Chapter 3
ROWAN
“Stop making that face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you decide the world is ending before breakfast, boo.”
“I’m not doing that.”
Damaris gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me for a second. “Look,” he says, slinging an arm around my shoulders as he steers me toward the doors. “Maybe he wants you to play. Maybe he’s weird. Either way, panicking about it before coffee seems premature.”
“That isn’t helping.”
“It isn’t supposed to help.” He squeezes my shoulder. “It’s supposed to get you to breakfast.”
The opening ceremony empties around us in a slow flood of students, voices echoing through the corridors as we follow the crowd toward the canteen.
I keep catching myself looking over my shoulder—not because I’m expecting to see him, but because now I know I might.
That somehow feels worse.
The guy from Black Chapel isn’t some stranger I’ll never see again. He’s here. The academy feels a little smaller than it did this morning, which means this wasn’t a one-time mistake.
We grab whatever’s closest and keep moving.
Damaris jerks his chin toward an open table near the windows. “Let’s take that one.”
We thread our way through the crowd and take the narrow space at the end of a long table by the glass.
He drops into the seat across from me and looks down at the tray between us as if he’s evaluating an insult. “This bread is tragic.”
“You’re such a snob.”
“I’m serious. If they’re going to charge rich people prices for tuition, the least they could do is offer something with actual flavor.”
Despite myself, my mouth twitches. “You’ve been here less than twelve hours.”
“And already I miss my own kitchen.”
I tear off another piece, taste it, and immediately regret defending the place. He’s right. It’s terrible. “What if I just don’t go to that party?”
Damaris looks at me over the top of his cup. “I don’t think pretending they don’t exist is going to make this go away.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.” He tears off another piece of bread. “But if I were you, I’d rather know what they want than spend three weeks wondering.”
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
Damaris glances past my shoulder and raises an eyebrow. “Apparently we summoned him.”
Turning, I follow his gaze toward the center of the room.
A long table sits near the center windows, crowded with boys in navy academy uniforms, gold crests catching the morning light, collars open and jackets shrugged off.
One of them flicks a piece of bread across the table, and another catches it without even looking.
Nobody tells them to keep their voices down.
Nobody asks them to move. Instead, students flow around the table without interrupting them, adjusting course automatically as though the space already belongs to them.
“Yikes,” Damaris mutters, but I barely hear him.
Because Ciaran Virel is there.
He holds the center of it all, looking less like a student than the reason everyone else is sitting there in the first place.
One arm is hooked over the back of his chair while somebody talks beside him, his attention drifting in and out of the conversation with the lazy confidence of someone who has never needed to compete for space in his life.
My body goes tight. The invitation keeps replaying in my head, refusing to stay buried.
As if he feels me looking, he turns his head and catches my gaze across the room.
He smiles, slow, before his attention drifts to my mouth, lingering there long enough to send heat climbing under my collar.
The reaction makes me angry on sight, tangling instantly with fear, humiliation, and the memory of his hand around my wrist. I look away too fast, dropping my gaze to my tray before he can read any of it.
“Ma.” Across from me, Damaris is already pulling out his holoscreen and leaning in before I can object. “Ro, c’mere.”
Before I can move away, he snaps a picture of both of us.
“Ma? Yeah, we’re here. Actually inside it.” He angles the screen toward me. “Say hi.”
I lift a hand automatically. “Hi, Mrs. Adane.”
“Rowan, sweetheart. How are you settling in?”
I open my mouth, but Damaris is already talking over me.
“The room’s amazing. Huge window. Decent storage. Terrible bread. You’d hate the bread.”
Mrs. Adane laughs through the speaker at something Damaris says next.
Then a torn piece of bread skids across our table and lands beside my tray. I ignore it, but another follows not long after, catching in Damaris’s dark curls and cutting him off mid-sentence.
I follow his gaze and find a dark-haired student grinning openly from the center table, ink climbing out of the collar of his uniform as somebody beside him mutters, “Lucan. Behave.”
The grin only widens.
Damaris turns back to me, plucks the piece of bread from his curls, and holds it up between two fingers. “Did that idiot just throw bread at my head?”
From somewhere farther down the table, somebody shouts, “You’re a filthy bastard,” and the entire group dissolves into laughter.
Damaris squints across the room. “Because if he did, I’m charging him for emotional damage.”
