61
EVIE
W e met up with Idris in one of the yards near the academic buildings. The wind tousled his dirty blond hair, and his soft brown eyes sparked when they focused on our approach. He smiled, and it melted some of the tightness that had gathered in my chest.
When he stood, I nearly tackled him with a hug.
“Sheesh,” he muttered. “You act like I’ve just returned home from war.”
It wasn’t the best joke for me to hear at this moment, but I brushed it off. When I pulled back, I returned his smile.
Idris lifted a brow as he looked from me to Kylo. “Or like the two of you just returned from war.” His eyes narrowed on me. “What happened?”
I tripped over my words. I shouldn’t have been so caught off guard. Idris might’ve been human, but he’d been born with a hefty dose of keen intuition.
When Kylo spoke, I realized the answer was simpler. I studied the planes of his face, the way they appeared different in the aftermath of his grief and unfathomable stress.
I was sure I didn’t look any better.
“We lost a friend a few days ago,” Kylo said simply.
Idris’s face fell. “I’m so sorry for your loss. You okay, Evie?” He studied me more carefully now.
I nodded. “I’ll be okay.”
Idris’s gaze flitted back to Kylo. “The born?”
To my surprise, Kylo only nodded. Why keep something like that a secret when the born were killing and kidnapping more mortals each day?
Princeton was their most coveted kill. But he was only one of many this week alone.
“I hate them,” I whispered.
Idris cocked his head, appearing slightly puzzled. “As you should.” He cleared his throat, rubbing his bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes. “You want to grab coffee first?”
“She’s cut off,” Kylo said.
I glared at him, and Idris laughed. He moved closer to Kylo as we started walking toward the street of shops and cafés.
“That’s probably for the best,” Idris said. “I’m glad she has someone to monitor her coffee intake. Combined with the chronic worrying, it just can’t be good for her heart.”
I lightheartedly elbowed him in the side.
Idris side-eyed Kylo. “Though I am concerned she’s become more violent under your influence.”
We sat outside in the pleasant summertime air, sipping on cool drinks from a combined bookstore and café. I was glad Kylo had told Idris the truth. I hadn’t realized how stifling it had been to always pretend everything was okay when it wasn’t. I thought I’d been protecting Idris all these years, but now I worried my thick layers of denial had only been erected to protect myself.
Because I watched as Idris and Kylo connected authentically, in a way that made my heart gooey and my skin erupt in goosebumps.
“How do you deal with the anger?” Idris asked, his voice low as he stirred his lavender lemonade. “I don’t want to be an angry person. But I worry if I’m not angry, then I’m just… complicit. Like I’m broadcasting that I’m fine with the way things are.”
Kylo regarded Idris with gentleness. “It’s okay to feel angry. Emotions are messengers. They tell us what’s important to us, what truly matters. But they’re only the first step in the process. The key is not getting stuck there, but instead moving into action. Specifically, making moves on what you can actually control. Lifting up your friends, working hard in your self-defense classes, staying vigilant but not living in fear. Use the anger as fuel to improve yourself, but be mindful about using it as an excuse to harm yourself or others.”
Idris was hanging on Kylo’s every word, processing in that thoughtful, curious way he did.
And I noticed that the more Kylo spoke to Idris, the more the heaviness on his shoulders lifted. I hadn’t realized how much of my own pain hinged on seeing Kylo experience some amount of relief, no matter how temporary.
“Physical exercise helps immensely. As do honor-based combat sports, such as what you’re learning in fighting classes. Focusing on healthy releases of anger tempered by noble pursuits like loyalty, goodness, mercy, empathy, and protectiveness is the best remedy I’ve found.”
Idris nodded. “The fighting does help,” he said. “When I’m awake enough to be of any use.”
My heart twisted, knowing Idris might be suffering in his dreams the same as I was. Even if he didn’t remember that accursed night, or many specifics from our childhood, those feelings were clearly rooted deep.
We both would find relief in a couple of weeks when the date had passed.
“Have you seen the campus healers?” Kylo asked.
Idris shook his head. Instead of being irritated, he looked slightly uncomfortable. As if he didn’t like disappointing Kylo.
“Get yourself there,” Kylo said.
Idris’s eyes slowly found mine. “Only if Evie sees one too.”
The words startled me. My instinctive urge was to grow irritated and defensive. But all I could focus on was the darkness under Idris’s eyes.
The truth was, I’d already been seeing an emotional healer when I was working with Princeton to control my power.
But now that he was dead, I wasn’t sure who in this world could help me. Because the main reason I avoided witches and healers was so that they couldn’t uncover who I was at my core.
The stakes were already high before, but now revealing my nature was more than just dangerous. It was a death sentence.
“Okay,” I said anyway, desperate for Idris to get help for his insomnia. Maybe it didn’t have to be a lie. I’d make it work.
Idris relaxed an inch. “Have you heard the drama between Mena’s boyfriends yet?”
I giggled. “Which ones?”
