Chapter 33 Kael
THIRTY-THREE
KAEL
The shadow-glass thrums before anything else shifts inside my room.
It always reacts to her first.
I feel the bond pulse—a single, sharp tug beneath my ribs— and the surface of the artifact ripples like disturbed water. Shadows coil outward, stretching into a distorted image of the north path.
Not perfect. Not whole. Never whole. Just fragments of what the Veil wants me to see. What she stirs.
I brace the glass in both hands as the vision sharpens into pieces:
Lindsay’s mark glowing. A tear widening. A creature dragging itself through. Dorian’s magic flaring bright. Her reaching for the Veil.
It’s not every detail. Only the moments tied to her magic and the thing trying to reach her.
Azrael warned me—“It shows what you’re not supposed to see. What touches her magic. What hunts for her.”
And this creature?
It is hunting.
My shadows surge instinctively, wanting to move, wanting to tear open the space between us. I fight them back with a growl lodged in my throat.
I told Azrael I could handle this. That I could protect her from a distance. That I could obey the rules.
Tonight, I nearly break them, again. But she’s in danger.
Is it because I broke them before? Because I let myself hold her and comfort her for a full night that I can’t get out of my head?
Still, I wouldn’t take it back. I’ll hold onto it while I try to keep my distance and do what I was supposed to do from the start.
When her magic slams into the tear—the artifact flares so brightly I have to avert my eyes.
She isn’t just closing it, she’s controlling it completely. The tear collapses. And the vision in the glass fades. Only then do I move.
I reach the path a moment later, stepping out of the tree line just as Lindsay, Dorian, and the shaken student begin heading back toward campus. Dorian’s head lifts immediately, and our gazes lock.
His smile is too knowing.
“Well,” he says, “the academy’s phantom arrives at last.”
I ignore him and look at her. “Are you alright?”
She shakes her head. “Just tired.”
Her magic says otherwise. She’s drained, nearly fainting, and the shadows around her tremble with the aftershock of channeling something too big for her body.
Dorian shifts slightly, positioning himself between the girl and me with instinctive protectiveness. “She closed a tear most trained mages would hesitate to touch,” he says, tone too casual. “I would be amazed if she wasn’t exhausted.”
“She shouldn’t have had to do it alone,” I answer. I know I’m angry that I just watched it all through the shadow-glass, I should have been here, but he’s an easy target.
Dorian’s eyes glitter. “I wasn’t exactly letting her fend for herself. We were working together, as a team.”
“You weren’t stopping the tear.”
“And you weren’t here,” he says with a shrug. “Spying again?”
The familiar barb. The familiar truth.
Lindsay watches us, confused and worn out. “You two… know each other?”
Dorian smirks. “Unfortunately.”
I answer at the same time. “We’ve crossed paths.”
She blinks at our overlap. Dorian looks insufferably pleased.
Dorian shifts the girl’s satchel higher under his arm. He murmurs instructions to the trembling student, and she nods shakily. But his eyes drift back to me once Lindsay isn’t looking.
A silent reminder: He saw her power tonight. And he is very, very interested.
My jaw tightens.
“I’ll take her from here,” I say.
Dorian hums thoughtfully. “Best let the shadow prince take over. He’s not the type to give you a choice.”
Lindsay doesn’t even get the chance to answer—her knees buckle. My shadows surge, catching her before she hits the ground. Her hand reaches for me instinctively and grips my sleeve.
Dorian notices. His smirk softens into something quieter. Almost looking like calculation shifting toward respect.
“Well then,” he says, turning to guide the girl toward the infirmary. “Try not to glower too loudly, Kael. Some of us find it charming. Others find it terrifying and you wouldn’t want to terrify anyone.”
“Try not to flirt with everything that moves,” I reply.
His laughter echoes down the path.
Once he is out of view, Lindsay turns to me, breathing unevenly. “You… saw?”
“I saw enough,” I say, softer than I mean to. “Enough to know you shouldn’t be standing right now.”
She swallows, eyes flicking over my face. “Kael… how did you see it? You weren’t there.”
My throat tightens.
“I felt you,” I say quietly. “When your magic pressed against the Veil, it… pulled. Hard. It’s impossible not to sense it when it involves you. I felt the tear open, and I felt you close it. And I felt the moment your strength dropped.”
Her breath catches. “So that’s why you showed up. Is that how you track me?”
