Chapter 14
"She's here," Sage says when I find her in the commons corridor. She doesn't say who. She doesn't need to.
The bond already told me. A sideways jerk in my chest that made me stop walking halfway down the main stairs like someone had grabbed a rope I didn't know was attached to me.
"Where?"
"Main commons. Made quite the entrance." Sage falls into step beside me. "Ryder was there when she walked in. She put her hand on his arm and he just stood there."
"Good for him."
"Angelic."
"What? That's the correct response, isn't it? Formal engagement. She shows up to make it official. Everything's perfectly in order." I turn the corner and stop.
Lady Eveline is worse than I imagined.
She's tall and pale and expensive-looking, standing by the fireplace with one hand resting on Ryder's arm like she owns it. Dark hair swept up in some elaborate thing that probably took an hour. The kind of beautiful that knows exactly what it costs and makes sure you know too.
Ryder's standing beside her wearing his meeting-face, the blank one he uses when he'd rather be anywhere else.
And then something twists in my chest.
Not the usual bond hum. Something sharper. Like feedback. Like—
Oh.
She's touching him and I can feel it. Not like I'm touching him. Like the bond is carrying it straight into my chest, every point of contact, every shift of pressure. Here's what his body registers. Here's what you have no right to.
I turn around and walk out before I do something stupid.
"Don't follow me," I tell Sage without looking back.
She doesn't.
I make it to the east corridor before I have to stop and put my hand against the wall. The sensation fades as the distance grows, settling back to the usual low pull that tells me he's southeast, two floors down, still standing there letting her touch him.
I take my hand off the wall and head for his office.
His door is unlocked. I don't knock.
Ryder's already inside, jacket off, sleeves rolled up like he came straight from the commons. He goes still when I close the door.
"Close the bond," I say.
"I can't close it."
"You're a reaper. Figure it out."
"It doesn't work that way. A partial bond can't be—"
"She did it on purpose." I cross my arms. "Eveline. She touched you and I felt it and she knew I would."
His jaw tightens. "I know."
"You know. She used the bond to hurt me and you just stood there—"
"What do you want me to do?" He comes around the desk and there's something fraying in his voice now. "Tell me exactly what you want, because if it's about the engagement, that conversation doesn't end well for anyone."
"I want you to close the bond."
"I told you I can't."
"Then block it. Do whatever reapers do when they want someone out of their head."
"I've been trying since it formed." He stops close enough that I have to look up. "Every morning when you walk into class. Every time Seraphina's people come at you and the bond lights up and I have to stop myself from—" He cuts himself off.
"From what?"
"From making this worse than it already is."
"So you can suppress it. Eveline knows that. She's using it because she knows I can't do the same."
"Yes."
"And your plan is to stand there while she does it."
"My plan is to manage a political situation that affects this academy, the council, and you." His voice drops. "The engagement isn't personal. It's not something I chose to hurt you."
"I know why it exists." I step closer because if he's going to fill the room with controlled intensity then I get to take up space too. "That doesn't mean I have to feel your fiancée's hands on you through a bond I never asked for."
"No. You don't."
We're too close now. It happened without planning, the way arguments do in rooms that aren't big enough. I can see the tension across his shoulders, the way he's holding himself still.
"The bond makes it impossible," he says quietly. "To forget you. To categorize you as something manageable. I can shut down everything else and I cannot shut that."
I should step back.
I don't.
"Ryder."
"Don't say my name like that."
"Like what?"
"Like it means something. Because if you do, I'm going to—"
The door swings open.
Lady Eveline stands there taking in the scene. Her gaze moves from Ryder to me, cataloguing the distance between us, the state of the air, the way people look when they've been interrupted saying something they shouldn't.
She smiles.
"I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were busy, Ryder."
"Eveline." His voice goes flat. The wall slams back up so fast I'd miss it if I hadn't watched it happen before. "Student meeting."
"Of course." She steps in, not hurrying, and focuses on me like I'm something she's been curious about. "Miss Fairmont. The null." She lets the word hang there. "I've heard so much about you."
"Most of it's probably true."
"I doubt that." She moves toward Ryder and her hand finds his arm again. The bond jerks sideways and she watches my face while it happens. She knows. She can read it somehow and she's pleased with what she sees.