Kylo reached for my hand under the table, slowly tracing his thumb over my skin in circles. The longer Idris and I laughed and discussed Mena’s dramatic dating life, the less I noticed Kylo scanning our surroundings for threats every few minutes.
And when Kylo laughed genuinely, it was the first time I’d heard such a warm, authentic sound from him since before we found Princeton.
We eventually got up and strolled down the street, popping into little shops and boutiques. Kylo intertwined his fingers through mine.
“What’s this plant saying, Evie?” Idris teased when we entered a plants shop. He was holding a potted orchid.
It was a game we used to play as children, hunting for faeries amid the trees and tall grass. I’d speak to the earth and translate to Idris, and his big eyes would fill with awe each time my palms glowed with magick.
I let my eyes grow glassy, reading the soft pink aura surrounding the little plant.
“Bloom.”
My smile fell as I listened to myself say the word. It had shocked me out of autopilot, but I couldn’t precisely recall why.
Kylo looked at me adoringly. “You are ridiculously cute.”
“But creepy,” Idris amended, making a face. He set the plant back down. “Do you think one of these possesses spirits that could do my homework for me?”
“Potentially,” I said. “But struggle builds character.”
“Agreed,” Kylo said.
Idris rolled his eyes at us. “I changed my mind. I don’t like you two together. Nothing is this perfect.”
Kylo kissed the top of my head, and I wondered if the glowing feeling in my heart was visible.
“Anyone at university catch your attention lately?” I asked casually, despite knowing how secretive Idris was.
On cue, he shrugged. “Maybe. I’m focusing on myself right now.”
“That’s when they get you,” Kylo warned.
Idris grinned, eyeing a tiny Venus flytrap. I thought of Princeton and his collection of carnivorous plants, and by the expression on Kylo’s face, I knew he thought of him too.
I squeezed his hand, gently pulling him away. Idris followed us out, and we continued slowly meandering down the lively street.
“I know you guys are going through a lot,” Idris said. “Thanks for coming out anyway. Don’t feel obligated to?—”
Idris stopped speaking. Kylo went rigid.
A man in a gaudy, archaic navy suit walked past us, his jet-black shoulder-length hair straight and his eyes a striking amber.
He glanced our way briefly, mainly looking at me as his lips formed a smirk and his nostrils flared.
His sickly born magick was easily discernible. I was used to experiencing nausea and fear when confronted with their blood-stained souls, but the ravenous anger was rather new.
And unwelcome.
Because rage wasn’t a safe feeling for me to have, especially surrounded by people in the heart of Etherdale. Kylo stood protectively close until the vampire had turned a corner.
“We’re just outside the vampire-free zone,” Kylo hissed. “He’s taunting us.”
I glanced back at Idris, determined to turn the mood around and end the day on a good note.
But Idris was pale, his eyes full of palpable terror. He rubbed his chest, his breathing becoming shallower and shallower until he was gasping for air.
“Idris?”
I grabbed his shoulder, but he flinched and pushed my hand away.
“Can’t. Breathe,” he said, the words frightened and raspy.
In the middle of the busy street, Idris fell to his knees, still panting and clutching his chest.
“We need a healer!” Fear took hold of me as I watched Idris helplessly. I didn’t understand what was happening.
Idris curled up in a fetal position, his face contorting with a pain I could feel as a crushing weight against my own lungs.
He continued to inhale rapidly, making himself small, mouthing the words help, help, help over and over.
My gaze darted around before landing on Kylo, opening my mouth to beg him to find a healer.
But Kylo gently pulled me back and dropped to the ground with Idris. People had slowed around us, looking at my brother nervously as he panted and gasped for air.
I spotted Allie across the street, and a few other glamoured turned. Allie barked something at one of the men.
I stood shell-shocked, rooted to the cobblestone under the golden afternoon sun. I watched as Kylo lay with my brother, speaking quietly to him.
Idris stopped begging for help. The hand that had been pulling at his hair had dropped back in front of his face with the other one. His eyes, once shut tight, slowly opened back up.
My eyes pooled with tears, assuming Idris had been hexed, that the born were punishing me for existing by killing my brother.
But his shallow gulps of air started to even out. Kylo kept speaking to him, too low for me to make out over the bustling street chatter.
Kylo had curled up the same as Idris had, meeting him exactly where he was. He’d done so without any hesitation. The vampire clan leader, in a vulnerable position on the ground in the middle of the street.
When Idris nodded at something Kylo said, Kylo placed a hand on his shoulder and rubbed.
“I used to have panic attacks too,” Kylo said, slightly louder now, at a level I could discern if I strained and focused. “During class. During fights. Even when I was in my own space, alone. They often seemed random.”
He then instructed Idris to breathe with him. To hold the breath. To release. To hold. Then again, until Idris had completely stopped moving, stopped struggling for air.
I watched as the turned man handed Allie a glass of water, and Allie approached us, handing the glass to me without a word.
After a few more minutes, Idris slowly sat up. Kylo mirrored him.
