Chapter 3
Three
Asher
The security lamps cast a hazy glow over the small public parking lot where Cole’s dark gray Toyota is parked.
Between the lighting, the blurring of my thoughts from lack of sleep, and the thrum of unfulfilled energy that keeps resonating between my palm and my heart, I feel like I’m walking through a dream.
I’ve found my match. Of all the people in the world, it’s Elodie Devine.
No matter how many times I remember that fact, it comes with the same muddled mix of elation and trepidation.
There’s been something about Elodie recently… Something that made me want to get to know her better, to understand her, to help her. But I’d never have dared to even hope that fate would throw a nobody like me together with one of the most prominent lucents in the entire academy.
Four of the most prominent lucents, really, if I count the other matches I’m bound to in our larger union.
And it’s not as if she’s seemed to feel equally interested in me. The opposite, actually. She’s outright told me to stay away from her.
Even tonight, when we found her and grappled with how to handle the attack… she barely acknowledged me when I spoke directly to her. Whenever I moved closer, she tensed up.
I’d try to convince myself I was only imagining her reactions, but when Cole finally breaks his silence, he’s clearly fuming.
He glances over his shoulder the way we came and then stalks across the parking lot, his shoes rapping out a staccato beat. “She pulled Worth back to talk to him alone. Already drawing lines between the matches she wants and the ones she’s disappointed by.”
He glares at the sleek silver BMW parked a few spots over, the car I assume Byron arrived in before he caught up with us wandering through the massive park.
A surge of protectiveness propels a reply up my throat. “You don’t know what she wanted to talk to him about. You’re the one who said we should get going. It’s not like you were trying to be friendly.”
Cole’s shoes hit the pavement even harder. “I’m not her friend. I’m her professor, and now through some joke of fate I’m her match and tied up in some ridiculous upper-crust murder conspiracy, when—”
He cuts himself off and looks over at me. “It’s you I’m more concerned about. She’s just found out you’re her match, and she still can’t be bothered to give you the time of day? It isn’t supposed to be a situation for playing favorites.”
“She did just almost get stabbed to death followed by almost drowning,” I point out. “After being near-fatally poisoned a week ago. I don’t think it’s fair to expect her to be completely in her right mind.”
Cole clicks the fob to unlock the doors and reaches for the driver’s side with a huff of breath. “I don’t know if there’s ever anything ‘right’ about where the Devines’ minds are at in general. But of course you’d be the one worrying about fairness.”
“It seems like someone has to.” I drop into the passenger seat and lean my head back against the worn leather.
As Cole brings the engine rumbling to life, my eyelids droop closed. A fog is rolling through my head like an echo of the clouds congealing over the moon.
In the interest of fairness, I have to voice one small I told you so. “I did tell you I sensed that she was dealing with something.”
Cole yanks on the gear shift. “That was before she was even poisoned.”
“I’m sure a few things in her life weren’t exactly perfect before it got to the point of attempted murder.”
“Her family has more resources at their fingertips than we could ever grasp. She isn’t a stray dog that’s going to starve if you don’t give up half your supper.”
I suppress a wince. He wouldn’t even know about the latest stray if Elodie hadn’t snitched in class.
All the same, there’s only one possible answer. “No, she’s my match. And yours too.”
My brother doesn’t bother to answer. As he steers us out of the lot and down the streets gone quiet with the night, his silence fills the car like a weighted blanket, heavier than anything he could have said.
I peer at him sideways, my stomach twisting when I consider one specific peculiarity of our union.
Siblings sharing a core match isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t common either. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it happening with such a large gap in age.
He’s been waiting seven years to stumble on his unknown match when it didn’t happen at his graduation ball… and now he has to share her with me.
I have to share her with him.
I never imagined I’d become part of a union this size. That normally only happens for people with a particularly formidable glim, and then with the formidable person at the core.
With all his talent, Cole should have been the core of a larger union. Byron too, I’d bet. And Salvatore, with the power he’s learned to work so quickly…
How do I fit with any of them? I’m a middling lucent as reflected by my middling grades, barely impressive even in my main areas of focus.
It doesn’t make sense.
But, radiants help me, I want it to. If I found out tomorrow this bond mark is a mistake…
Just the thought wrenches at my chest. I rub my thumb over my palm through my glove.
I’ve also never heard of a match sparking and then turning out to be false. Why dwell on the incredibly unlikely possibility?
“I guess we’ll just have to see how the relationship unfolds when we’ve all had time to get used to the idea,” I say. “If it’s a little awkward at first, that shouldn’t stop us from keeping Elodie safe.”
Cole hums to himself with a skeptical note that niggles at my skin. The lamplight streaking through the windshield turns his skin sallow. “We’ll see. It doesn’t add up.”
I frown at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Why was Cosgrave hanging around her without knowing they were matches? He’s never done more than heckle her here and there before now, as far as I remember.”
I still don’t see where he’s going with this. “Are you saying maybe he already knew? How could he? If she’d sparked with him, we’d all have known then.”
“I realize that,” Cole says, his expression grim. “But the size of the coincidence: him being there when she was attacked, her happening to spark his glim right when it could save them… And the poisoning… And why was she really wandering around in the middle of the night?”
“You don’t believe her that she just wanted to get out of the house? And what’s bothering you about the poisoning?”
Cole shakes his head. “Something’s off. That’s all I’m sure of. Even you—you started paying more attention to her recently. She’s never caught your eye before, has she?”
“I knew who she was. And you’re the one who put us together for that Divination exercise.”
If I’m telling the truth, Elodie first snagged my attention a few weeks ago. When I was crossing the main academy green, and I saw her standing there staring at me like her world was ending.
It was kind of odd. But it didn’t look like she was in control of her reaction, let alone consciously scheming the way Cole seems to be implying.
“It could all be tied together, couldn’t it?” I point out. “Something changed in her life that put her under threat and made her act differently, and we all noticed.”
“She hasn’t been particularly forthcoming about what those changes are to help us sort through the problem, has she?”
I slump lower in my seat. “I don’t know. When you’re facing regular murder attempts, maybe you’re a little hesitant to totally trust people. Even your matches.”
Cole makes a dismissive noise. “It’s more than that. I can’t pinpoint it yet, but I will.”
The conviction in his tone sets off a wobble through my pulse.
I study him again, searching for answers or at least reassurance in the planes of the face I know better than my own. “What are you going to do?”
“You don’t need to worry about it. Focus on your schoolwork and not on her until we get to the bottom of all this.”
I can’t quite let the subject drop. “You’re not going to do anything that could put her in more danger, are you?”
“I’m going to keep my eyes open and put together the pieces I find. If she hasn’t done anything wrong, it won’t hurt her.”
His answer doesn’t comfort me the way I’d like.
I keep watching him through the sliding beams of the streetlamps we pass. Cole’s been the only person I’ve been able to rely on for most of my life. I owe almost everything I have to him.
I might not be able to tell him about every goal and plan I’ve formed, but I’ve always known I can count on him when it matters.
Now, for the first time in my life, I’m struck by the sense that I don’t believe him.
But how can I make sure Elodie gets through the next days unscathed when I don’t even know what he’s plotting… or why she’s gotten so under his skin?