Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
LINDSAY
The campus is buzzing with preparation that afternoon—sigils being repainted, lanterns being strung, fae muttering over ritual components I don’t recognize. Students move in brisk clusters, all sharpened by the same shared nerves.
Once Raiden saw I was safe, I practically shoved him toward his dorm and told him to sleep. Actual sleep. The kind where he closes his eyes and stops hovering like an overprotective magical gargoyle. Before turning to Kael and ordering him to sleep too.
They both resisted. Obviously. But they finally gave in.
Because patrols tonight? They aren’t romantic strolls under moonlight. They are dangerous.
And I need them rested. Ready.
Now, I’m walking with Tamsin across the courtyard, pretending I’m normal, pretending everything is normal, pretending I didn’t almost die twice in twelve hours. I’ve been very committed to avoiding every topic that starts with “Kael,” contains the word “Dorian,” or ends with “patrols.”
But Tamsin is…well, Tamsin.
Which means my avoidance lasts all of two minutes before she grabs my arm, yanks me to a stop, and plants her hands on her hips. She gives me what she clearly thinks is a fierce, intimidating fae glare.
It looks more like she’s constipated.
“You’re hiding something,” she announces.
“I’m literally walking next to you,” I say.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” She squints harder, like she’s trying to x-ray my soul. “You’ve got Big Secrets Energy.”
I blink. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is now,” she says. “And you’re radiating it.”
I sigh. “Tamsin—”
She holds up a finger. “Don’t even try it. Spill. All of it. Immediately. Or I swear on every moon in the sky, I will hunt down Dorian, Raiden, Nolan, and Kael and ask them myself.”
My stomach drops. “Absolutely not.”
“Then talk.” She leans closer, eyes shining with feral, nosy delight.
“Because I can feel the chaos coming off you in waves. What happened last night on your patrol with Dorian? Why did you vanish? Why did Raiden look like he hadn’t slept in thirty years?
And why are there whispers that Kael took you back to his room after a veil breach last night? ”
I rub my temples. “Tamsin…”
“Oh no.” Her voice pitches higher. “Oh stars. It’s worse than I thought. You’re doing The Voice.”
“What voice?”
“The ‘I’m in denial but absolutely caught up in a love-square-with-a-side-of-fae-prince’ voice.”
I groan. “I’m not—”
“Lindsay,” Tamsin says, voice dropping into something dramatic enough to win awards, “sweetheart, bestie, emotional dumpster fire of my heart—something happened last night.”
I freeze. “Nothing happened.”
Tamsin leans in so close I can see the flecks of gold in her irises. “You disappeared for hours,” she says, pointing at me as though she’s accusing me of murder. “Actual hours. Long enough that Raiden was pacing the courtyard when I woke up this morning.”
I wince. “Oh.”
“Oh?” She throws her hands up. “Lindsay, he looked like he was one missed heartbeat away from setting the grass on fire.”
I open my mouth to reassure her, but she barrels on.
“And Nolan,” she continues, poking my shoulder, “was sitting on that bench outside our building doing that nervous-leg-bounce thing, clutching a book upside down and not noticing. He only does that when he’s spiraling.”
Guilt knots low in my stomach. Nolan had been concerned when I found him.
“And Kael…” Tamsin trails off, squinting at me like she’s trying to read a confession off my forehead. “I didn’t see him this morning, which is weird, because he’s been showing up to meals lately instead of lurking in the rafters like a dramatic bat.”
My stomach flutters, but I keep my expression neutral. Or… I attempt to. Badly.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Kael in the rafters acting like a bat.”
“He has wings, Lindsay.” She says this as if it’s the most obvious fact in the universe. “Shadow Daddy could absolutely fly up there if he wanted.”
I choke. “Please never call him that again.”
Tamsin waves this away with a flick of her hand. “Fine. Broodlord. Prince of Edgy Darkness. Whatever. My point is—he wasn’t at breakfast, which means something rattled him. And considering your disappearing act last night, I have a very strong suspicion about what that something was.”
I stare at her. “You’re guessing.”
“I’m right,” she counters. “I can smell secrets.”
“You cannot smell—”
“Emotional secrets,” she clarifies proudly. “Fae-witchy thing. Very advanced.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Tamsin…”
“No, no, don’t you ‘Tamsin’ me.” She steps in front of me, walking backward as she points at my chest. “You vanished. Raiden was pacing. Nolan was stress-stimming so hard he nearly set fire to his own sleeve. Kael pulled a full disappearing act. And you—” she pokes me again—“have the face of someone who is absolutely hiding an entire novel’s worth of drama. And your bestie deserves to know it.”
My shoulders slump. She’s not wrong.
Tamsin softens, her grin fading into something gentler. “Lindsay… what happened?”
I take a deep breath.
“Okay,” I say. “Fine. Something happened.”
Tamsin lights up like a fae witch about to receive tea hot enough to burn the world.
I keep it brief. Or…I try.
“There was a Veil breach last night.”
Her mouth drops open.
“A breach?” she squeaks.
I nod. “A real one. A bad one. A student was attacked.”
Her eyes double in size.
“And Dorian and I—” I gesture vaguely, like this is a normal sentence, “—worked together to save her and stop the creature.”
Tamsin’s jaw unhinges. “You and Prince Starlight Dangerhair fought a monster together?!”
I groan. “Please don’t call him that.”
“I absolutely will. Continue.”
I rub my temples, a slight headache forming behind my eyes. “Then I… closed the tear.”
She lets out a soft gasp. “Like—closed closed?”
“Yes. And then I fainted.”
Tamsin’s eyes somehow get even wider. “Oh stars—”
“It’s fine,” I say quickly, waving my hands. “I woke up.”
“Where?” she demands, leaning in so close I can feel her breath.
“A—uh—place.”
“Lindsay.”
I stare at the ground. “A room.”
“Liiiiindsay.”
I wince. “Kael’s room.”
Her gasp is loud enough to scare a passing squirrel. “YOU WOKE UP IN THE SHADOW PRINCE’S LAIR?! AGAIN!”
“It’s not a lair, it’s a room—”
“Oh please,” she says, flapping her hands. “Broody Magician of the Underworld absolutely has a lair. Continue.”
“I didn’t— I wasn’t— we weren’t— nothing happened,” I stammer. “He just… carried me. Because I fainted. And I guess he thought it would be safer there.”
Tamsin’s grin becomes unhinged. “So let me summarize! You and Prince Dangerhair teamed up to slay a veil creature, you closed an actual tear like some kind of chosen one, then you passed out and were swept into the arms of Kael the Broodfather, who whisked you to his cave of emotional repression and tucked you into bed like a dark guardian angel.”
I drop my face into my hands. “That is not—none of that—happened.”
“It is EXACTLY what happened,” she says triumphantly. And then, narrowing her eyes with predatory best-friend precision: “Start from the part where Kael showed up to save you all prince-like and then how he ended up carrying you. Slowly. And with vivid detail.”