Chapter 24 #2
“Where?”
He smirks. “You’ll see.”
“Relax. I’ll stay behind and entertain your friend.” Lucan drops backward into Damaris’s desk chair, stretching his long legs out.
Damaris flushes. “That sounds threatening when you say it.”
“That’s because I am threatening. If I want to be.”
“Let them be.” Hooking two fingers through the belt loop of my pants, Ciaran tugs me closer before I can think better of it. “Coat.”
My pulse trips. “Where are we—”
“You’ll see.”
Damaris blinks between us. “Wait. He calls you mouse?”
Lucan’s grin turns lethal. “Oh, you have no idea.”
“Lucan.”
He lifts both hands. “Hey, I’m the one behaving.”
Ciaran reaches past me, grabs my coat from the chair, and pushes it into my hands. “Now, Rowan.”
Light, I really hate how much I like being ordered around by him. I hate the way my body seems to lean toward him, still remembering his mouth, the heat of him, the feel of him beneath my hands and in my mouth.
Ciaran slides a hand against the small of my back and guides me toward the door like this was always inevitable.
“Have fun,” Lucan drawls. He catches Damaris glaring at him and lifts both hands in mock surrender. “What? I’m behaving—wait. Is that kallan stew?”
Damaris narrows his eyes. “Maybe.”
“Light, I haven’t had that in months.” Before Damaris can stop him, Lucan reaches across the table and steals the abandoned bowl. “You made this?”
“Give that back.”
Lucan takes a bite anyway, his eyes widening. “Oh, that’s actually good.”
Damaris flips him off, failing completely to hide his grin. “And Rowan? What I said earlier still stands.”
The knot that’s been sitting in my chest all afternoon loosens a little, and I nod before Ciaran nudges me toward the hallway.
Then the dorm door closes behind us, and it’s just me and him walking alone through the older academy corridors.
For a while, neither of us says anything. Then I glance sideways at him. “You dragged me out of dinner for this?”
“You haven’t stopped thinking about that room. Or me, for that matter.” He sounds far too pleased about it.
“You’re so full of yourself.”
“I am. And of you.” His grin makes my cheeks heat. “And sweet boys get sweet gifts, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He flashes me another of those irresistible smiles. “Don’t worry. You will soon.”
The crowds disappear surprisingly fast once we leave the student dormitories behind. Most people stay around the central courtyards, cafés, training halls, and residence blocks after dark. But the farther we move toward the older music wing, the quieter Caervast becomes.
By the time we reach the narrow service corridors running behind the academy’s oldest rehearsal rooms, it feels like we’ve stepped into a different version of the campus entirely.
The academy feels wrong out here, the shadows stretching longer between the old stone walls while the spaces between the lights seem deeper than they should.
Our footsteps echo softly through the corridor until something metallic scrapes faintly against stone somewhere ahead.
Ciaran slows, and I do the same. For a moment, all I can hear is the sound of my own heartbeat and our footsteps against the stone.
I'm acutely aware of how dark it is down here and how empty.
Another light stutters overhead before settling again, and when something scrapes somewhere behind us, I stop walking entirely. “Did you hear that?”
Ciaran glances back down the corridor, his expression sharpening. “Yeah. Maybe Caervast enjoys psychologically terrorizing people after midnight.”
“Or maybe somebody’s following us.” My stomach drops at the memory of the party, of the masked stranger cornering me on the rooftop terrace. The certainty that he recognized me long before I recognized him.
We start moving again, taking the upper stairwell two steps at a time and pushing through the narrow maintenance passage toward the abandoned roof wing, the air growing colder with every floor we climb.
A brief orange flare appears behind us, disappearing again, like someone shielding a lighter. This time I know I’m not imagining it.
“Tell me you saw that.”
“Yeah.” Ciaran’s voice changes after that, dropping lower as he reaches back without looking and catches my wrist, pulling me closer behind him while his attention stays fixed on the darkness below us. He doesn’t let go.
We move faster, ascending the final staircase before slipping through the cracked doorway into the abandoned chamber.
The Noctis is still there beneath the dust sheets exactly where we left it. It looks elegant and wrong, and the room feels less abandoned than before, as though dragging the Noctis back into the light has disturbed something that had been sleeping inside Caervast for a very long time.
I stare at it before looking up at him. “Why did you bring me here?”
Ciaran glances at me while reaching for the dust-covered cloth. “Why not?”
“Do you already own your own Noctis or something?”
