Darkest Storm (Star Touched: Witch Blade #2)

Evie

I’ve been watching Jade get ready for fifteen minutes, and she’s checked her reflection exactly zero times.

This might not sound alarming, except Jade Harrington’s never met a mirror she didn’t at least glance at.

It’s not in a vain way—it’s more like she’s constantly making sure she exists, and that the world around her is real.

Right now, she’s staring at her combat boots like they hold the secrets of the universe.

“Jade?” I pull my hair into its usual messy bun and secure it with two pencils, because I forgot where I put my clips. “Are you okay?”

“Hmm?” She blinks, finally looking up. “Yeah. Fine. Just tired.”

The obvious lie sits between us like a third roommate.

“Did you see Oliver at the end of last night?” I ask. “After the Unity Flame went out?”

Pain flickers across her face before she locks it down.

Maybe she was more into my brother than I realized.

“No,” she says, and there’s that flat voice again. “He was probably with his friends. Or maybe with Avery.”

I close my eyes, trying to piece together the night chronologically for what must be the hundredth time this morning. Oliver was dancing with Jade. They went to the buffet. She went to the bathroom. Then the storm hit, resulting in chaos, everyone running for cover, and the Unity Flame dying.

I can’t place Oliver anywhere after the storm’s first lightning strike. He wasn’t helping the evacuation. He wasn’t checking on Avery. He wasn’t finding me to make sure I was safe, which is Brother Protocol 101.

That’s four gaps in the data, all from the same thirty-minute window.

Jade and I walk to the dining hall in relative silence. The entire academy is subdued this morning, everyone moving in clusters and speaking in hushed voices. I catch fragments of conversation as we pass, each one adding to the tightness in my throat.

When we finally enter, my heat sensing ability unfurls across the room like a net, mapping every signature at every table.

First-year table: Nina with the notebook she’s always writing in. Her thermal signature burns low and steady, controlled as always. Felix is stealing bacon from Garrett’s plate. Sam is annotating a textbook.

Normal.

Second-year table: Deidre’s at the innermost part of the spoke, laughing as if she’s performing for an audience.

Third-year table: Callie and Alessandra with their heads together.

Callie’s signature is oddly cool for someone sitting next to the fire.

Deacon’s looking anxious. Beside him, Tyler’s half-turned in his chair, flirting with the girl on his right, his elbow hooked over the backrest like he owns the room.

No Oliver.

No Avery.

I swallow down a lump in my throat, and the chandeliers flicker once.

“Evie!” Felix waves me and Jade over to our usual spot. “Did you hear about Avery?”

“No.” I move to our table automatically, unable to stop staring at Oliver’s empty chair. “What happened?”

“She collapsed near the end of the ball.” Felix leans forward, lowering his voice. “Some of the fourth-years found her passed out near the Revelation Flame.”

My mind immediately starts cataloging possibilities.

Magical exhaustion from the storm’s interference? Alcohol poisoning? Emberlink disruption? If Oliver was hurt, the bond could have destabilized her. The Revelation Flame can be destabilizing if someone’s suppressing strong emotions.

Lauren reaches past Felix for a pastry. “Everyone’s saying she drank too much. She had a glass in her hand all night.”

Jade’s hand goes to her bracelet and twists it around—a nervous habit I’ve been cataloguing since the first day we met. “She was upset about Oliver going to the dance with me,” she says simply, which is far from a surprise to anyone.

“She’s been in love with him for three years.” Lauren shrugs with zero sympathy. “That’s not exactly breaking news.”

I glance at the empty seats again, then back at the others at our table. “Is anyone even checking on her?”

Felix pushes his eggs around his plate, only half looking at me. “Callie and Alessandra said she refused to leave her room this morning.”

The lump in my throat grows larger.

“I need to find out what’s going on.” I’m already moving to the third-year table before I’ve consciously decided to.

Callie and Alessandra are Avery’s suitemates, so if anyone knows what happened last night, it’s them.

And if they try to brush me off, I’ll burn through their deflections until I get a real answer.

The chandeliers flicker again, their flames jumping and dancing.

Control yourself. You’re in public. Keep it together. Oliver’s probably fine.

But the thing clawing at my throat isn’t just worry. It’s the sick, growing certainty that the signs were there, and I looked right past them. Because for weeks, Oliver’s been secretive and jumpy, disappearing into his advanced studies like it was eating him alive.

