Page 102 of Veil of Night & Flames

Then Chase says it—the thing that’s been sitting like a lump in my gut ever since Whistler said Kali’s name. “Does Adric know how fast it’s moving?”

“I’ll tell him tonight,” I say, hating that this is my burden. “He has to hear all of it. Kali’s soldiers. The freaky rot spreading around the Widow Maker. The daytime crossings.” I look at all of them in turn. “It isn’t just one breach getting worse—it’s the keystone. Adric said so himself. It goes, the barriers all go.”

“Do you really think he cares?” Chase asks, his voice mild.

I look at him. “What the hell are you saying?”

“Exactly what I asked. He cares about you, Cora. But the rest of it? The students, the school, your little coffee stand? The parks and the ocean and the quaint shops? Hell, the whole history of this town—of this world you’re a part of?” He holds my eyes. “All of that, and you’re still the only piece of it he loves.”

He says it without heat, even as my mind drags itself back to last night. The two of them beside me. A night where their differences went quiet.

A night that, if Chase is right, changed nothing for Adric.

I swallow. “He wouldn’t.”

“Are you sure?” He steps closer and takes my hands. “I’m not saying it to be cruel. I’m saying we need to know where he actually stands before we’re standing in the wreckage, finding out the hard way.”

And there it is—the thing I’ve been ignoring all day, said out loud by the other man I love.

I nod, blinking hard to hold back tears. “I’ll find out,” I say. “Tonight. Alone.” I add the last word before Chase can say he’s coming, too. “He’s not going to give me the truth with you in the room. You know that.”

“He might not give you the truth anyway.”

I only shrug. Whether he’s right or wrong, it is what it is.

I draw a breath, then catch Tia looking at me. “Walk me out before you go interrogate your fiancé,” she says. “I left my charger in the car.”

Her charger is right there, plugged in next to the fridge. More than that, Riley has a battered old car, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t drive.

Doesn’t matter. I grab Chase’s hoodie like it’s an emotional support jacket and follow Tia out, because of course this isn’t about chargers. We sit on the steps in the slanting afternoon light, and she bumps my shoulder with hers, then waits.

“Okay,” I finally say, zipping up the hoodie despite the afternoon warmth. “Don’t laugh.”

“I would never.”

I stare her down. “You’ll definitely laugh.”

“I’ll laugh later, in private. You’ll never know. Now talk.”

I blow out a breath. “I think I want to do it again. The—last-night thing. The three of us.” My face is on fire. “And I don’t know what that makes me, and it’s messing with my head a little, and I’m supposed to be saving the world, and instead a solid forty percent of my brain is doing a lusty-teen routine.”

“You are a lusty teen,” Tia says.

“Okay, but am I a slut?”

“No way,” she says with absolutely zero hesitation, which only makes me love her more. “You’re in love with two people who are crazy about you right back. That’s not a scandal. Movie of the week, maybe, what with Adric playing the anti-hero, but not a scandal.”

I try very hard to stare her down without laughing. So far, I’m managing.

Then she bumps my shoulder again. “Of course, the studio screwed up. Because it’s so not television. We’re talking NC-17 major theatrical release all the way.”

I roll my eyes—mostly in the hope that the motion will stop my cheeks from burning.

“I’m serious,” she says. “No bitching about your very intriguing love life while the lawn’s trying to eat freshmen. Ground the Lust Bunnies. They can come back out when the world’s not ending.”

“Right. Lust Bunnies, grounded. Totally on it.”

“Good,” she says, then pulls me into a hug. “Probably bad timing to say I’m a little jealous. Because a three-way? Honestly, that’s on my bucket list.”