I handed Idris the glass of water. He sipped, his face flushed, and his body slumped. He drank and stared at nothing for a couple of minutes, chest rising and falling at a normal cadence.
He still looked out of it when he spoke his next words, his eyes glassy as he tilted his head up toward me. “You didn’t understand, Evie. That day in the courtyard.”
My heart skipped. We hadn’t discussed that moment since it happened—the day he’d told me he wanted to join the turned, and I’d conjured a nasty storm with my anger.
“I don’t want to be stronger because I think you’re weak, or that you’ve failed me,” he said softly, staring into the distance for a moment before slowly focusing back on my eyes. “I do remember what happened.”
My breath caught, and for a moment, I forgot Kylo was even there. It was just me and Idris, those icy cold hands from the past reaching toward us.
“I remember,” he repeated, his lips trembling as he wiped his eyes. “You had it all wrong. I want to be as strong as you are . To help people like you do . I want to protect you the way you protected me .”
“Idris,” I breathed, unable to find the right words as emotions crashed over both of us.
He nodded, avoiding my eyes again. “I just needed to say that.” He returned to sipping his water, a tremor rolling through him.
Blade joined the amassing bodies around us, who I now understood were all glamoured turned.
Kylo noticed him too, nodding at him as if they’d exchanged a silent conversation.
Blade and I exchanged a look, and I offered him a sad, shaky smile. Then he turned his attention to my brother. “Hey, I’m one of Kylo’s friends. Wondered if you all wanted to have a beer at the pub on the corner?”
I thought that seeing the turned surround my brother would boil my blood. I thought it would send me into a magickal explosion.
But all I could do was stare at Kylo in shock. My gaze flitted from him to Blade, to Allie and the rest of them.
And the feeling blooming in my chest didn’t stop. Not when we were inside the pub, and the clan treated Idris with nothing but respect, pulling him into laughter, stories, and banter with ease.
Kylo pulled me aside once Idris was settled at the bar, surrounded by vampires wearing human skins.
Monsters who showed this complete stranger kindness and comradery even while still dealing with their own indescribable grief.
I’d been knocked out of orbit, reeling and spinning as I held on to Kylo for dear life. From Idris’s admission to Kylo’s act of brotherly love—it was all too much to process, yet somehow achingly simple.
“That’s just who you are, isn’t it?” I asked him in the corner, away from the growing crowd.
I exhaled, wiping away a stray tear as Kylo held my face in his broad palms. He brushed his lips against my forehead.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the image of Kylo laying with Idris. How quickly he’d dropped to the ground, how easily he was able to help Idris breathe again.
“You—your clan,” I stammered. “I’ve never seen him like that. I had no idea he had panic attacks. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t have done what you did for him. Thank you.” I closed my hands around his forearms, staring into his deep blue irises.
“I thought you might be angry with me,” he said softly. “I don’t want you to think I’m breaking my word about keeping your brother away from the clan.”
“I don’t care about that,” I said, my voice breaking just like those damned walls I’d built around myself. “I know you’re not recruiting him.”
Everything was crumbling all at once. The lightning had struck the tower, and nothing would ever be the same again.
“I just want Idris to be safe. And happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Thank you for helping him.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Kylo said. “I wanted to. He’s a good kid. He reminds me of myself in a lot of ways. I enjoy helping him find his path.”
My grip on his forearms tightened. “I love you a stupid amount,” I said fiercely.
At a burst of laughter and cheering, I broke free from Kylo’s hold to glance over my shoulder. Idris was beaming. Blade and a few other men were jumping up and down. Even Allie was laughing at their antics.
I turned back to Kylo, and he immediately crushed his lips to mine. His hand stroked my hair, and I melted into his touch.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Idris had said. That he remembered.
When Kylo pulled back, I blurted out my next words. “I’ll do it. I’ll help the clan, even if it’s just temporary.”
Kylo’s eyes darkened. He shook his head.
“I’ve been having these visions,” I whispered. “For a while now, really. I—I think I’m meant to do this.”
Kylo gripped my waist, his features twisting. “No. I don’t want this for you, Evie. I never have.”
“Well, I didn’t want most things that happened to me between my birth and now, but here we are,” I said, attempting to imbue humor into my tone that didn’t quite land with Kylo.
He bristled.
I heard whispers in the corners of the room. I felt the unmistakable chill of spirit guidance travel the length of my body. My intuition poked and prodded, alerting me that this moment was important.
It may have been a low frequency of Kylo’s angry protectiveness that I heard, but I preferred to believe it was the hum of fate instead.
“I know who our enemies are. I know what kind of world I want to believe in. And I know who has made me feel safe, seen, and understood.”
“This isn’t a temporary position, Evie,” Kylo rasped. “Clan membership is forever. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
I steadied myself in his deep blue eyes. “You need me. And I need you.”
I placed a hand on his broad chest, over his heart—the heart bonded to mine through blood and magick.
“Aren’t we forever?”