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The guy’s nervous. He’s playing it cool, but I can see the tension underneath. Still, when he looks up, he meets my gaze without blinking and glares like he’s daring me to push my luck. “I’m here because my best friend is here, and you should’ve brought him back where he belongs.”
“Which is—”
“In his own dorm, with me.”
“With you.”
Next to me, Marius starts chuckling, and when Damaris visibly flinches, I decide to take pity on him. Mostly because I’m curious.
No, I’m a nosy motherfucker.
“So you’re both from Düren, right?”
Damaris cocks his head and stares at me, eyes full of suspicion.
I lift my hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just asking.”
“Why don’t you leave the asking to the guy currently sleeping in your bed,” Lucan drawls, stepping in behind Damaris before the poor bastard can react, “and let me focus on this one?”
Before Damaris can protest, Lucan catches a loose fistful of his dark curls and gently tugs him backward against his chest, one arm sliding around his waist while Damaris makes a startled sound and nearly drops the spatula.
“Lucan—”
“Relax.” Lucan grins, completely unapologetic as he reaches around him and steals the spatula from his hand. “You’re making the waffles wrong anyway.”
Damaris goes red, shoulders tightening while Lucan casually takes over the pan from behind him like this is a completely normal situation.
Yeah. And it’s not exactly helping my situation either.
Because somewhere along the way, I started arguing Rowan’s case without even realizing it, insisting he wasn’t the threat Dad thought he was.
I better not be wrong about him.
The Black Chapel keeps showing up. First Rowan walks into it on his first night on Sero, then Voss, then the questions, then the reception. Most people spend four years at Caervast without touching any of that shit, but Rowan’s been here a few weeks and somehow keeps ending up right in the middle of it.
“Well, last night was fun, but Mom wasn’t pleased.” Marius reaches for the trousers that have been laid out by Mariette and starts pulling them on. “Apparently we should have stayed at the event longer and kept a closer eye on things.”
“Then they should tell us what it is we’re actually looking for,” Lucan mutters against Damaris’s throat.
“She also said that some people managed to get in who weren’t on the guest list,” Rafe adds, throwing the ball toward the open window but hitting a vase instead. The ceramic shatters across the kitchen floor.
“Dude!” Marius jumps. “What the fuck was that for?”
“Oops,” Rafe deadpans, but when Mariette comes rushing in with a broom, he silently takes it from her hands and starts cleaning up himself.
Still, his previous words grab my attention.
People getting into Virel events isn’t exactly rare. It happens. But Rowan somehow managed to end up half dead in a hidden chamber beneath Caervast less than an hour after disappearing from a reception full of people who were supposed to be watching him. And the more I think about it, the less I like it.
Thank fuck I added Rowan’s location to my slate after the city incident, because otherwise I might never have found him in time.
And now I’m hearing that people got into last night’s event who were never supposed to be there in the first place.
Dad asked me to watch him. Nobody asked me to worry when he disappeared. Nobody asked me to memorize the sound of his voice, or notice when he skipped breakfast, or spend half the night searching a rooftop because he wasn’t answering his messages.
That part happened all on its own.
Maybe none of it means anything. Or maybe Dad’s instincts are right, and Rowan arrived on Sero at exactly the wrong time.
