Page 165

This can't last forever. Whatever this is. Him and me.

The strangers following me. Sola's presence, or my delusions. Every answer seems to lead me back to the same handful of questions, the threads tangling together tighter and tighter until it feels impossible that any of this is coincidence anymore.

So maybe I can be selfish a little longer.

“Ciaran?”

“Mm?”

“What's the thing you don't say out loud?”

“That I'm still the kid on that pavement.” He says it to the skyline rather than to me. “Everyone thinks I got past it. I didn't. I just got taller.”

Hearing the weight behind the words, I recognize the look on his face. It's one I've probably worn myself for years.

So I don't push. Instead, I drag my thumb across his knuckles until his fingers tighten around mine again. “Accidents happen. You can't spend your whole life blaming yourself for them.”

He doesn't answer, but tension settles across his shoulders anyway, and maybe that's the problem. I already know how to pull him back, and the worst part is that I don't think I'd hesitate.

A kiss against his jaw, my fingers threading through his hair, a look that says I'm still here, and he'd come back to me every time.

And maybe that's what scares me.

Because somewhere along the way, Ciaran stopped feeling like someone I would eventually leave behind. He became the person I look for without thinking, the one I reach for when something hurts, the one I keep choosing even when I know I probably shouldn't.

He became my Zoryan.

And I still don't know what to do with that.

27

CIARAN

Ithink I’ve seriously become obsessed with Rowan.

Against all the warnings from Mom and the endless shit Lucan gives me about it, I just can’t stop touching my little mouse.

Not when he teaches me how to play the Noctis, which we’ve been doing every night for the past week, and not when I take him out riding through the upper lanes after curfew. He loves being on the back of my hoverbike even though he’d rather die than admit it.

Rowan’s complicated like that. He glares at me while climbing into my leathers, then spends the entire ride pressed against my back. He acts annoyed when I drag him to another place I like on Sero, then stands there staring at everything with that quiet look he gets when he forgets people are watching him. And every time we sit down in front of the Noctis, something changes in his face. His green eyes start shimmering and he gets lost inside the music, lashes lowering as his shoulders finally loosen for a little while.

By the time I get back to the house after classes, my head is still full of him. The way he glared at me this morning when I stole half his breakfast. The way he keeps pretending he hates when I crowd into his space even though he melts every time I touch him.

The messages help too. After the initial adjustment period where Rowan seemed genuinely offended by my existence, he started warming up to the constant teasing. Worse, he’s getting good at it. Which means every now and then, he manages to catch me off guard.

And Light help me, I like that far more than I should.

mouse: Stop sending me conspiracy theories during Halvern’s lectures.

me: truth waits for no man

mouse: You are genuinely unbearable

me: and yet you keep ending up in my bed. funny how your messages get a lot friendlier afterward

I grin to myself as I shove open the door to our wing. The place smells like burned spices and something aggressively sweet.

Damaris is already in the kitchen swearing at somebody under his breath while stirring something in a pan hard enough to count as violence.