22. Aeron
Aeron
“We don’t know yet,” Atlas replied, looking over at me. “It’s obvious the Purity Front just attacked the academy, but you know about as much as we do at this point.”
“And that someone has, no pun intended, resurrected necromancy for the first time in centuries,” Wild added. “That, I think, is the more worrisome part of this. We always knew the Purity Front would attack the school again.”
“You knew?” Quill spat, his brows furrowed. “You knew we were all in danger and you told everyone to go back to campus anyway?”
“I know what it looks like,” Atlas said, holding up his hands.
“But we had no reason to believe the wards wouldn’t hold.
They were supposed to be indestructible and keep everyone trapped outside.
We thought it would give us an opportunity to capture the Purity Front and remove the threat. The students were never in danger.”
“Obviously that’s not fucking true,” Quill shot back. “They got through tonight. And who knows how many people they killed…”
“We don’t know if anyone died,” Elias said.
“Not yet,” I scoffed, keeping Quill close at my side. “You will soon though because I guarantee people died. If the Purity Front could kill five members of the Elder Council, picking off students would be nothing to them.”
Elias’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he turned to Wild, his dark eyes sharp with calculation. “We need to contact your grandfather immediately, Aeron. And the rest of the Elder Council. They need to know what happened tonight.”
“I tried to use my phone after the wards went down,” I said grimly. “But nothing was going through.”
“Well the academy is in the middle of the Appalachian mountains. It’s not exactly a hot spot for cell service,” Wild replied in a flat tone.
“Not to mention there’s enough residual magic there to disrupt just about everything.
” He looked up at me. “Shouldn’t you know that with all your private tutoring? ”
“Now wait just a fuckin’ minute your pointy-eared fairy—”
“Okay,” Atlas barked, stepping between us. “That’s enough of that.” He looked over at Caden. “Take Wild to the atrium and get him patched up please.” He turned back to me and Quill. “And you two will come with me. I’ve got a room where you can rest.”
“I don’t want to rest, I want to talk to my fucking grandfather!”
“I know,” he replied, talking to me like I was a pissed off toddler. “We have secret channels to communicate with the Elder Council already set up, but things are weird at the moment. Everything is chaos. Once we’ve contacted him, we’ll let you know and you can talk to him, alright?”
“Don’t tell me what—”
“Aeron,” I heard Quill say at my side. “Come on. Let them do their jobs.”
I looked down at him, still irritated but unable to snap at my own mate.
“They’re with the Elder Council,” he continued, pulling at my arm. “They’ve got this under control.”
I let myself be guided away from the tension, though every part of me wanted to keep arguing.
Quill was right, though. These people clearly had resources and connections I didn’t fully understand yet.
And even if I didn’t personally like Wild all that much, he and that werewolf had gotten us out of an active war zone.
The least I could do was give them a chance to prove they knew what they were doing.
Atlas led us down a corridor lined with more tables and enchanted trinkets, all of which looked ancient and odd in some way or another.
The sanctuary, if that’s what this place was, seemed to be filled with magic.
The walls had a faint shimmer to them, and every so often I’d catch glimpses of ghostly figures passing through walls.
Each window we passed was frosted with a faint hint of stars beyond it, giving no hint as to whether we were actually in the Veil or not.
I still wasn’t sure that was even possible.
“How long have you been running this place?” I asked, trying to get a read on the situation. “And more importantly, how many people know about it?”
“A few years,” Atlas replied without looking back. “And as few people as possible. The whole point of a sanctuary is that it stays hidden.”
“Except you’re telling us about it.”
“Well, you’re here,” he said, finally glancing over his shoulder. “Hard to hide a place you’re actively in, you know?”
I wanted to bristle at that, but I couldn’t really argue with the logic.
He’d helped save us, so clearly he thought we were important for one reason or another.
Then again, if he had the same mission as Wild, it was his duty to protect me.
And my grandfather probably knew about this place as well. He knew about everything.
We reached a set of heavy wooden doors, and Atlas pushed them open to reveal a spacious room with a fireplace, several comfortable-looking couches, and an actual window that looked down onto what I assumed was the atrium.
The only cloudiness on the glass was the moisture clinging to the surface from the plants below.
“You can rest here,” Atlas said. “There’s a bathroom through that door if you need it. I’ll send one of our magical servants to bring you food and fresh clothes in a few minutes.”
“And then what?” Quill asked, his voice tired but still sharp with tension. “We just wait around while you figure out how to contact the Elder Council?”
“Unless you have a better idea, yes,” Atlas replied.
His tone wasn’t unkind, just matter-of-fact.
“We’re doing everything we can. Elias is already working on establishing a secure communication line.
” He looked us over. “You two should get cleaned up and get some rest. You’re safe here until we know more. ”
He left us alone after that, and for a long moment, neither of us moved.
The adrenaline that had been keeping me going was finally wearing off, and with it came the crushing weight of everything that had happened.
The wards were down. Widdershins was overrun.
And somewhere out there, Wild’s supposedly dead mother was leading an army of undead that had been conjured by magic up until now was thought to be lost forever.
Things were… complicated.
“Come on,” Quill said quietly, tugging at my hand. “Let’s at least sit down before we both collapse.”
I let him pull me toward one of the couches, and we sank into it together. Quill immediately curled against my side, his head resting on my chest. I wrapped my arm around him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head and trying not to think about how close I’d come to losing him tonight.