"We were discussing bond management," I say. "Academic issue."
"I'm sure. Partial bonds are inconvenient but they're not uncommon in reaper work. Ryder has handled far more complex situations." Her thumb moves once along his forearm. The bond twists. "We both will handle this."
I smile back. It doesn't touch my eyes. "Great. I'll leave you to it."
I walk out without looking at him.
The bond gives one last sharp pull as I reach the corridor. I stop and press my back against the stone wall until it settles.
She's going to do that every chance she gets. Every time she can put her hands on him when I'm close enough to feel it. She'll use it like a scalpel because she can see exactly where it cuts.
I push off the wall.
Two hours later, someone tries to hex me on the path to the library.
Binding magic from behind the hedges, the kind that locks your joints and drops you. I feel it starting at my ankles and have just enough time to think this is going to hurt before it hits something six inches from my skin and stops.
Not absorbed. Stopped. Like hitting a wall that isn't there.
I keep walking like nothing happened, because looking around announces I noticed and sometimes the smart play is to let whoever helped wonder if I caught it.
Twenty feet later I duck into the library alcove and wait.
Thane appears forty seconds later, hands in his pockets, trying for casual and not quite managing it.
"That was you," I say.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Dragon fire barrier. I've felt your magic before." I lean against the wall. "You've been following me."
"I've been in the same areas. Coincidentally."
"Thane."
He drops the act. "Eveline brought her own people. Not bound by academy rules. They've been watching you since she arrived."
"I figured. Why are you stopping them?"
He goes quiet, staring at the floor like it might have answers written on it.
"My mother was a null," he says finally.
I don't move.
"She was executed in the Purge when I was five.
Dragon law says nulls contaminate bloodlines.
My father had her killed before it became a political problem.
I was told she died of illness until I was fourteen and started asking questions.
" He looks up. "You remind me of what they did to her.
How people here talk about you like you're a problem to manage. She was a person. So are you."
I let the silence hold because he just gave me something that cost him and the least I can do is not fill it too fast.
"You've been protecting me because of her."
"I've been making sure you don't end up like her." Different thing and we both know it. "That's all."
"Thank you."
He doesn't answer. Just looks at me for a moment with something unguarded on his face before he steps back and disappears down the corridor.
I stand in the alcove listening to library sounds. Pages turning. The distant hum of study wards. An academy that's been carrying on all day without caring about any of this.
The bond is quiet now. Just its usual presence, distant enough to be manageable.
I go find Sage.
She's in our study corner with Malik, who's building something shadowy in his hands. She looks up when I drop into the chair across from them.
"I heard about the commons," she says.
"Which part?"
"All of it. Eveline's entrance. You leaving. The hex attempt on the east path."
"News travels fast."
"Faster when Malik has people watching." She glances at him. He doesn't look up from his work but his mouth twitches. "Are you okay?"
"The bond is manageable. Eveline's going to use it as long as she thinks it works. So I need to make sure she can't tell if it's working."
"And Ryder?"
I'm quiet for a moment.
"He said the bond makes it impossible to forget me. Then Eveline walked in and he put his wall back up and I left." I pull a book toward me. "Now I'm here."
Sage doesn't push it.
Malik finishes whatever he's making and slides it across the table. A small disc woven with dark threads.
"For your pocket," he says. "Disrupts location tracking. Eveline's people have been running a finder spell since she arrived."
I pick it up. "Thank you."
He nods and starts on another one.
The study corner is quiet and warm. Smells like old books and Malik's cedar-smoke magic. The bond hums its steady note in my chest.
I think about Ryder's voice dropping, his wall coming down piece by piece. If you do, I'm going to—
I think about Eveline's smile. How she watched my face. How she placed her thumb just so and waited for the reaction she knew she'd get.
I think about Thane saying my mother was a null in the same flat voice he uses for facts he's made peace with and never will.
Outside, academy lights are coming on as evening settles. Somewhere in the building, a reaper professor is standing beside his political fiancée. I'm sitting here with a shadow charm in my hand and a bond that won't close.
I don't know how to fix any of it tonight.
So I read the book I don't care about and let the evening pass and don't give anyone the satisfaction of watching my face do anything they can use.