline's smile. How she watched my face. How she placed her thumb just so and waited for the reaction she knew she'd get.
I think about Thane saying my mother was a null in the same flat voice he uses for facts he's made peace with and never will.
Outside, academy lights are coming on as evening settles. Somewhere in the building, a reaper professor is standing beside his political fiancée. I'm sitting here with a shadow charm in my hand and a bond that won't close.
I don't know how to fix any of it tonight.
So I read the book I don't care about and let the evening pass and don't give anyone the satisfaction of watching my face do anything they can use.
Chapter 15
"You're going to burn yourself alive doing that," I say.
Thane doesn't look up from the dragon fire curling between his fingers. He's sitting on a low stone ledge inside the rookery, turning a small sphere of controlled flame over and over in his palm, and he hasn't acknowledged me since I walked through the arched entrance two minutes ago.
"The door was unlocked," I add.
