So, I let my gaze drift to his chest, where his necklace with the two rings fused together glints in the low light.
Without thinking, I reach out to touch it. The metal’s warm from his skin, and there’s a faint vibration beneath my fingertips—a hum, low and steady, like a second heartbeat.
“Have you ever taken it off?” I ask, and suddenly, he goes still.
“Never.” The word comes out rough, and his hand covers mine where it rests against the rings. “They’re my last connection to who I was before.”
Before.
The word hangs weighted in the air.
Before his parents died. Before he could burn holes through time.
The look on his face makes my breath catch. Because it’s not guarded. It’s not controlled. It’s pure, unfiltered grief that he’s letting me see because his defenses are down from exhaustion and intimacy and whatever my electricity does to him that makes him more human than he allows himself to be.
He pulls me closer, and we stay like that for a moment, breathing each other in. Then he leans back slightly, and the warmth behind his eyes shutters closed.
“We need to discuss the Council.”
The softness drains from his face. His posture straightens. And just like that, the Logan who plans for every contingency is back, and the one who let me see his grief has retreated behind the door he keeps himself locked behind.
“Three of them are coming tomorrow to investigate Oliver and Thad’s disappearances.” He gets out of bed, picks up his pants from the floor, and puts them on. “If they look too closely at either of us, they’ll find truths we don’t want found.”
“What are we supposed to do if they start looking?” I ask. “Leave the island?”
“The island is warded so we can fire travel within it, but not off it.” He moves to the window, staring out at the ocean beyond. “No one who’s ventured into the surrounding seas has ever returned.”
A chill runs down my spine, the air cool against my bare skin. “How deadly are we talking here? Like... sea monsters? Whirlpools? More Lampades? Another Hydra?”
He turns to face me. “No one knows for certain.”
“Which means we’re trapped on an island with Council members who want to investigate the disappearanceswecaused.”
“Essentially.”
“So, what’s worse—the Sea of Danger, or the Witch Police?” I tick both options off on my fingers.
Logan’s quiet for a long moment. “That depends on who they send.”
I sit up straighter. “You know the Council members?”
“A few. But until I know who we’re dealing with, I can’t say how careful we’ll need to be.” He crosses back to the bed, sitting on the edge. “But we need to get some sleep. And speaking of sleep…” He pauses, pressing the tips of his fingers together. “I want you to stay here. With me. Tonight.”
I don’t say anything for a few seconds. Because Logan Ashford wants to have a sleepover. With me. In his room. In Typhon Hall, the fourth-year dormitory where I’m definitely not supposed to be.
I don’t have time to reply before he pulls me close, his mouth finds mine, and every cell in my body surrenders.
Because tomorrow’s problems can wait.
For now, there’s only my lightning that glows silver and his fire that burns black, tangled together in the darkest shadows of the night.
EVIE
Four searches.Six hours. Approximately fourteen thousand square feet of ballroom floor mapped and re-mapped until my knees ache from crouching on cold marble.
I’ve traced every corner, every alcove, every spot where Oliver might have lingered during last night’s Halloween Ball. I’ve traced his heat signature from the entrance where he arrived with Jade, through the crowd where he chatted with Tyler and Avery, past the refreshment table where he grabbed two drinks—one for himself, and one for Jade.
My power has always been strongest with family. Shared bloodlines produce overlapping thermal wavelengths. It’s basic genetics, documented in Eleanor’s third-year thesis.
