CHAPTER THIRTY
Gods, after that session, I was a wreck.
My muscles ached in dull, throbbing protest, my lungs felt shredded, and my head was a complete, disorganized mess.
I showered fast, scrubbing my skin until it was pink and raw, then dragged on my uniform like
I was donning a suit of armor. It was time to face the rest of the Academy.
Whether I felt like a queen or a hollow shell, the world wouldn't stop spinning.
When I opened my door, they were already there.
Ezra leaned smugly against the stone wall in full black leathers, the morning light catching the freckles on his arms.
At Ezra's feet, the bloodhound's tail started wagging so hard his entire back half shifted, Havoc looking particularly pleased with himself.
Ember stood beside them, looking entirely too bright-eyed and recovered for someone who had been trying to commit arson an hour ago.
Luna padded quietly at her heels, her orange fur gleaming.
“You guys don’t need to babysit me,” I said, shoving past them and heading into the hall.
Behind me, the immediate click-clack of boots started against the stone floor.
“I cannot be around more mutts, Ava,” Aether muttered through the bond, his claws clicking sharply as he stalked beside me. “The smell is offensive.”
“Behave,” I shot back under my breath.
His golden eyes narrowed and his tail lashed once in irritation, but he held his position.
Boots sounded behind me. Then Ember slipped up beside me.
Then Ember slipped up beside me, looping her arm firmly through mine.
“We aren’t babysitting you,” she said casually, as if she hadn't been waiting outside my door for ten minutes. “I’m just checking in on my best friend. And we’re all going to the same class anyway.”
I snorted, not buying it for a second. “Sure you are.”
Ezra appeared on my other side a second later, his pace easy and rhythmic. “I am definitely babysitting you,” he said cheerfully, his orange eyes glinting with mischief.
I stopped dead in my tracks and slowly turned my head to look at him.
His grin only widened, unbothered. “Asher’s orders, Hotshot. Direct and non-negotiable.”
My heart gave one brutal thud. Asher's orders. So he'd thought of me before he'd left. Apparently, he'd just decided Ezra deserved the fucking memo instead of me.
Ezra held up both hands in a mock gesture of surrender. “Hey, hey—don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just the guy with the dogs and the keys to the kingdom.”
Behind him, Havoc wagged his tail so hard his entire back half shifted, clearly thinking this was the best morning he’d had all week.
“I will eat them,” Aether threatened, his ears flattening against his skull. “Starting with the one that licked you.”
I let out a long, heavy sigh that felt like it came from my toes.
This was going to be a very, very long day.
···
We walked together, me trying not to combust under the weight of the whispers curling down every hallway.
By the time we met up with the rest of the squad, it was obvious—no one knew what the fuck to say to me.
Their eyes flicked toward me, mouths twitching, a heavy, suffocating silence hanging in the air. Inside me, the bond was just as quiet.
So I said it for them. Flat. No emotion. “Asher’s suspended. Sent back to Umbra for two weeks.”
The words felt like they were clawing my throat raw. My heart clenched as if someone had shoved a cold fist into my chest and twisted.
“And Jeremy?” someone asked carefully, their voice barely above a whisper.
I shrugged, the movement sharp and bitter. “Back to Eldrethine. His father’s probably cursing his name as we speak.”
They didn’t need to know how much it gutted me. How much I already missed the silver in Asher's eyes.
How I kept subconsciously clawing at the bond only to find a hollow, freezing void.
Empty.
Gods, I hoped he felt it too. I needed him to feel the same unmaking I was experiencing.
The day dragged after that—class after class blurring into a smudge of ink and stone.
Drills battered what little energy I had left, and the whispers dug deeper than any practice blade.
At least Ezra and Ember stayed close. My unwilling babysitters.
My very loud, very freckled pity party hosts.
Ezra kept tossing me that shit-eating grin, trying to crack me open. Sometimes it even worked.
He was a massive douche, really—loud, cocky, and far too smug for his own good.
But he was loyal as fuck.
To Ember.
To me.
Most of the time he followed Ember around like some overgrown, lethal puppy.
By midafternoon, my chest actually ached from holding everything in. And then I remembered Jules.
She’d been waiting for me in the archives to study.
One thing that still felt normal.
Ember peeled off toward her own study group, squeezing my arm before leaving. “See you later,” she said, her eyes lingering on mine for a second too long.
Which meant I was stuck with Ezra.
“I need to go study,” I told him. “With Jules.”
“Go,” he ordered casually, already turning toward the fields for riftball practice.
He glanced back at me over his shoulder, smirking like a smug older brother. “Two hours. I’ll pick you up. Don't wander off, Hotshot.”