“No.” He pulls the covering away, his eyes lifting back to mine. “But this is your chance.”
I blink. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His shoulder lifts. “It means I’m offering it to you.”
My mouth parts when he bends and grips the instrument before lifting it from its stand. “Ciaran, you can’t just—”
“Watch me, mouse.”
The Noctis looks different in his hands somehow.
Less like a forgotten thing hidden beneath dust sheets and more like something pulled back into the world where it belongs.
Black wood curves beneath his grip, old silver detailing catching the moonlight spilling through the cracked windows while shadows carve across his shoulders and throat.
He jerks his head toward the door, then settles the Noctis into my arms. “Come on.”
Adjusting my grip on the Noctis, I glance down at the black wood resting against my chest. The instrument doesn’t belong to either of us, but for the first time since finding it, it doesn’t feel abandoned anymore.
Crossing back toward me, Ciaran presses a quick kiss against my forehead before nodding toward the door. “Try not to drop it.”
We slip back out across the roof terrace and into the narrow stairwell, moonlight giving way to cold stone and shadows as we start making our way back down through Caervast.
I watch him walking ahead of me and hate the thought that slips into my head.
Safe.
The word feels ridiculous, but the feeling is everything but. Ciaran Virel should probably be the last person in the world making me feel anything close to that. Too bad my heart doesn’t agree.
The walk back is a nightmare. Twice I catch movement behind us, shadows shifting at the edge of the corridor before disappearing again. When the lighter flashes deeper in the darkness for a second time, Ciaran swears beneath his breath, tightening his grip around my wrist without letting go.
We almost collide with two figures stepping out of the darkness ahead, and for one horrible second I think we’ve finally found whoever’s been following us. I stumble backward, and the Noctis nearly slips from my hands.
Then Rafe’s laugh echoes down the corridor. “Okay. That reaction was deeply offensive—”
Ciaran lunges before he can finish, slamming his cousin back against the wall by the front of his jacket. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Pinned awkwardly against the stone, Rafe still looks more entertained than concerned. “Fuck’s sake, relax—”
Beside him, Marius is already scanning the corridor behind us. “We thought someone was following you.”
I blink.
Good Light. It wasn’t all in my head.
Ciaran’s head whips toward Marius. "Someone following us, huh? And what the fuck are you two doing here?"
"Football practice," Rafe says.
"At this hour?"
Rafe rolls his eyes. "We’re not all sneaking off for midnight swims and romantic roof adventures."
Heat climbs into my face.
Good Light. Of course they know.
"Shut up," Ciaran barks.
"Oh, he’s blushing." Rafe cocks his head, studying me with obvious amusement. “Interesting.”
“Rafe. For fuck’s sake.”
“What? I’m just gathering evidence.”
“Wait.” The amusement disappears from Marius’s face so quickly it makes my stomach drop. “I think I heard something.”
Everything goes still, and we all turn toward the pitch-black corridor behind us.
Are you sure? I want to ask.
But before I can, Ciaran releases me and turns toward the darkness. “Stay with them.”
“Ciaran, wait—”
Of course he doesn’t. One second, he’s standing beside me. The next, he’s sprinting down the corridor, disappearing around the nearest corner before I can stop him.
Silence crashes over all of us, the seconds dragging by while the corridor remains stubbornly silent. No shouting. No footsteps. No nothing.
Finally, Ciaran emerges from the shadows, moving fast enough that relief hits me before I can stop it, his expression thunderous. “The motherfucker’s gone.”
Marius swears under his breath. “Holy shit. You actually saw someone?”
“I saw movement.” His jaw tightens. “Whoever it was knew exactly where they were going.”
He stares back into the corridor like he’s considering chasing the ghost a second time. Then he looks at me, and every shadow in the corridor becomes a place someone could be hiding.
Something dark flashes across his face, his gaze lingering on me for a fraction too long before shifting back toward the darkness.
Breathing hard from the sprint and clearly hating the decision, he drags a hand through his hair.
Whatever he was planning to do to the person following us dies the second his eyes land on me.
“We’re leaving.”
His hand closes around my wrist one last time before letting go.
Nobody argues this time.
The walk back through Caervast feels endless. Rafe and Marius stay close behind us while Ciaran keeps one hand locked around my wrist and the other steadying the Noctis, as though he’s unwilling to let either of us out of his reach.
The lighter never appears again, and somehow that feels worse.
Deep down, I can’t shake the feeling that someone is looking for me, and the Noctis just told them where to start.