I told myself he was stressed. But maybe I should have pushed harder. Maybe I should have asked.

Callie looks up as I approach, her expression shifting from bored to vaguely annoyed. She’s immaculate as always—not a hair out of place, her makeup perfect despite the chaotic night.

Alessandra sits beside her, stirring her tea.

I don’t have time for the fake pleasantries they give me because I’m Oliver’s sister.

“Have either of you seen my brother?” I ask, already bracing for condescension from both of them, given that they mutually decided not to like me from day one since I’m friends with Jade.

“No.” Callie’s tone suggests supreme disinterest as she pours herself a cup of coffee.

“What about Avery?” I ask.

Alessandra dumps an unholy amount of sugar into her tea. “After watching Oliver fawn over your roommate all evening, Avery got herself good and drunk. We practically had to carry her back to Hydra Hall.”

The chandeliers flicker more insistently.

“She was getting sick in our bathroom around three in the morning,” Callie adds. “Paying the price for drinking her feelings about your brother’s wandering eye.”

The chandeliers overhead surge brighter, flames leaping in their iron cages, and my hands ball into fists.

“Then where’s Oliver?” I demand. “If Avery’s in her room, where did he go after the ball?”

“I don’t keep track of your brother’s schedule.” Callie’s eyes flick to the chandeliers, then back to me with a smirk. “Maybe ask your roommate.”

“Callie,” Alessandra says, low and pointed.

“What? It’s true.” Callie shrugs one elegant shoulder. “Oliver was following Jade around like a puppy. If anyone knows where he ended up, it’s her.”

I want to defend Jade, defend Oliver, or throw Callie’s coffee in her immaculate face. But the chandeliers are flickering faster now, and if I don’t walk away, I’m going to melt the mug right out of her manicured hand.

“Fine.” I take a deep breath and step back from their table. “If you see him, tell him I’m looking for him.”

“Will do.” Callie smiles and waves a dismissive hand. “Now, run along back to the children’s table.”

The world blurs around me as I move through the dining hall.

Oliver wouldn’t just disappear. He wouldn’t miss breakfast. And Avery collapsing at the exact moment the Unity Flame went out, at the exact moment that impossible storm appeared…

Correlation isn’t causation. Correlation isn’t—

The chandeliers flare so bright that people at nearby tables shield their eyes.

Causation.

“Evie.”

A hand closes around my wrist. The thermal signature registers before anything else—hot and steady, burning with the controlled strength that only belongs to one person at this academy.

It’s the same signature I’ve been cataloguing across training circles for weeks, the one that runs hotter than every student and faculty member I’ve scanned since arriving at Blaze.

Kieran Cross.

He’s positioning himself between me and the third-year table like a shield, his green eyes scanning my face with an intensity that would normally make me stumble over my words.

Right now, I can barely remember how to breathe.

“You need to step back,” he murmurs, close enough that only I can hear.

“Oliver’s missing.” The words come out fractured. “He’s not here. He’s never not here. And no one cares.”

“I’m aware.” His grip on my wrist tightens so much it hurts, his thumb pressing into the soft underside of my hammering pulse. “But you’re about to set the dining hall on fire, and that won’t help anyone.”

I look up. The chandeliers aren’t just flickering anymore—they’re blazing. Flames strain against their iron cages, casting wild shadows across the ceiling.

“I can’t control it.” My voice breaks. “Oliver—”

“Forget Oliver for thirty seconds.” His other hand grips my shoulder, his nails biting through the fabric of my shirt hard enough to leave marks. “Focus on me. Just me.”

Focus on him.

His green eyes have striking amber flecks.

There’s a quiver of arrows tattooed along his right forearm.

He smells like a forge, but in a good way—hot metal and smoke.

And beneath all of it, his heat signature is doing what it always does when I scan him in class: running hotter than his calm voice suggests and his controlled expression warrants.

His eyes hold mine with that same intensity he has during combat training. He digs his nails in even harder—the focus of a man who knows exactly how much pressure a body can take before it breaks—and the heat in my chest stops climbing. The chandeliers dim from white-hot to merely blazing.

His nails ease out of my shoulder, but his hand stays, warm and heavy through the fabric.

His heat signature hasn’t dropped. Most people cool down once a crisis passes, but Kieran’s burning at the same elevated level he was when he grabbed my wrist, as if the crisis isn’t over for him just because the chandeliers stopped trying to melt.

“There,” he says, softer now. “Better.”

“I’m not better,” I say.