“I’m sorry,” I heard him murmur against my shirt. “For being angry at you earlier. You didn’t know about any of this.”
“I should have known,” I said bitterly. “I should have figured out that Lysander was a glamour the moment I met him. I should have been paying better attention to what was happening around me instead of being so wrapped up in—”
“In me?” There was a quiver to his voice.
“No,” I said. “I’m glad I found you. I would never wish that away.” I paused for a moment, shaking my head. “I just… I thought I was more observant than that.”
We were both quiet for a long moment.
“You told me you loved me,” Quill said at last, breaking the silence. It wasn’t a question. “Was that a heat of the moment thing or did you actually mean it?”
“I meant it,” I said, my voice steady despite the exhaustion weighing on me. “Every word.”
He was quiet for so long that I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep.
But then he shifted slightly, lifting his head to look up at me.
In the firelight, his green eyes looked almost emerald, and I could see the vulnerability there.
It was the same vulnerability I’d glimpsed that night in my dorm when he’d asked me to be his first.
“I think I love you too,” he said quietly. “Which terrifies me because I don’t even understand why I feel that way. I barely know you. And I don’t know anything about mate bonds or what that means with your species… and now everyone is getting attacked and killed and—”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, running my fingers through his red hair before he could spiral any further. “Together.”
“If there’s even anything to figure out after all of this is done,” he sighed, shaking his head. “The whole fucking world is falling apart right now…”
I wanted to argue with him, wanted to tell him that the world wasn’t falling apart, that we’d get through this.
But the truth was, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything anymore.
My grandfather had apparently been keeping secrets from me.
Wild was actually an Elder Council fae in disguise.
There was a woman with impossible power running around with an army of resurrected corpses.
And the impenetrable wards that were supposed to protect everyone at Widdershins had crumbled like paper.
“I know,” I said instead, pulling him closer. “But right now, all I care about is that you’re here and you’re safe.”
“For now,” he murmured against my chest.
I didn’t have an answer for that, so I just held him, listening to the crackle of the fireplace and the muffled sounds of activity somewhere deeper in the sanctuary.
My body was screaming for rest, but my mind wouldn’t stop racing.
I kept replaying the moment when that woman’s magic had wrapped around Quill’s ankle, kept seeing him dragged away and out of my reach. I couldn’t let that happen again.
“We should go get cleaned up,” I said at last, pushing myself up from the couch. I took Quill’s hand and pulled him up with me. “I hope the shower here is big enough for two, because I’m not letting you out of my sight tonight.”
Quill didn’t protest, which told me how exhausted he really was.
We made our way to the bathroom, and I was relieved to find that it was indeed spacious enough for two people.
The shower itself was massive, with multiple showerheads and what looked like a rainfall fixture overhead.
It was perfect, almost like it was made exactly for this moment.
I turned on the water, letting it heat up while Quill stripped off his ruined clothes.
I did the same, and we stepped under the spray together.
For a long moment, we just stood there, letting the hot water wash away the grime and blood and fear of the night.
Quill’s hands found mine, and I held them, grounding myself in the simple fact of his presence.
“What do you think is going to happen?” he asked quietly, his voice almost lost beneath the sound of the water.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But whatever it is, we’ll handle it.”
He nodded against my chest, and I washed his hair carefully, my fingers working through it with a gentleness that surprised even me.
When I was done, he did the same for me, and there was something intimate about it that wasn’t sexual at all.
It was just... care. Comfort. The kind of thing mates probably did for each other without thinking about it.
When we finally emerged from the shower, there was an ethereal figure waiting for us in the other room. It was sexless and devoid of facial features, but it turned toward us when we appeared.
“Please tell me if you require anything,” it said, the words transported telepathically directly into my head. “Food, clothing, bandages, anything you like.”
“I think we just need to sleep right now,” I said aloud, not sure if Quill was getting the same message as me. “But if you could clean our clothes, that would be great.”
The servant dipped its featureless head in acknowledgment before gathering our soiled garments and dissolving back into whatever magical existence it inhabited.
I watched it go, still trying to wrap my head around the sheer amount of magic this place must have to support magical constructs like that.
“Did you hear that thing’s voice in your head too?” Quill asked, echoing my own confusion.
“Yeah,” I nodded, steering him back toward the bed. “I guess that’s how they communicate.”
We collapsed onto the bed together, and I was grateful to find that the mattress was as comfortable as it looked.
Quill curled into my side immediately, his hand splayed across my chest and the other wrapped around my bicep.
I wrapped my arms around him and tried to focus on my breathing, tried to slow my racing thoughts enough to sleep.
It didn’t work.
Instead, I lay there in the darkness, listening to Quill’s breathing gradually even out as exhaustion finally claimed him.
My mind kept circling back to that woman, to the way Wild had called her Mother with such horror in his voice.
I’d never heard Elder Briar Hall sound genuinely afraid of anything before. It was unsettling.
And then there was the question of my grandfather. Was he okay? Did he know about the breach yet? Was he mobilizing the Elder Council to fight back, or was he too busy dealing with the political fallout of having his carefully maintained image of control shattered?
Whatever came next, it wasn’t going to be pretty. The Purity Front hadn’t just attacked, they’d turned the entire world on its head. Nobody thought they could do it. Even I thought the attack on the Elder Council was nothing more than dumb luck. But one thing was absolutely for certain.
All of us had underestimated their power.