Page 107 of Veil of Night & Flames

Chase looks up from where he’s wiping up egg debris. “Did he say where I land in all this?”

“He said the soldiers who answer to him—not Kali—will stand for the Real when it comes to a head. And that if there’s work that needs both of you, you only have to send for him.”

Chase huffs out a breath that isn’t quite a laugh. “My brother—the one who’s been a thorn in my side for millennia—just offered to come running if I call.”

“Will you?” I ask. “Call him?”

“If it comes to Kali? Yes. We want the same thing this week, he and I—that bitch stopped. That’s enough to share a foxhole.” He meets my eyes. “It’s the weeks after I’m not sure about. When Kali’s done, and he’s still got his hand on the barriers.”

“I still love him,” I say, the words almost a whisper. “Even after all of it. What does that make me?”

He’s quiet for a beat, then he sighs. “I suppose it makes you a starry-eyed optimist. You didn’t fall for a man who turned out cold—you fell for the cold one and bet you could move him.”

“That’s not—” I stop, because it kind of is. “Okay. Maybe.”

“It’s not a bad bet,” he says on a sigh. “He truly loves you, too. That’s the part of him that doesn’t match the rest, and it’s the only crack you’ve got.” He goes to the fridge and comes out with a fresh egg that he sets on the counter. “So push on it, he says, crossing to me. “Make him look at all the world the way he looks at you.”

He pulls me in, his chin coming to rest on the top of my head, and for a second neither of us says anything.

“For what it’s worth,” he says into my hair, “you’re not wrong to still love him. Loving the best of somebody isn’t the same as forgiving the worst. You’re allowed to do one and keep working on the other.”

I close my eyes. It’s the first thing anybody’s said in two days that actually helps.

“I love you,” I say into his chest.

“I know.”

“Even though you’re being weirdly calm about your brother trying to recruit you.”

“I’m not calm. I’m being strategic. There’s a difference.”

“There’s no difference.”

“There’s a small difference,” he says, right as someone knocks.

It’s Tia, because of course it is, and she doesn’t wait to be let in. She comes through the door with a paper bag in one hand and her laptop bag in the other. Riley’s behind her, carrying two coffees and wearing a harried expression.

Tia takes in my proximity to Chase, flashes a very big grin, then drops her bag onto the floor.

“So,” she says, “how bad is it?”

I grimace. “Pretty bad.”

“On a scale.” She starts pulling bagels out and lining them up on the table. “One being a normal school day, and ten being the man you’re marrying wants to end the world.”

“Ten,” I say. “Definitely a ten.”

“Really? Well, that’s a bummer.” She gestures to the spread. “But bagels should help.”

“Can’t make it worse,” Riley says as Tia looks hard at me. “Seriously,” she says. “How are you?”

I shrug. “Tired. Sad. In love with a guy who can’t juggle an egg, and another who thinks my whole world is an acceptable loss.” I take a bagel because I need it. “So, peachy with a side of keen.”

She narrows her eyes at Chase. “What kind of immortal being are you that you can’t juggle an egg?”

“A harassed one,” he says without missing a beat.

Riley drops into a chair and opens her laptop. And just like that, the banter stops. “Okay,” she says, and when she turns the laptop so we can see the screen, I gasp because the dead zone has grown a lot in the short time I was with Adric. Like a lot a lot. Plus, there’s a fresh bloom near the path to the food court that wasn’t there two days ago.