Chapter 9 Lindsay
NINE
LINDSAY
Sleep comes in fits, like my mind doesn’t know how to rest without unraveling.
But this time, I jolt awake not from a dream, but from the flicker of shadows curling across the walls. Not natural ones, either—these move like they’re alive, ink bleeding through air.
And then he’s just… there.
Kael.
Not an illusion or a hallucination, which I’ve had a few times in the last day or so. Honestly, I don’t know how long I’ve been locked in the chamber.
But he’s here, fully here. Fully him.
His wings stretch behind him, ink-black and veined with starlight.
His horns curl low and back from his temples, polished obsidian with veins of silver catching the low magical glow in the room.
And his eyes—gods, those eyes—are the same molten shadow I remember from our dance before everything went to hell.
He’s devastatingly handsome.
Of course the demon prince who never flinches when I’m overloaded with power would show up like this.
I sit up too fast, instantly aware of how not presentable I am. Still wearing the black dress from the dance. Barefoot. Hair a mess. Hope he enjoys the discount hostage look.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” I say, voice still heavy with sleep.
He cocks his head, eyes flicking over the glowing ring of runes encircling my little magical prison. “You say that like the rules have ever applied to me.”
“Right. My mistake,” I mutter, brushing hair out of my face. “I forgot you’re above containment. Must be nice.”
He smiles, but it’s not playful. There’s something tightly wound beneath it. Something I don’t think he wants me to see.
“You should be asleep,” he says. “You need your strength for what is coming.”
“Kind of hard when shadow demons sneak into your magical holding cell at night.”
“Technically I didn’t sneak,” he offers, stepping just close enough that the runes hum like they sense him. “I was invited.”
“You absolutely weren’t.”
“I’m extending myself the courtesy retroactively.”
“You’re insane.”
His grin widens. “Maybe. But now that you’re awake…I have a warning.”
I roll my eyes so hard I’m amazed the world doesn’t tilt.
But then his expression shifts—like a shutter pulling closed—and I feel it before he says a word. The weight of whatever made him come.
“You’re not safe here,” he says quietly.
My stomach tightens. “Pretty sure that’s the point of the glowy circle. Keeping me—and everyone else—safe.”
“No.” He steps closer, the air growing colder even though his body radiates heat like a forge. “Not from others. From what’s coming. You can’t let them try to bind your magic.”
I snort. “I’m not sure that’s my choice to make.”
“It isn’t, but you have it within you to stop them. You need to stop them.”
My throat tightens. “I have zero control over my magic, which is why I’m pretty sure the Council wants to evaluate me and then probably bind me.
You know, you’re not very comforting for someone in my situation.
You’re like a prickly pear or you know one of those burrs you can pick up in the forest that latch onto your clothes and don’t let go. ”
He huffs a half amused sound and crosses his arms. “I don’t do comfort,” Kael says. “You know that.”
“Yeah, I got the memo. You’re broody and unbothered, and you vanish whenever things get even slightly emotional—”
“Lindsay.”
My name from his lips sends a shiver down my spine.
He doesn’t say it often.
I go still, heart tripping.
He looks at me—really looks—and I realize he’s trying to say more than he can put into words. Like whatever warning he brought with him, he can’t actually say out loud. Not without setting something in motion.
“The Council won’t protect you,” he says finally. “Not the way you need. And your magic… it’s not done changing.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “If I’d known magic came with a side of political chess and cryptic demon princes, I’d have picked a different book series.”
He doesn’t look away. “That’s why I’m telling you to be careful who you trust. Even the ones who think they’re helping might be doing more damage than they want.”
I hate the way that lodges inside my chest.
“So what?” I whisper. “You come here to say I’m doomed and then disappear again?”
Something flickers in his expression. His hand twitches near the edge of his coat, like he’s debating something. A second passes. Then another.
He doesn’t move for a long minute.
Then he steps back into the shadows, features drawn. “You don’t understand what you’re caught in the middle of.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
He doesn’t answer.
The silence stretches until it vibrates in my bones, until I want to scream just to fill it. But I don’t. I just sit there, heart pounding, eyes locked on him like I can drag the truth out with my stare alone.
His expression darkens. “You’re not just a threat to them,” he says quietly. “You’re a disruption. A crack in the foundation they’ve built everything on. They don’t know what to do with that. So they’ll try to control it. Chain it. Chain you.”
His voice is almost a whisper now.
“Don’t let them bind you.”
My breath catches.
Kael takes one final step backward, his body already blending into the shadows curling at the edges of the room, wings half-folded like he never meant to come here at all.
I lurch forward before I can think better of it, fingers pressing against the edge of the glowing rune circle that still separates us. “Why are you doing this?”
A beat.
Then he replies low, raw, and terrifyingly soft, “Because I’ve seen what happens when you don’t survive. Or if they bind your magic.”
The chill of it races through me, bone-deep and absolute.
“Stay alive, Lindsay Blake.”
And just like that, he’s gone.
The door clicks open at first light. At least that’s what I think the fairy lights are saying as they brighten over time. Professor Marris steps inside and shuts the door behind her.
I haven’t slept since Kael disappeared, his words just keep echoing inside my head.
Don’t let them bind you. Stay alive.
No pressure, right?
Professor Marris carries more today. A leather-bound journal, a bundle of cloth-wrapped vials, and something faintly glowing beneath the folds of her cloak. Her eyes land on me instantly—searching, assessing, relieved.
“You’re awake,” she says, though it’s clear she expected nothing less.
“I don’t exactly get to sleep in.” I gesture to the glowing rune circle beneath me. “Or go anywhere.”
She doesn’t smile. Not today. Just steps forward and sets everything down with surprising care.
“I stayed up all night,” she says. “Pulled every loophole I could find. You haven’t been bound yet. That means you’re still under my instruction. And I could unravel your Veilbind with Raiden, but I can show you other things that will help all of you.”
I blink at her. “You’re saying you want to teach me?”
“I’m saying we’re out of time. And I’m not going to let them turn you into a scapegoat without giving you a fighting chance.”
My chest tightens. “What kind of fighting chance?”
She opens the journal, flipping it toward me, and my stomach drops. There, sketched in ink and lined in faint silver dust, are three markings.
Wrist. Collarbone. Palm. The marks I saw on the guys in the dream.
“I couldn’t confirm it,” she says, “but I know who was with you that night. And I’ve never seen a bond like this. Not with three different threads. Not all leading back to you.”
“You think I caused it?” My voice is quiet and raw.
“I think you survived it. That’s what they don’t want to admit. That you stabilized something no one else could.” Professor Marris levels me with a look. “That kind of magic should’ve split you open. It didn’t. You held on.”
“I didn’t even know what I was doing.”
“You followed instinct. You trusted your magic.” She reaches for one of the vials, rolling it between her fingers. The liquid inside glows like starlight filtered through smoke. “That means there’s more to you than they want to believe.”
I stare at her. “You said we’re out of time.”
“We are.” She pulls out another scroll, this one covered in tightly woven protection runes. “They’ve scheduled the binding ritual under the guise of a magical evaluation. But it won’t be just an assessment. They’re going to force it if they think they can justify it.”
“And you’re going to stop them?”
Her smile is razor-thin. “We’re going to make them fail.”