“No.” My voice slips into something raw. “I showed up because the moment everything went quiet, I knew you were standing in the dark by yourself. And I couldn’t—” I stop, jaw tight. “I couldn’t leave you there.”
Her brows pull together. “You were distant earlier. I thought… maybe you didn’t—” she cuts herself off, but the unfinished words settle between us.
Didn’t care. The idea hits me harder than anything else ever could.
I step closer, shadows curling protectively around her ankles. “Lindsay,” I say. “Don’t ever think that.”
She blinks, surprised at the emotion bleeding through.
“If I was distant,” I continue, “it wasn’t because I don’t care. It was because I care too damn much—and I’m not supposed to.”
The last words fall out before I can catch them.
Her breath puffs out between us. “Kael…”
She searches my face, and God, I want to look away. I want to be stone. But I can’t—not with her.
“And as for how I knew to come…” I exhale slowly. “Your magic reaches for the Veil. Mine responds. It’s not something I can ignore.”
“So you’re connected to it?” she whispers.
“I’m connected to you,” I say. Quiet. Devastatingly true. “Everything else follows.”
“Because…of the bond that my magic forged?”
I swallow and nod.
Her lips part. She’s stunned.
Then timidly: “You weren’t going to come earlier.”
The hurt threading those words guts me. Shit.
“No,” I say, stepping close enough that her breath warms the collar of my shirt. “I was trying to stay away. And failing. Badly.”
Her fingers curl around mine, tentative and trembling. “Don’t stay away, Kael. I think I need you to be close.”
“Sunshine,” I murmur, brushing a strand of her hair from her cheek. My thumb lingers a second too long. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Her eyes flutter shut at the touch, a soft exhale escaping her lips. When she opens them again, it’s with a rawness that steals whatever air I was pretending to have inside my lungs.
“I do know,” she whispers. “It isn’t just my magic connected to you. It’s my heart, too.”
My chest tightens. Hard. She steps closer, until the space between us is nothing but our breath and heat and unspoken truth.
“All three of you,” she goes on quietly, voice shaking with sincerity, “are part of my soul now. And when you stay away…my soul feels it.”
A single heartbeat. Two. My shadows fall completely still.
She has no idea what she’s doing to me. Or worse—she does.
“Lindsay,” I breathe, her name turning into something dangerous in my mouth, “you shouldn’t say things like that when I’m trying to keep you safe. I am not safe for you.”
She searches my face, eyes soft but unwavering. “Maybe being close to you is the safest I’ve ever been.”
Everything inside me fractures just slightly.
The part that wants to obey Azrael…goes silent. The part that wants her…steps forward.
I cup the side of her face—close enough for her to feel the chill of my shadows and the warmth of my skin underneath.
“Sunshine,” I whisper, voice cracking at the edges, “you’re going to be the end of me.”
But I don’t move away.
I can’t.
Her breath trembles as she looks up at me. I don’t think about it, I simply lean in, pressing my forehead gently to hers.
The contact is barely anything—just shared breath, shared warmth—but the world narrows to a single point. Her lashes flutter. Her pulse skitters. The bond I refuse to acknowledge pulls tight enough to hurt.
Then her knees buckle.
“Lindsay—”
I catch her before she hits the ground, one arm under her knees, the other bracing her back. Her head lolls into the curve of my shoulder, hair brushing my throat. She isn’t unconscious, not fully, but close enough that fear slices clean through me.
I hold her tighter.
She murmurs something against my collar—my name, broken and slurred—and any chance I had at rational decision-making evaporates.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, the words slipping out before I can filter them. “I’m not letting you fall.”
Her fingers curl weakly into my shirt, and that is the moment I decide. I can’t keep my distance.
I adjust my grip and lift her fully into my arms. She fits too easily against me, her face tucked under my jaw, breath warm on my neck. She sighs—a soft, trusting sound—and something inside me fractures.
“You should be furious with me,” I murmur as I start walking, “for what I’m about to do.”
She doesn’t answer. She’s drifting, barely conscious, weight warm and heavy in my arms.
I carry her across the frost-covered path, through a sweep of shadows that part for us like obedient sentinels. Toward the one place she shouldn’t be, but the only place I can bear to put her.
My quarters.
“Sunshine,” I whisper, voice breaking, “you don’t know what you do to me.”
Her hand twitches, as if answering.
I hold her closer and step into the shadows that lead home.