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Something shifts across Sola’s face. Not guilt, but something worse. She looks exhausted.

“Yeah. I know.” Her laugh comes out hollow. “Cass and I spent most of the first few years off-world. The longer I stayed away, the more convinced I became that contact would only draw attention back to him. At first, I told myself I was waiting until things settled down. Then a few months became a year. Then another. Eventually I stopped knowing whether I was protecting him or just trying to live with what I’d done.”

“She talked about him constantly,” Cassian says.

Sola shoots him a look. “Cass.”

“Just saying.”

“When Rowan finally arrived on Sero, I thought I could fix it. That he’d be safer on campus, under Halvern’s wing.”

“So you just dumped him into Caervast with no explanation?” I snap.

I recall Rowan looking completely lost that first night at my party, overwhelmed, like he wanted to bolt, and still playing because I fucking ordered him to.

“Somewhere visible,” she shoots back. “Where no one could make him vanish without the whole academy noticing. Though you had your watchdog on him from the moment he arrived, didn’t you, Christian?”

She talks to Dad, but looks at me.

He shrugs, completely unbothered. “What can I say? The scholarship landed on my desk a month before the Orlov vote. Half the Reach was already jumping at shadows, and then somebody handed a Noctis place to a student from Düren who wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Caervast. At that point, I would’ve investigated a suspicious houseplant.”

Sola shakes her head. “So you handed Rowan to your son.”

“I handed my son a file.”

“Mm.”

Dad sighs. “In my defense, I wasn’t expecting him to become emotionally attached.”

“Bullshit,” Lucan says.

“Language. I mean, every family on this planet started asking why. You weren’t subtle, Ciaran.”

Sola stands. “Yeah, well, if only the Virels were my only concern. I quickly noticed someone else taking an interest in him too.”

The memory hits like a fucking bomb. Rowan calling me half panicked in the middle of the night because somebody had been standing outside his room again.

Before I can stop myself, my hand is already checking my multi-slate one more fucking time.

Still nothing from Rowan.

Where are you, little mouse? Are you even safe right now?

Sola exhales, looking far less untouchable than when she first walked into the pavilion. This time, when Cassian’s hand presses against her shoulder, she actually leans into it. “I didn’t plan on any of this going so phenomenally wrong. But your surveillance of Rowan drew more attention to him than I thought it would. I was trying to protect him. Instead, I made him a target.”

“A target for who?” Lucan asks.

“I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “But I started noticing someone else following him too. Which is why we needed to talk tonight.”

“Someone else?” I echo.

Sola arches a brow. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve said?”

A few of the Marrow guards chuckle, and I bristle despite the amusement twinkling in her eye.

“What does that mean? Me shadowing Rowan accelerated things?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know anything anymore.”