Chapter 11
ELEVEN
LINDSAY
Professor Marris is barely out the door when the silence caves in again.
Not the comforting kind. The kind that feels like waiting for a bomb to go off.
She left me with a list of sigils scrawled across the page and the faint echo of magic still buzzing along my skin, like her spells are stitched into me now—armor under the surface. Temporary protection, she said. Not a solution.
And definitely not a guarantee. I’m still staring at the runes when I hear the lock click.
The door opens slowly.
Raiden steps in, closing it behind him with the kind of careful quiet that feels louder than a slam. He doesn’t speak right away. Just watches me.
His hair’s damp, curling at the edges like he’s been training hard, which is something I’ve learned he does when he doesn’t want to think. His eyes find mine immediately—and there’s no shield in them this time.
Just guilt.
“I’m not here to fight,” he says quietly.
“Too late,” I say, arms crossed. “You already made your decision.”
His jaw tightens. He looks at the glowing runes between us. At the door Marris just exited through. Then back at me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard those words sound so sincere and so hard for someone to say at the same time.
I stay where I am. “Sorry for what? Walking away? Believing the Council? Making me feel like I was something you had to survive instead of protect?”
His throat works. “All of it.”
For a moment, I want to let that be enough. I want to accept the look in his eyes as proof that he gets it now.
But this isn’t a fairy tale. And I’m not in the mood to be a cautionary one.
“You don’t get to pretend you didn’t hurt me,” I whisper. “You don’t get to show up now and think it’s all fine.”
“I don’t think that.” His voice cracks under the weight of it. “I know I failed you. I should’ve protected you. I should’ve stayed.”
“Then why didn’t you?” The question slips out.
“Because I follow orders. It’s what I’ve always done, no matter what I want. But I’m done with that. I can’t lose you.” He takes a breath. “I’m not walking away again. I’m not going to let you break our veil-binding. It’s the only way I can protect you.”
My heart stutters.
“You’d do that?” I ask, unsure whether I want him to or not.
He steps closer to the rune edge, close enough I can feel the gravity of him pulling at the tether between us. “If that’s what it takes to keep them from using me against you? Yes.”
My throat tightens. “It would be safer for you if you weren’t tied to me.”
Raiden’s eyes burn like an amber fire. “I don’t care about safety, Lindsay. Not if you’re not included in that.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. Then the runes flicker. Just slightly. I step forward without meaning to.
“I don’t know how to trust this again,” I admit gesturing between us. “Nobody fought for me, Raiden. Everyone, including you, just let them put me in this cage.”
“Then let me earn it back,” he says. “One step at a time.”
He doesn’t ask for forgiveness.
He just waits.
It encourages a little flicker of hope to bloom inside my chest. And I want to trust him. I fold my arms, the spell lines still faintly shimmering on the floor around me, a quiet reminder of how close everything is to slipping through my fingers.
“I’m not sure if I can,” I say, voice even. I’m not sure if it’s strength or if I’ve just run out of tears.
“I should’ve told them to go to hell the second they ordered it,” he says. “I should’ve—hell, I don’t even know. Everything’s felt wrong since the moment they brought you here.”
I raise an eyebrow. “But you still let them.”
His jaw clenches, and I see the flinch he tries to hide. “I didn’t think they’d actually go through with it. I thought… I thought we’d have more time.”
“Time to do what, Raiden?” My voice sharpens. “To stand around and debate if I’m too dangerous to be trusted? To argue about who gets to decide if I’m worth saving?”
“No,” he says firmly. “Time to find another way.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to make sense of the knot in my chest. “Then why did you come yesterday just to tell me they’re breaking the Veilbond? Like I didn’t even matter to you?”
He looks away, jaw clenched.
“You fought beside me, Raiden. You were there. And then, suddenly, you’re just…gone. Saying this is what’s best, like you’ve already made peace with it.”
“But I didn’t make peace with it.” He sounds broken.
I swallow around the lump forming in my throat.
“I froze. I didn’t know how to fight them without making it worse for you. And that’s on me. I thought staying quiet would buy us time. Instead, it gave them permission.”
“They don’t need permission. They are the Council, it’s sort of been proven that they are the ruling faction here.”
A beat passes. The air between us buzzes faintly—like something fragile, threaded with magic and hope.
“You have no idea what it’s been like,” I say softly. “Being treated like a weapon or something dangerous when I didn’t even know magic was real before coming here. I sealed the Rift, Raiden. I protected this place. And they locked me up for it. This is not the good place.”
He takes another step closer, the wards buzzing between us. Close enough that the Veilbond flutters beneath my skin, awareness threading its way through me like a pulse that doesn’t belong entirely to me.
“I saw what you did,” he says. “I saw how much it cost you. And it kills me that I wasn’t there when you woke up.”
“You’re right, you weren’t there,” I echo. “None of you were.”
“I’m here now.”
I open my eyes. He’s right in front of the rune line now, his hand hovering just over the shimmer of it like he wants to reach for me but knows better.
“I can’t undo what’s been done,” he says, quieter now. “But I can stay. I want to stay.”
I study him for a long moment. He looks tired. Not in the usual way, but in the way people look when they’ve been haunted by every bad decision they couldn’t take back.
A pause. Then—
“I spoke to Professor Marris,” he says. “She’s doing everything she can to protect you. But she can’t do it alone.”
My breath catches. “You’re working with her?”
“I am now.” His mouth twitches like a smile is trying to form but doesn’t quite make it. “You scare her. But you also give her hope. She’s betting everything on you.”
I don’t know what to do with that. I already feel like I’m carrying too much—magic, expectations, the weight of not falling apart when it would be so easy to just let go.
“You know this doesn’t fix everything,” I say.
“I don’t want everything fixed,” he says. “I want you safe. We’ll figure the rest out one day at a time.”
Something twists inside me—hope and hurt and something that might be love or might be the memory of it.
I finally sit back on the chair, curling my legs beneath me. “Then stay.”
Raiden crosses the rune line without hesitation.
It buzzes louder, resisting the intrusion, and his whole body tenses like he’s fighting the magic that wants to keep him out and me in.
Then silence falls the second he’s on the inside with me.
He closes the distance between us and kneels in front of my chair.
“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Electricity sparks along my skin as he envelopes my fingers with his. His fingers wrap around mine—warm and steady, anchoring me in a way that makes it harder to hold on to the numbness I’ve been surviving inside.
I study our hands, the way his thumbs brush over my knuckles like a silent promise, like maybe he’s trying to memorize the shape of this connection before it slips away again.
“I’m still angry,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says.
“And scared.”
“I know that too.”
The bond between us pulses—not the magic of the Veil-binding, but something older, deeper. Something I don’t have words for. The connection that snapped into place when he fought with me the other night.
And I can finally breathe again.