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“Ro.” Damaris is already on his feet. “Come on. Let’s go.”

But I can’t move. A strange feeling crawls up the back of my neck, and suddenly I can feel it again, that same unsettling certainty that somebody is watching me.

Turning my head, I look across the hall and find him.

He’s standing near the column where I spotted him earlier, one shoulder resting against the stone while somebody says something beside him. His collar hangs open at the throat, dark lines of tattoo disappearing beneath it.

He isn’t paying attention to the conversation. He’s watching me. One corner of his mouth lifts as our eyes meet, a smug sort of satisfaction settling over his face that makes something cold twist low in my stomach.

Could he be Ciaran Virel? If he is, then why⁠—

“He wants you to play for him.” The student shrugs, and that’s apparently supposed to explain everything.

Play for him.

My gaze catches on him again, and the invitation suddenly feels less an invitation than something I don’t understand well enough to refuse.

“I think there’s been a mistake,” I say.

The student glances back toward where Ciaran is standing before returning his attention to me. He looks bored already. “No, there hasn’t. See you tomorrow, Rowan.”

Before I can answer, he turns and disappears into the crowd, leaving me standing there while the room slowly starts moving again around me.

I turn to Damaris. “I’m not—” My throat tightens around the words. “I’m not going there. I’m not.”

Damaris looks at me for a second, then glances toward the crowd where Ciaran disappeared. “The Virels,” he mutters, and something in the word says he’s just realized something he doesn’t particularly like.

I blink. “What?”

"Nothing." He shakes his head. "Just... I did a lot of reading before we came here, remember?"

"Why do you sound worried?"

He rubs the back of his neck. "Let’s just say the Virels rule this planet. And I think if Ciaran Virel wants something, most people don’t tell him no."

Every instinct tells me to stay away from him. And yet, the words follow me all the way out of the hall.

Most people don’t tell him no.

I should be able to ignore the invitation. Instead, I keep thinking about the way he looked at me across the hall. The certainty in it. The way he sent someone over as though my answer had never really been part of the conversation.

I don’t know whether that makes me angry or afraid.

3

ROWAN

“Stop making that face.”

“What face?”

“The one where you decide the world is ending before breakfast, boo.”

“I’m not doing that.”

Damaris gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me for a second. “Look,” he says, slinging an arm around my shoulders as he steers me toward the doors. “Maybe he wants you to play. Maybe he’s weird. Either way, panicking about it before coffee seems premature.”

“That isn’t helping.”