Chapter 31 Sebastian
SEBASTIAN
We round the corner behind Liam, and even before the scene sharpens into focus, the air tells the story.
The metallic scent of blood hits first, copper, sharp and unmistakable.
Conversations die abruptly as students are herded away by flustered professors, their commands cracking through the corridor like frantic spells.
Harper tries to step ahead of me, but instinct overrides everything.
My hand comes up, covering her eyes and pulling her into the solid line of my chest. The small, startled gasp she releases is swallowed by the collective murmur of horror around us.
The body is impossible to miss.
A Vespera boy, someone I’ve seen laughing in the dining hall, teasing his friends with harmless jabs, lies sprawled across a common room sofa, posed almost delicately, as if whoever did this wanted him to be found.
His face is unrecognizable beneath the swelling and bruising, and dark rivulets of blood streak down his jaw.
Whoever attacked him did so with calculation. Not rage. Intention.
But the true message scorches itself into my mind: the brand on his chest, angry and blistered, glowing faintly where the skin is still burning. A sigil carved in heat and flesh, one that needs no translation.
Shadeborne.
Her family’s crest.
Harper’s body goes rigid beneath my hand.
She fights to tear free, and even though every part of me wants to spare her from the sight, I can’t hold her without breaking something fragile between us.
Her fingers claw at my wrist, and I let go.
The moment she sees the branding, her face seems to collapse inward, eyes widening, breath stalling like someone has pressed a hand to her throat.
Theo sits nearby, folded in on himself, forehead resting in the cradle of his palms. Even blind, he must feel the horror seeping through the stones of the floor.
Liam stands stiffly beside him, his fists trembling at his sides, jaw clenched so tightly I can see the strain in the tendons of his neck.
His gaze snaps to Harper the second she inhales and he moves toward her with an urgency that borders on desperation.
He reaches for her wrist, clearly intent on dragging her somewhere, anywhere, away from this nightmare before it swallows her whole.
I intercept him, my hand locking around his forearm.
Our eyes clash for a heartbeat too long.
Rage, worry, guilt, all swirling behind his, but I refuse to let him whisk her away like she’s a problem to be solved behind closed doors.
He mutters something under his breath and before I can decipher it, a subtle pressure gathers at our backs, guiding us down the hall.
It’s a directional charm, one powerful enough to shove us into an alcove where the professors’ voices fade to a distant roar.
Liam’s wand gleams at his waistband, the answer to how he managed to move the three of us without a word.
He steps in front of us the moment we stop moving, his voice breaking from its usual composed register.
“You told me he would keep students out of it.”
Harper’s hands bunch the loose thread of her robe, twisting it between her fingers until it cuts into her skin. Shame burns across her features, but beneath it lies something else, fear, confusion, doubt she refuses to name.
“I didn’t know he would do this-” she starts, but I cut her off before the apology forms.
“Why would you think he had any redeemable traits?”
The words come out sharper than intended, edged with something deeper than anger. She meets my stare with an equal, simmering intensity.
“I don’t think he has redeemable traits,” she snaps, leaves no room for misunderstanding, but the sting doesn’t fade from my chest.
Liam’s gaze flicks between us, expecting, what? That I’ll soften? Back down? Offer her the benefit of the doubt? Not now. Not after seeing her crest burned into someone’s skin like a death warrant.
My arms fold tightly across my chest, pressure building between my ribs until it hurts to inhale. “Then explain why you made a deal with him. Explain why you thought anything involving him could end differently.”
Her shoulders rise and fall with a trembling breath. When she looks at me, there is no defensiveness left, only an exhausted defiance.
“He might have answers we need.”
The words settle heavily, like dust drifting over fresh blood. Liam’s jaw works, chewing down whatever argument is forming, and something cold settles in my stomach. Because she believes it. She truly believes Ares Parker holds keys we don’t.
“You really can still say that after this?” The words leave me before I can soften them, sharp and brittle.
Theo shifts closer, his presence growing heavier with each breath we exchange.
The faint scuff of his shoe on stone is the only sound he makes, but it’s enough, he’s listening, weighing, already bracing for where this is going.
Harper looks between us, her eyes bright with disbelief.
“Are you seriously defending Liam right now? You don’t even know that this was Ares.
” Her voice wavers at the edges, not with fear, but with something slower and far more dangerous, hurt.
The accusation hits harder than she intends, and I feel the familiar coil of frustration pull tight inside me.
It’s the kind of frustration born from wanting to protect her, only to watch her step directly into the mouth of something she can’t control.
“Maybe if you didn’t make that deal, that student would still be alive,” Liam snaps, his voice cutting through the corridor like a blade. There’s no hesitation, no attempt to rein himself in. His grief and guilt have fused into something pointed, and he’s aiming it right at her.
Harper’s breath catches. She looks at Liam, at Theo, then at me.
Hope flickers through her expression, thin, trembling, desperate.
“Do you all agree with him?” Silence answers her, thicker than any spoken betrayal.
She turns fully toward me, the last bit of hope gathering in her eyes like the final glow of a dying ember.
“Even you?”
The question lands in my chest like a blow. Liam’s stare pierces sideways, waiting for me to contradict him. Waiting for me to lie. Waiting for me to do anything other than what I know will break something irreparably.
I reach for her, instinct overriding reason. “I told you...you can’t trust him, Harper.”
She flinches away from my hand as if my touch burns. The anger rising in her eyes isn’t wild or explosive, it’s quiet, razor-edged, the kind of anger forged in a lifetime of betrayal. It’s the anger she reserves for people she expected better from.
“Fine,” she breathes, the word barely shaped before Liam steps forward.
“Harper, don’t-”
“Go to hell, Liam.” The venom in her voice turns the air volatile. She looks back at me then, and the flicker of hurt in her gaze is worse than any scream. “I’ll be meeting Poppy alone. Wouldn’t want to drag any more of my family’s twisted affairs onto you.”
Her words land like iron. She steps past Liam, shoulder knocking lightly into him, rejecting even the smallest brush of contact from me. When she reaches Theo, her anger softens for a brief breath. Her hand comes to rest on his shoulder, a gesture so fragile it nearly cracks me open.
“I’m sorry you had to hear all of that,” she murmurs.
Theo’s hand rises, finding hers with unerring accuracy. He doesn’t speak; he doesn’t need to. His silence says more than comfort, it says even he can’t defend her choices right now. The realization dims her expression, something inside her going glassy, fragile.
She pulls away and turns down the corridor, spine rigid, steps quickening with every heartbeat. She doesn’t look back. Not once.
My legs move on instinct, ready to chase her, to say anything to stop her from spiraling into danger alone, but Theo’s hand catches my arm, gentle yet immovable.
“Nothing we say right now will make it better.” His voice is quiet, but final.
Frustration explodes in my chest. Liam runs a trembling hand down his face, his anger replaced with something sickening, regret edged with fear.
“Plus…” Liam swallows hard, eyes shifting toward the corridor where our classmate’s body still lies surrounded by horrified whispers and the sharp smell of blood. “We have more important matters to focus on.”
The words settle like a weight on all of us. Heavy. Inescapable.
And Harper is walking straight toward danger with nothing but a fractured heart and her father's blood surging through her veins.