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I look away. "Sorry."

Neither of us says anything for a while. Then Damaris sighs and throws an arm around my shoulders, steering me toward the dorm. "And I thought Lucan was my biggest problem. Oh, well, come on. Let's get you upstairs."

We reach the dorm, and he pushes the door open without slowing, pulling me inside and kicking it shut behind us.

"Sit."

I drop onto the bed, my hands still shaking, my mind still catching up.

Because if Ciaran Virel knows something about my sister, then tonight might have been the beginning of something a lot bigger than a kiss. Whatever happened in that corridor didn't feel as simple as him taking and me resisting. It felt like something else.

Damaris doesn't sit. He moves through the small kitchen, fills the kettle, pulls down two mugs and the cookie tin, and sets everything out like he's done it a hundred times before. "You're shaking."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not." The kettle clicks. He pours, sets a mug in front of me, then drops into the chair across from me, leaning forward. "Now talk. What the hell was that?"

"Nothing."

"Yeah. That looked like nothing."

I don't answer.

He just watches me over the rim of his mug, waiting. "Try again."

I look down at the table. "I just didn't want you to worry."

"Worry." He exhales what's almost a laugh. "You don't have to do this stuff alone, you know. That's not the point. Ro, we came here together. If you're going to get in trouble, the least you can do is let me get in trouble with you."

I exhale through my nose. He's right. If I told him, he would have come. He would've complained the entire way, packed snacks I didn't ask for, and worried himself sick, but he would have come.

I stare into my tea, watching the steam curl upward as guilt twists somewhere behind my ribs. I should have given him the choice.

"It's about Sola."

Damaris holds up a hand. "Wait. You went out there in the middle of the night because of your sister?"

"I—yeah. I… think she's here."

"What do you mean, you think she's here?" He leans forward, elbows on the table, watching me in that steady, patient way that makes it harder to lie.

Part of me thinks about keeping it to myself. But the photograph keeps circling back, dragging the library with it, the blurred street sign, the alley, and the sick feeling that I walked straight into something I still don't understand.

I let out a shaky breath. "I found something in the library."

Damaris frowns, but I keep talking. Now that I've started, I can't seem to stop. "There was a street sign reflected in the glass behind them. I couldn't make out the full name at first, but tonight I finally figured out where it was."

"And you went alone?"

"I thought it might lead to Sola." My grip tightens around the mug. "It felt too specific to be random."

Damaris is quiet, clearly trying to keep up with my half-explanation. "Ro…"

"I know. And that's exactly the problem." I push back from the table, cross to my desk, and pull the photographs from the drawer. "None of this makes sense. It's like everything is connected, but I can't see how."

Damaris studies the photos as I spread them across the table. "That's the Black Chapel." Then he goes still, his gaze catching on the second photograph. "Wait. Is that Sola?"

"Maybe." Just hearing him say her name makes my stomach twist. "I can't see her face properly, but Halvern was there too."