I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly stuck. “You’re insufferable.”
“Yeah, yeah.” His grin widened, the freckles on his cheeks crinkling. “You love me.”
I flipped him off and left him behind with his hounds.
The walk to the archives was quieter, the silence finally feeling peaceful instead of haunting.
The moment I stepped inside, the smell of old parchment and dust wrapped around me like a familiar blanket. I made it to our usual table,
breathless with a strange hope, only to find her chair empty.
No Jules. The stacks stretched empty and cold around me. My pulse spiked.
“Hey—have you seen Jules?” I asked a human scribe hunched over a pile of ancient scrolls.
They glanced up, looking confused. “She hasn’t been in all day. Actually… not since yesterday.”
Yesterday.
My stomach dropped through the floor. Yesterday, when I’d woken up in the infirmary.
She hadn’t been there.
Gods, she hadn’t been anywhere.
Panic clawed up my chest. My breath came sharp and jagged.
“Easy, Flame One,” Aether’s voice brushed through the bond, heavy with a growing suspicion.
“No,” I whispered under my breath. “No, no, no.”
I turned on my heel and bolted. One name was pounding through my head.
Darcy.
If anyone knew where Jules was, it would be her. But of course, she’d be at practice. With the guys. With Ezra.
Fuck.
I crossed the training fields at a near run, dragging the thin air into my lungs.
With each stride, the weight in my chest grew heavier.
This was the last place I’d seen Asher.
My heart wavered, thudding hard enough to hurt, but I forced my chin up. I schooled my face into something neutral. Controlled.
Ezra and Mavrik were stretching when I arrived. Darcy lounged in the grass beside them, tattoos flashing under the afternoon sun. Ezra looked up immediately, his grin spreading slow and cocky, those dimples cutting deep.
“Back already, Hotshot?” he mocked, his voice carrying across the grass with that effortless Umbra edge.
“I knew you couldn't handle two hours without my face to look at.”
I rolled my eyes, pretending my heart wasn’t cracking straight down the middle. “Darcy—can we chat real quick?”
“Yeah, of course,” she said, hopping up and jogging over.
Ezra’s gaze stayed glued to me the entire time. Shadows flickered faintly at his shoulders.
Fucker. Somehow, he'd noticed the spike in my adrenaline.
Darcy lit her vape, exhaling a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke as she leaned against the fence. “What’s up?”
I aimed for casual. I missed by a mile. “Just checking on Jules,” I said. “She missed our study session.”
“Oh, yeah.” Darcy waved a hand like it was nothing. “She got called to Zephyrion. Something about a family prayer ritual.”
“Prayer?” I repeated, forcing a hum like it was perfectly normal. Inside, every alarm bell I possessed was screaming.
Jules wasn't the leave without a word type.
“Mm.” Darcy puffed again, completely unconcerned. “Don’t know when she’ll be back, though.”
“Thanks,” I said with a tight smile, though my insides were twisting into knots.
She winked and darted back. I stood there, frozen.
“That’s strange,” I muttered.
“Curly hasn’t missed a session since we met her,” Aether said darkly through the bond.
My gaze snagged on Ezra across the field.
His grin had slipped, his gaze searching mine for the source of the fracture.
Shit.
I plastered on a fake smile and lifted a hand in a casual wave toward him.
Like everything was fine.
Like I wasn't falling apart.
Like my chest wasn't a fucking hurricane.
By the time I made it back to Ignis, my legs felt like they were made of wet sand.
I hadn’t realized how hard I’d been pushing myself all day until the adrenaline finally started to drain out of my system.
Every hallway felt longer than the last.
Every step heavier.
My muscles screamed from the morning session with Ezra, my lungs felt scraped raw, and my stomach twisted with that familiar, deep, aching burn that came when my magic flared too hard for too long.
No amount of stubbornness could fix it.
Gods. I just wanted quiet.
I pushed open my dorm door and stepped inside, shutting out the Academy in one firm motion.
Cool spring air drifted through the open balcony doors, carrying the faint scent of jasmine and sun-warmed stone. Everything was still. Peaceful. For once.
I didn’t bother changing. I didn’t bother thinking.
I crossed the room and flopped straight onto the bed, face-first, arms spread like I’d just been dropped there from a great height. My eyes closed instantly.
Sleep didn’t come. Not properly. It hovered just out of reach—like everything else lately.
I lay there listening to my own heartbeat. Too fast. Too loud. The empty space in my chest where the bond should have been pressed in on me like a bruise.
I missed him.
The admission slipped in before I could stop it. I missed the weight of Asher’s arm slung over my waist at night.