Page 17

“It isn’t supposed to help.” He squeezes my shoulder. “It’s supposed to get you to breakfast.”

The opening ceremony empties around us in a slow flood of students, voices echoing through the corridors as we follow the crowd toward the canteen.

I keep catching myself looking over my shoulder—not because I’m expecting to see him, but because now I know I might.

That somehow feels worse.

The guy from Black Chapel isn’t some stranger I’ll never see again. He’s here. The academy feels a little smaller than it did this morning, which means this wasn’t a one-time mistake.

We grab whatever’s closest and keep moving.

Damaris jerks his chin toward an open table near the windows. “Let’s take that one.”

We thread our way through the crowd and take the narrow space at the end of a long table by the glass.

He drops into the seat across from me and looks down at the tray between us as if he’s evaluating an insult. “This bread is tragic.”

“You’re such a snob.”

“I’m serious. If they’re going to charge rich people prices for tuition, the least they could do is offer something with actual flavor.”

Despite myself, my mouth twitches. “You’ve been here less than twelve hours.”

“And already I miss my own kitchen.”

I tear off another piece, taste it, and immediately regret defending the place. He’s right. It’s terrible. “What if I just don’t go to that party?”

Damaris looks at me over the top of his cup. “I don’t think pretending they don’t exist is going to make this go away.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No.” He tears off another piece of bread. “But if I were you, I’d rather know what they want than spend three weeks wondering.”

That doesn’t make me feel any better.

Damaris glances past my shoulder and raises an eyebrow. “Apparently we summoned him.”

Turning, I follow his gaze toward the center of the room.

A long table sits near the center windows, crowded with boys in navy academy uniforms, gold crests catching the morning light, collars open and jackets shrugged off. One of them flicks a piece of bread across the table, and another catches it without even looking. Nobody tells them to keep their voices down. Nobody asks them to move. Instead, students flow around the table without interrupting them, adjusting course automatically as though the space already belongs to them.

“Yikes,” Damaris mutters, but I barely hear him.

Because Ciaran Virel is there.

He holds the center of it all, looking less like a student than the reason everyone else is sitting there in the first place. One arm is hooked over the back of his chair while somebody talks beside him, his attention drifting in and out of the conversation with the lazy confidence of someone who has never needed to compete for space in his life.

My body goes tight. The invitation keeps replaying in my head, refusing to stay buried.

As if he feels me looking, he turns his head and catches my gaze across the room. He smiles, slow, before his attention drifts to my mouth, lingering there long enough to send heat climbing under my collar. The reaction makes me angry on sight, tangling instantly with fear, humiliation, and the memory of his hand around my wrist. I look away too fast, dropping my gaze to my tray before he can read any of it.

“Ma.” Across from me, Damaris is already pulling out his holoscreen and leaning in before I can object. “Ro, c’mere.”

Before I can move away, he snaps a picture of both of us.

“Ma? Yeah, we’re here. Actually inside it.” He angles the screen toward me. “Say hi.”

I lift a hand automatically. “Hi, Mrs. Adane.”