I look up and find the guy with the tattoos—Lucan—still watching us. He doesn’t even try to hide it. He’s slumped back in his chair, offering Damaris an unapologetic grin while tearing another piece from his bread.
“Oh, he definitely did,” I mutter. “And he’s about to do it again.”
“The fuck he is.” Damaris runs a hand through his curls, dislodging the last crumbs before fixing Lucan with a look. “Hey, Ma, I’ve gotta go. Yeah, I’ll call you back tonight. Sure. Will do. Love you.”
He ends the call and immediately pushes to his feet.
“What are you doing?” I hiss, catching the sleeve of his jacket before he can move away.
Damaris glances down at my hand. “You saw what happened, right?” He points toward the center table. “That guy just threw bread at my head.”
“I don’t think it was meant for you.”
“No?” His gaze flicks toward Lucan. “Well, I do.”
“Dama—”
“And I’m going to tell Bread Boy to stop throwing things at my breakfast.”
Before I can stop him, he pulls free and starts toward the table.
I watch him go, frozen, while the noise around us shifts. A few conversations falter. Someone halfway down the table glances up. Another leans back to look past the person beside him. Laughter continues at the far end as though none of this matters yet.
It takes seconds, but it’s enough to make my stomach turn.
Damaris stops at the near end of the table. “Did you just throw bread at my head?”
The tattooed guy leans back in his chair and looks up at Damaris. “Depends. Are you here to tell me I missed?”
Several of the boys at the table seem to find that funny, but Damaris doesn’t. “Next time,” he snarls, “find somebody else to entertain yourself with.”
Lucan tears off another piece of bread before dropping it onto the table. “Shame. You looked more fun from across the room.”
I watch Damaris’s jaw tighten. “Well, I’m not. And while I’m here, you can let him know we won’t be at the party.”
“What, already turning us down?” Lucan leans back in his chair. “That’s cold.”
“Tough luck.” Damaris folds his arms. “Conclusion, the bread’s terrible, and we’re not coming to the party.”
He turns as though the conversation is already over and steps back from the table.
Then Ciaran finally looks up, catching my gaze for a split second and reminding me all over again just how dark his eyes are. His attention slides past Damaris and settles on me.
“That’s thoughtful of you,” he murmurs. “But if your friend wants to say no, he can come tell me himself.”
Heat crawls up my neck as he looks straight past Damaris and keeps talking to me.
“That’s generous,” Lucan drawls. “Most people spend weeks trying to get invited.”
A chair scrapes somewhere along the table. Several heads turn before two of the guys start pushing themselves to their feet, and for one awful second I think they’re getting ready to throw punches.
“Seriously?” a voice cuts in. “Can you stop terrorizing first-years for five minutes?”
Before anyone else can move, a tall student steps between the tables, dark hair pushed back from his forehead and broad shoulders filling half the aisle.
“Adrian.” Relief flashes across Damaris’s face. “I’ve got it completely under control, thank you. We were just leaving.” Then he points back toward me. “Ro, this is Adrian. I told you about him. He’s in my class.”
Adrian’s expression suggests he disagrees with every part of that sentence, jerking his chin in my direction without taking his eyes off Lucan.
“Anyway.” Damaris waves a hand. “We’re leaving.”
“Aw, already?” Lucan pouts.
Damaris just scoffs and turns away. He crosses back toward our table and reaches me just as I push to my feet, and for one split second I think that’s the end.
Then that same voice cuts across the room.
“Tomorrow. Eight. Don’t make me come collect you.”
The tray slips in my hands, and I nearly drop the whole thing before Damaris catches the edge and holds it steady.
“Come on,” he mutters, already guiding me away.
At first, it’s too much. Too many names. Too many corridors. Too many people who already seem to know exactly where they’re going.
But after a while, I get the hang of it. Or at least I get good enough at pretending I do.
The Music Department sits in a quieter corner of the academy, tucked into a side wing of the main building. Most of my classes overlap with the cello students, which means I don’t have to spend the day crossing half the campus trying to find them.
By late afternoon, I’m finally where I’m at my best. Alone in a practice room, a Noctis under my hands, working through scales, fingerings, and familiar exercises while I learn the weight of this instrument instead of the one I’ve spent years imagining.
The room is all glass on one side, looking down over part of the inner courtyard where the last light turns the stone gold. For a little while, if I keep playing, if I keep adjusting, if I keep listening hard enough, I can almost pretend I’m alone.
Almost.